New at Rivals: Little Things Mean The Most

My Monday-morning column for the Florida Atlantic game has been posted over at Rivals' AuburnSports.com.  Here's a preview:

FAU, coached by retiring Captain Kangaroo look-alike Howard Schnellenberger (who's the defensive coordinator, Mr. Green Jeans?), was widely described the press as one of the worst teams in football, and Auburn fans were expecting to get their team dispatch the lowly Owls with a methodical display of power football.

That wasn't what they got in reality. While Auburn was never in any danger of losing Saturday night, the Tigers turned in a lackadaisical, sputtering effort that didn't do much to quell misgivings over the 2011 team's shortcomings. The list of ongoing problems hardly changed.
...
Auburn is an immensely frustrating team to watch at this point. For all the criticism leveled at the coaches, particularly on defense, I don't think we're dealing with a drastic deficiency in schemes. The reality is, more often than not, players are in position to make plays, but simply don't. Poor tackling, poor technique, poor communication, lack of situational awareness, dropping balls that hit the hands, the list goes on.

Little things mean a lot in football, and Auburn just isn't doing many of those things well, and certainly isn't doing them well with any consistency. And with one of the most challenging four-game stretches in the history of the program looming, the time for fixing problems has just about run out.

The rest is on the subscription side, but Rivals is offering a free first month to new subscribers coming over from FTB.

New at Rivals: Many Problems for AU

My column on Saturday's debacle at Clemson has been posted at Rivals' AuburnSports.com. A preview:

According to legend, when Auburn alumnus Walter Riggs founded Clemson's first football team in 1896, the school was so bereft of funds that Riggs agreed to coach the team for no salary, and wrote back to his alma mater asking if he could have a set of old Auburn uniforms to outfit his squad.

After years of heavy use and laundering, the navy blue on those Auburn uniforms had faded to purple, and as a result Clemson adopted that hue, in addition to the un-faded orange, for their team colors.

A hundred and fifteen-odd years later, the descendants of Clemson's inaugural team paid back that (perhaps apocryphal) debt by taking the modern Auburn Tigers to the cleaners, sealing an impressive two-touchdown win with an epic, clock-destroying final drive.

The rest is on the subscription side, but Rivals is offering a free first month to new subscribers coming over from FTB.

On A Roll

Kevin Scarbinsky of the Birmingham News is on a major roll this week.  On Monday he had a great column featuring Gus Malzahn's reaction to Cam Newton's smashing NFL debut.  Today Scarbinsky lays the wood to ABC/ESPN for putting 0-For-Auburn Urban in the color commentary slot for the Auburn-Clemson game:

In December of 2010, Meyer was the only SEC coach with a vote that didn't put Auburn No. 1 on his final regular-season ballot in the USA Today poll. He put Oregon first and Auburn second.

But those slights pale next to the role Meyer may have played as a wizard behind the curtain of the Cecil Newton-Kenny Rogers story last fall.

According to multiple news reports, before that story broke, Meyer had vowed on a three-way call with his protege, Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen, and former Mississippi State quarterback John Bond to tell it to The New York Times and ESPN.
...

There's no similar justification for ESPN/ABC to send Meyer to Clemson, not for cameos but for a game-long stint in the booth, and there are more than enough reasons to believe that he isn't neutral in his feelings toward Auburn.
...

[T]his goes beyond "a competitive rivalry that existed" while Meyer was coaching. This is wrong person, wrong place, wrong time.

ESPN should change assignments for this weekend, and Meyer, at the first opportunity, should change careers. He should go back to coaching. That way, he can try to do something he's never done. Beat Auburn on the field.

Extra kudos to Scarbinsky for remembering the name and role of Mississippi State booster/street agent Kenny Rogers, both of which the "major" sports media have assiduously avoided mentioning over the past several months.  Strike off a point, though, for not noting Meyer's rarely-disclosed personal and business relationships with Pete Thamel, Thayer Evans and Mark Schalbach.

Still, nice work again from Scarbinsky, who's about the only genuinely independent sports writer in Alabama these days.  Read the whole thing.

