New at Rivals: Column for Ole Miss

My postgame column for this season's most recent disaster, at Ole Miss, is up at Rivals' AuburnSports.com. A preview:

Everything that hasn't worked for weeks popped right back up: short-side sweeps, predictable formations, poor pass protection, "Wildcat" runs from Jonathan Wallace at inexplicable times (here's a hint, Scot: everybody knows what you're doing there), and of course, no Jay Prosch leading the way for Tre Mason. Both backs virtually disappeared from the field in the second half, after running roughshod over the Rebels in the first.

The defense hardly did any better, giving up over 450 yards and 34 points to Ole Miss.

Let me simply repeat that: Auburn's defense gave up over 450 yards and 34 points to Ole Miss, a team that hadn't won an SEC game in over two years. It was a pitiful display.

After slumping to a 1-5 start and a six-game SEC losing streak, there's no point in pretending that the job security of the current coaching staff isn't in question. While nobody expects Gene Chizik to up and quit this Thursday (or to fire Loeffler tomorrow), this season is resembling the shambling disasters of 1998 and 2008 more and more every week.

For those still arguing that a coach two years removed from winning the BCS can't be in danger of losing his job, I'll remind you that a similar lopsided loss in Oxford in 1992 marked the beginning of the end for Pat Dye. Dye was a living legend by then, with four SEC championships and over a decade's tenure.

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New at Rivals: TURRIBLE

My Monday morning column for the disaster against Arkansas is up at Rivals' AuburnSports.com.  A preview:

Workaday adjectives like "bad" or "awful" or even "terrible" aren't sufficient today. It's time to call on the Living Legend From Leeds and pronounce this result nothing short of TURRIBLE.

How TURRIBLE was Saturday? This TURRIBLE:

- The offensive line was demolished, owned, dominated by the 120th-ranked defense in the country. Both quarterbacks had bad interceptions and Kiehl Frazier once again held on to the ball for too long, but the sad fact is that neither QB had a chance most of the game. Auburn just didn't block anybody when it mattered, and rarely blocked anybody even when it didn't. At least we know now the answer to what happens when a movable object (Arkansas' pre-Auburn defense) is met by a resistible force (Auburn's 2012 offense).

...

This was a debacle. This was a disgrace.

This was TURRIBLE.

And with six more teams on the schedule whose defenses are ranked higher than #120, I see no reason to believe things are going to get any better.

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: Auburn-LSU Column

My Monday-morning column for the near-miss against LSU is up at Rivals' AuburnSports.com.  A preview:

If you wanted improvement from Auburn, you got it Saturday night, at least on defense. This was certainly the strongest defensive performance of the year, and the best Auburn has played on that side of the ball since last year's Florida game.

Holding LSU to 10 points on offense really should have been more than good enough to land what would have been a monumental upset and a fine benchmark to build on.  

Unfortunately, the previously-immaculate kicking game gave up a critical turnover, and the offense couldn't hold up its end of the bargain. Auburn gave up essentially two drives, LSU's opening touchdown and their next drive that ended with a fumble near the goal line (and provided the two-point margin of victory one botched Auburn play later). After that, the Bengals were held to eight punts and two field goal attempts for the rest of the game, one of those aided by the aforementioned fumble.

The rest is on the subscription side, but AuburnSports.com is offering a free first months' subscription to anybody coming over from FTB.

New at Rivals: Column for Louisiana-Monroe

My Monday-morning column for the Louisiana-Monroe game is up at Rivals' AuburnSports.com. A preview:

In an old episode of "The Simpsons," Homer accompanies convenience-store owner Apu on a pilgrimage to the original location and home office of the Quikee-Mart Corporation. When Homer observes that the store, situated on top of a remote mountain in India, is not actually all that convenient, an exasperated Apu retorts, "Must you dump on everything we do?"

That's a little what it feels like today when you have to write about Auburn's 31-28 overtime win over Louisiana Monroe. Considering the Tigers came in 0-2 with nowhere to go but up, and actually looked like a functioning SEC team for several stretches on Saturday, the notion of "a win is a win" is tempting to embrace.

And if Auburn had finished out the way it played most of the first three quarters, there would be more reason for optimism going forward. As it is, almost everybody left the stadium thinking, "this team is fortunate not to be 0-3."

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: Postgame for Mississippi State

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

Almost nothing went right on offense. Auburn's statistics are grossly padded by the last, failed drive in garbage time. The few times the running game got going, State just piled more guys up front to stop it, and Auburn had no way to take advantage. The passing game went nowhere meaningful at any point. 

Put bluntly, Kiehl Frazier looks tentative, and he looks scared, and to be fair to the kid, there are good reasons for both, as he's not getting much help from anybody. Not from a line that can't pass protect, not from receivers who can't get open or block, not from a coordinator who's in the booth apparently calling plays for a team that's not on the field. But even so, Frazier was nothing short of dreadful Saturday, tallying all of Auburn's five turnovers on his own.