New at Rivals: Next Time, Remind Auburn

My Monday-morning column for the Mississippi State game is up over at Rivals' AuburnSports.com.  Here's a preview:

Great finish, sure, and some scattered great play to get there, but also entirely too much inconsistency and outright buffoonery along the way. This team still has a long way to go, and an awful lot still to learn... but that doesn't take away the satisfaction of stuffing not just Chris Relf and the assorted "experts" of ESPN, but also a Mississippi State regime that isn't likely to get a better shot at Auburn in the foreseeable future.

This was the best possible matchup for State to finally make some headway in their long and lopsided-the-other-way rivalry with Auburn, and they still fell--just--short.

The Other Bulldogs have a senior-heavy team that's now had three years of stable coaching, and faced a Tiger squad with essentially three contributing seniors. And they still couldn't get it done (although my sources indicate that ESPN's Joe Schad has already been contacted by Mullen's immediate household with explosive charges that Relf really did score).

The rest is on the subscription side, but Rivals is offering a free first month to new subscribers coming over from FTB.

New at Rivals: Get Better, Soon

Sorry for the long delays this week... I spent the Labor Day weekend with very limited internet access, at a secure and undisclosed location in darkest Alabamistan.

My Monday-morning column for Rivals' AuburnSports.com wasn't actually posted until late in the day yesterday, but I do promise that it was the best darn column to be submitted from the parking lot of a Jack's in Anniston during a tropical storm. A preview:

I'd like to find somebody to brag about on the Auburn defense, but frankly, it's hard to locate anybody who had a consistently strong performance. Coverage was poor, tackling was worse, and confusion was rampant. Yeah, it was the first game, and against a team Auburn's coaches obviously hadn't emphasized preparing for, but minus the dominating run-stopping of Nick Fairley and Mike Blanc, you'd be stretching things to call this even an average defense.

It's never a good idea to take a single game as representative of any team's abilities, much less its potential. Let's stipulate that coming back from two scores down with two minutes left is a respectable feat under any circumstances. Utah State may turn out to be a very good football team this year; certainly if they continue to play with that kind of power and discipline, they ought to win more than a few ball games.

But let's not gild the lily here. This was an ugly win over what all the world--certainly including everybody at Auburn--expected to be a cupcake. If the Tigers really plan to prove wrong the naysayers who've been dumping on their chances for the last seven months, they've got a load of improving to do, and precious little time in which to do it.

The rest is on the subscription side, but Rivals is offering a free first month to new subscribers coming over from FTB.

It's time.

Geoffrey Norman:

It was hot. It is always hot in the black belt of Alabama in the middle of August, and it feels like it will be hot for all eternity. So we talked about sports for some relief.

"You know," the man said wearily, "I just can't wait until they kick it off again. I mean, I feel like if I can just make it for another two or three weeks, then they'll be playing football again and then everything will be okay."

Hallelujah, Amen.

New at Rivals: Conference Dominoes

I have a new column up for Rivals.com's AuburnSports, regarding the looming expansion of the SEC. Here's a sample:

After over a year of toying with the idea, Texas A&M formally announced that it is leaving the Big Twelve-Minus-Two, and barring hard-to-imagine intervening events, next June the home of the 12th Man will become the SEC's 13th team.

Whether a further expansion of the conference is a good idea or not (I'd be perfectly happy to go back to the pre-1992 10-team roster myself, but nobody asked me) is now a moot point.

It's going to happen, and because a numerically unbalanced 13-team league makes no sense at all, let's whip out the old crystal ball and see if we can divine who might be joining A&M in a new and (hopefully) improved SEC.

The rest is on the subscription side, but Rivals is offering a free first month to new subscribers coming over from FTB.

"Hello...? Is This Thing On?"

It's finally opening week for college football, and long-past time for FTB to wake up from off-season hibernation.

So naturally, I have very little to post today. Sorry about that; life interferes.

In the meantime, check out Jerry Hinnen's epic in-progress season preview, starting here and here, and I'll be along directly.

I will be continuing to provide Monday-morning columns for Rivals' AuburnSports.com this season, and just like last year, that site is offering a free first month's subscription to any new members from FTB; just click here for more info.

Maple Street Press Auburn Yearbook Preorders

Maple Street Press has an "Auburn Kickoff 2011" glossy magazine coming out soon. A few weeks ago, editor and TWER honcho Jeremy Henderson asked me for a few words about Cam Newton's year at Auburn for inclusion. Over a weekend, "a few" turned into well over 4,000, and the (edited) result will be published a couple of weeks from now, along with another 120-odd pages of AU goodness:

Other contributors include Jeremy, Van Plexico, and the inimitable Jerry Hinnen. The yearbook is $9.99, and you can preorder copies here. Should be in bookstores and on magazine racks in Alabama by the week of July 18.

Blast From The Past

While transferring some (very) old VHS videotapes to digital format recently, I ran across this 20-minute CNN interview with Pat Dye from December of 1983. Besides some great comments and recollections from Dye on what would turn out to be his most successful season as a head coach, it includes several call-in questions from viewers and ample indications that both men's fashions and cable TV graphics have changed just a bit in the intervening decades. Enjoy...

Part 1:



Part 2:

In The Klink

This info has been showing up on the boards for a few hours now, and it's finally making the news sites:

Auburn police arrested Harvey Almorn Updyke, 62, from Dadeville, AL. He will be charged with criminal mischief for applying an herbicide at Toomer's Corner.

There is a Harvey Updyke currently in custody at the Lee County jail. Based on the online pictures I've seen of this dude, he looks like a real prize. He's wearing obnoxious UAT garb in all of them.

Auburn is reportedly planning a news conference at 10:30 (Central) today.

Here's a bit more, from the O-A News:

Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said an arrest has been made in the poisioning of the two live oaks at Toomer's Corner.

Jones said a 62-year-old unemployed man, who lists his address as Silver Hill Road, Dadeville, was booked into the Lee County Detention Center at approximately 2:30 a.m. Thursday.

The sheriff said Harvey Almorn Updyke Jr. was arrested and charged with one count of criminal mischief in the first degree, which is a Class C felony.

Bond has been set at $50,000 and, upon conviction, a Class C felony carries a punishment of one to 10 years.

LATE UPDATE: Stupid is as stupid does:

Auburn police more than a week ago had tracked down Harvey Updyke, the man now charged with criminal mischief in the poisoning of the oak trees at Toomer's Corner at Auburn University, by tracing a telephone voice mail to a turfgrass management professor, according to court documents.

The man charged with the crime also has told police he made the phone calls to the professor and a radio talk show, but has denied he actually poisoned the trees.

UPDATE^4: This, apparently, is the "alleged" perpetrator. Ideal example of bammiedom if you ask me:

Dawg Gone?

The rumor mill and Atlanta radio are burning up with reports that Georgia starting tailback Washaun Ealey has been dismissed from the team. Ealey was retained on the team last year after committing a hit-and run on a parked car.

Still no official confirmation at this point, but one wonders (a) just what a starter at a thin position had to do to get booted out over there, and (b) whether Mark Richt has finally figured out that he might want to get some control over his team.

Yeah, I know. The latter is just crazy talk. But still...

UPDATE: Chris Low Mark Schlabach at ESPN says Ealey has been "indefinitely suspended from all team activities" after "failing to report for a punishment run last week." (The report appears next to a picture of Low, but the byline is Schlabach's.)

Seeding

Actual photos taken around February 3, 2011, of the concourse outside Bryant-Denny Stadium:

That's winter rye grass in the shape of two now-familiar numbers; from what I understand the UAT physical plant has already received orders to get out there with the Roundup, but the photographic evidence (and it's real, not a Photoshop; click on the pictures to see large versions) remains.

As Dash Rip Rock used to say about the use of alcohol, we here at FTB do not condone such shenanigans... but we do understand them.

UPDATE: Here's a view of the whole thing:

Impressive. Most impressive.

UPDATE UPDATE: A commenter at EDSBS has an inspired suggestion for the grounds crew in Tuscaloosa:

New at Rivals: The Magnificent Moment

My BCS post-game column is now up at Rivals' AuburnSports.com.  A preview:

Ironically, the emotional peak of the night--Mike Dyer's 16-yard run that was originally called a touchdown--turned out to be anticlimactic, when Dyer was called down on the one after a review. But that was the moment when Auburn--players, coaches and fans--knew they had won. The dam was broken, the perfect season achieved, the trophy case opened up and the corks popped. Even when that score was called back, there was no doubt about the outcome. After four years of nailing clutch kicks, Oregon would have needed machine guns to prevent Wes Byrum from knocking through his career-capper.