...

To no one's surprise, after such a debacle, talk almost immediately turned to the future duration of Gene Chizik's tenure at Auburn. Talk of spoiled fans or unrealistic expectations all you want, but nobody should be surprised by that reaction. As noted here a week ago, the AU football team is beset with a number of problems, many of them not of Chizik's making... but not so many that his squad had any business getting destroyed by Mississippi State.

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: Clemson Postgame Column

Here's a preview of my column for AuburnSports.com on Auburn's opener against Clemson:

Stated bluntly, for the second year in a row Cousin Clem brought more to the fight. Taj Boyd is an outstanding player at quarterback: strong, fast, experienced and accurate. Clemson has a ton of team speed on offense, particularly including Andre Ellington, who's obviously something special at running back. A rebuilt Clemson defense had a lot of bend but very little break, holding Auburn to field goals on three trips to the red zone and closing with a ferocious shutdown of the new AU offense on its last few possessions.

Defensively, Auburn played respectable football for the first 45 minutes, but ran out of gas in the final period. Clemson converted nearly 50% of their third downs (which while still bad, was from Auburn's perspective an improvement on 2011's 78% conversion rate) and had the horses to put the game away after trailing early in the fourth quarter. The real killer was in the play totals: Clemson snapped the ball a remarkable 87 times to Auburn's 64, in a textbook example of how the hurry-up game can wear out an opponent through sheer repetitive attacks.

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Carl Stephens, RIP

Carl Stephens passed away last night.

Carl had been my friend since I was a little boy.  My parents' seats in Jordan-Hare Stadium were near the edge of the press box where Carl, the public address announcer for nearly 30 years, had his post.  In the days before the internet (and for that matter, before ESPN), I would run him score updates from my dad's portable radio.

If you've never been about eight years old and had 72,000 people cheer wildly over a couple of names and numbers you just passed on to a PA man, you really missed out on something.

As Phillip Marshall wrote yesterday, Carl was one of the kindest people you could ever hope to meet.  He was always happy to chat in between calling out the game in that magisterial voice.  For most of my life, stopping in to speak with him before or after or during a game was one of the highlights of any trip to Auburn.  He never failed to ask what I'd been up to, or to tell me about how his own children were making their way through grade school and college and life.

It got harder to check in with Carl after I moved over to the student section, and then out to Texas for graduate school, but we still managed to stay in touch.  Email eventually made that much easier; Carl kept up with my work on- and off-line, and went out of his way to encourage me as a writer.  When I stopped in to WSFA (where Carl was the program manager for a large portion of its history) to promote "The Uncivil War" in the mid-90's, he showed me around the station like a proud parent.

Everyone has a favorite Carl Stephens moment.  For many people of a certain age, it's the famous 1983 announcement at Legion Field, in the third quarter of the Auburn-Alabama game, that a tornado had touched down in Jefferson County (as Pat Dye later wrote in his autobiography, "I don't think three people left").  I remember a basketball game against Alabama when I was a student.  After the presentation of the Governor's Trophy for Auburn's 1987 shutout win, Carl noted for the benefit of the crowd, "To remind everyone, the score of that game was... Auburn, 10."

And of course, there was the ridiculous scene after the 1997 Alabama game when a group of players handed the goalposts up to a crowd of students in the end zone.  I was standing next to Carl, watching those kids carry it up to the top of the bowl, and if I live to be a hundred, I'll never forget the look on his face when he picked up the microphone and sternly advised them to not throw it over the side.

After retiring from WSFA and his announcer duties, Carl joined the rest of us in the stands for a few years.  He sat with his old friend David Housel, by then both fans emeritus (what we all would have given to be able to listen in on those in-game conversations).  But eventually, poor health stopped him from attending games altogether.  I don't think I'll ever get over Carl not being able to be there in person two seasons ago.  How he must have loved seeing it anyway, from afar.

There's more to say, and I wish I could say it, but I am overdrawn at the grief bank these days.

Right now, I just miss my friend.

Tagged

Since many have asked, here's the photo (originally taken by a poster on "The Bunker," an AuburnSports.com message board) I put up on my Twitter feed yesterday.  Dang thing went viral and got picked up by CBS.  It's not a Photoshop or a vanity tag, just a standard-issue Alabama license plate.  The picture was taken at the Shelby County tag office:

Also see this shot, of one of the tags "in the wild" (and yes, I believe that is a Toyota CAMry--H/T to The Auburner).

New at Rivals: Good Win, Fun Night

My Monday (er, Tuesday--hey, sue me) morning column for the It Should Still Be Called The Peach Bowl is up at Rivals' AuburnSports.com. Here's a preview:

Given the fact that Auburn and UVA share the same team colors (thanks to Virginia alum George Petrie having founded the AU football program back in 1892), it was often hard to tell who was Hoo in the crowd, but the scene and the game both wound up being a lot of fun, at least if you were wearing the SEC's correct versions of burnt orange and navy blue.