It was a magnificent moment. Surrounded by somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 roaring fans in the stands, thousands more outside, and buoyed by the spirits of countless others back home and around the world, the 2010 Auburn team took to the field as one for the last time, undefeated, and claimed their place among the greatest of all time. I would say that you had to be there, but clearly, you did not. When the ball sailed through and the clock expired, it didn't matter where you were. You felt it, whether you were under the dome in Glendale or just off Magnolia Avenue in Auburn or hunched over a laptop in some far-flung corner of the globe: at that moment, in our hearts, we were all in the same joyous place.

Speaking purely for myself, the emotions of winning this game were directly on a par with what I felt when leaving the Superdome on the second day of 1984 and first of 2005, as well as within Jordan-Hare Stadium in November of 1993. Whether you or I or anybody else calls the outcome a "national championship" is immaterial in my mind; the achievement of winning all your games against a ferocious slate of competition is the most important achievement. When I saw the final A.P. poll the next day, my reaction was basically, "That's nice," quickly followed by a check on the current weather in ice-encrusted Atlanta. The results on the field matter. The opinions of a bunch of sportswriters and/or coaches, not so much. That's as true today as it was in any other year.

The rest is on the subscription side, but Rivals is offering a free first month to new subscribers coming over from FTB.

Done... And One

Auburn University, 2010 BCS Champions:

I Know That Laugh

Reports are trickling in that Boom Muschamp at Florida is on the verge of hiring Charlie "The Hutt" Weis as his offensive coordinator.

Granted, it's an ESPN report, so the odds of accuracy are somewhere below Weis's winning percentage at Notre Dame, but that's no reason not to let the guffawing begin in earnest...

Win It For... Auburn

My old bud Lein Shory has set up a new blog to collect "Win It For..." thoughts from Auburndom before the BCS game. Please have a look, pass on the link, and by all means, add your own comments. I think it's a very worthy effort.

Here's my offering:

Because of my immense respect for previous Auburn teams that found themselves, through no fault of their own, on the wrong side of "national championship" popularity contests, I'm hesitant to put this--entirely wonderful--current team on a pedestal by itself. That understood, it's still more than appropriate for us to remember our heritage, on and off the field, as we prepare for this last step towards another undefeated season.

So win it, Tigers. Win it for Shug Jordan and Pat Dye and (yes) Terry Bowden and Tommy Tuberville, too. Win it for every coach who spent those endless hours away from their families so that you and your predecessors and the ones who will come after you could have opportunities like this. They laid the foundations that you stand on today.

Win it for Jimmy Sidle and Terry Beasley and Lionel James and Dennis Collier and Carlo Cheattom and Dowe Aughtman and James Bostic and Walter Tate and Mike Pelton and Thomas Bailey and Dameyune Craig and Courtney Taylor and Travis Williams and Brandon Cox and Ben Tate. Win it for every guy who wore that blue jersey and laid his guts on the line, again and again and again.

Win it for the ones who aren't with us today. Win it for Virgil Starks and John Thrower and Dean Foy, all lost on the cusp of this magical season. Win it for Greg Pratt and Ronnie Ross and Erk Russell and Connie Frederick. Win it for every spirit who stands on that sideline beside you.

Go win it, Auburn. Win it for all of them, and win it for yourselves. You have fought the fight and paid the price, and now it is your time to claim your place among the legends.

Go win it all.

Win It For... Auburn.

Tiger Tales

A large group of Pat Dye's former players, led by Wayne Bylsma, has put together Tiger Tales, a book of their best stories about their years at Auburn.  I had a very small hand in helping out with editing and formatting and such, and I'm here to tell you, there is some very, very funny and touching stuff in this book.  Here's the official blurb:

Tiger Tales is a new book comprised of stories from the Dye Era at Auburn. It began as a gift to give to Coach Dye for this Christmas, but has evolved into a gift for all Auburn fans. All of the entries were written by former Dye players about Coach Dye, their assistant coaches, and each other. It is filled with heartfelt gratitude toward Coach Dye for the opportunity he gave many of them along with some hilarious accounts of shenanigans that took place behind the scenes. Here are a couple of excerpts:

·         From Gordon Stone, “Men, you will either get better or worse but you will not stay the same."

·         From David Rocker, here's a Coach Dye classic. He said several times before games during my time on the plains, "Jawbone to jawbone, cheek to cheek. Were gonna find out what ya momma and daddy done put in ya.”

·         From Kelsey Crook about Coach Joe Whitt, “Son you so stupid, if I put your brain in a bird it would fly backwards. Now do it again! And get there!!!!

·         Coach Wayne Hall to Lamar Rogers, In practice one day, nats were flying around Lamar Roger’s mouth. Coach Hall looked at him and asked, “Son, did you brush your teeth today?” Lamar said, “No sir.” Coach Hall screamed, “Take your ass to the dorm and brush your teeth.” Lamar jogged up to the dorm in full uniform to brush his teeth.

·         From Kevin Porter, Aundray Bruce comes to me and Tracy’s room one morning on game day before we head out for Tiger walk.  He looks sad and despondent.  Rock asks him, “Aundray, what’s wrong?  Are you O.K?  Aundray says “I don’t know.  I’m scared.”   Rock says, “Scared of what?”  Aundray says, “I’m scared I might kill someone out there today.”

The book has 80 pages of recollections from Dye’s players, and the forward was contributed by David Housel. The cost is $18.00 each; $10.00 from every copy will be donated to the AFLC scholarship fund.

To order a copy, e-mail Wayne Bylsma at wayne.bylsma@cherokeepumping.com along with Dena Quinton at his office dena.quinton@cherokeepumping.com the following information:

·         Name and shipping address

·         Quantity

·         Payment method, you can send a check or use a credit card. So send me the number and expiration date.  (I prefer credit card)

·         If you want them overnighted, and you have UPS or Fed Ex number we will need that number.

·         We will add the shipping postage or if you do not have an overnight number, we can use my company’s account and we will add that cost to your total.

Consensus

Chris Low of ESPN needs to check his rulebook. Low writes today:

LSU cornerback Patrick Peterson was the lone SEC player to earn consensus All-America honors this season.

According to the NCAA, unanimous status is given to those who appear on all of the following All-America teams: American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), Walter Camp Foundation, Football Writers Association of America (FWAA), Associated Press and The Sporting News.

Even though he won the Heisman Trophy as the most outstanding player in college football this season, Auburn quarterback Cam Newton didn't earn consensus All-America status. He was left off the FWAA All-America team.

Incorrect. Per the NCAA's definitions, "consensus" is not the same thing as "unanimous." According to NCAA.org,

The NCAA compiles consensus all-America teams in the sports of Division I-FBS football and Division I men’s basketball. These teams are compiled from a point system computed from at least four different all-America teams named by coaches associations or media sources. The point system consists of three points for first team, two points for second team and three points for third team. No honorable mention or fourth team or lower are used in the computation.

In football, the teams are compiled by position and the player accumulating the most points at each position is named first team consensus all-American. [Basketball rule section omitted by me --WC] If there is a tie at a position in football for first team, or a tie for the final player on the first or second team in basketball, then the players who are tied shall be named to the team.

Currently in football, the five teams used to compile the consensus team are from the Associated Press, the American Football Coaches Association, the Football Writers Association of America, The Sporting News and the Walter Camp Foundation.

Having been named the first-team All-American quarterback by three of the five organizations--the AP, the AFCA and the Sporting News (Walter Camp won't announce its All-American team until December 20)--Newton has already qualified for the NCAA's definition of consensus All-American.

Low should run a correction.

Notable

Good CFN column by Barrett Sallee on the Malzahn retention here, read the whole thing, but of note:

What seems to be lost in this is the statement that was made with Malzahn’s decision. With so many people assuming that the NCAA hammer may drop on Auburn because of Mississippi State’s recruitment of Cam Newton, Malzahn chose to pass up more money and power to stay at Auburn for another year. That tells me that he’s not concerned about the NCAA at all – and he probably knows more than the rest of us.

Reading any (and I mean any) comment threat in which Auburn is mentioned these days would lead one to believe Sallee is obviously off his rocker here. By my rough estimate, 99.2827% of the internet is firmly convinced that Auburn won't have a football program by mid-2011.

I mean, what could Gus Malzahn possibly know that they don't...?