Whatever you thought about Gus Malzahn's Auburn tenure and/or departure to become a head coach, you'd have to like his last game calling plays for the Tigers. The only thing we didn't see in the Georgia Dome was Malzahn's Ludicrous Speed hurry-up game; pretty much everything else in the playbook came out against Virginia, resulting in more points than the Tigers had tallied against any other opponent (yes, including Ole Miss).

I must confess, Saturday night was the first time I'd seen the Cavaliers play this season, and I've read a bit of "ah, it's just Virginia" commentary since the bowl game, particularly regarding the UVA defense. Maybe so, but that defense was still good enough to finish third in total "D" for their conference (yeah, I know, it's the ACC, but still) and in the top four of most of the ACC's defensive categories.

Their defensive line looked pretty good to me early on, as the "O" in Auburn's O-line appeared more like it stood for "Ole!" than "offensive" (again). Clint Moseley didn't have much of a chance to do anything in his brief start before being injured, and Barrett Trotter spent an awful lot of time having to make something out of nothing in a bravura return to the field after six games on the bench.

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New at Rivals: Season of Struggle

My Monday-morning column for the Alabama game is up at Rivals' AuburnSports.com.  A preview:

I think a coach at Auburn or Alabama has to lose that game at a point after they've won it at least once to really appreciate the position they're in. Very few coaches win it in their debut seasons, so pretty much all of them (who aren't named Bill Curry) get a pass on that first loss, especially if their team played well in defeat. Nobody at Auburn held the 1981, 1999 or 2009 losses against Pat Dye, Tommy Tuberville or Gene Chizik, and nobody serious at Alabama held the 2007 game against Nick Saban.

But that free pass is only good once. When Dye flubbed consecutive games he should have won in 1984-85 and Tuberville's 2001 team completely imploded against Alabama, the heat came on immediately. Last year, Saban had the cushion of coming off an undefeated season (as does Chizik today), but even so, few failed to note that Auburn's comeback marked the second straight time Saban and his staff had been decidedly outcoached by Chizik and company.

Saturday night, besides the obvious advantages Alabama enjoyed in terms of deep, experienced talent, that shoe was on the other foot. Alabama leveled pinpoint attacks at pretty much all of Auburn's deficiencies, most notably in pass coverage and up front on both sides of the ball, but they also got a lot of help from arguably the worst game Gus Malzahn has ever called.

Time after time, Auburn would come into a convertable down situation only to blow the opportunity with a goofy trick play, the very worst example being the terrible Wildcat call--after a timeout, no less--on fourth-and-a-foot late in the third quarter. It was an inexplicable decision. Alabama has a great defense, but you put Michael Dyer in a standard formation with a blocker in front of him, he's going to get a foot 49 times out of 50. "Getting too cute" is an accusation that's been leveled against Malzahn a lot this season, and it was never more appropriate than Saturday against the Tide.

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New at Rivals: You Are What You Are

My Monday-morning Rivals column for the Samford game is up at AuburnSports.com.  A preview:

Under normal circumstances, Homecoming gives a team a chance to get the starters a decent workout in the first half, then clear the benches all the way down to the waterboys by the fourth quarter, giving every long-suffering walk-on a chance to get at least a few snaps.

This being 2011, things didn't work out that way. Auburn never trailed against Samford, and was never in serious danger of losing the game, but played such lackadaisical and ugly football that the Tigers couldn't really declare victory and pull the starters until well into the fourth quarter. Coming after one of the most awful losses in the modern history of the program, it wasn't the kind of game to give AU fans a great deal of confidence for the season closer next week.

I could spend a few more paragraphs running down the issues in this team's roster, but the reality is, after eleven games, you are what you are. What Auburn is right now is, unfortunately, about what they were in the opener: mediocre and inconsistent. And while you can certainly point to holes at the "skill" positions (particularly at receiver and in the secondary), it still all starts and ends up front.

From the very first game against Utah State, the Tigers have struggled to win in the trenches, and with a few exceptions--the South Carolina game accounting for most of them--those struggles haven't yielded much success. Put bluntly, Auburn still has a lot of trouble blocking on offense, and a lot of trouble getting off of blocks on defense. That's not a great combination.

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I didn't write a column for the Georgia game; my mom passed away that Friday, and football hasn't been much on my mind since.

New at Rivals: Consistency Still Needed

My Monday-morning column on the Ole Miss game is up at Rivals' AuburnSports.com. A preview:

For all the griping about poor tackling or bad play-calling or the lack of this or that factor on either side of the football, Auburn's overarching problem this season is inconsistency. The Ole Miss game marked the third time in 2011 that the Tigers have jumped up to a 14-0 lead, only to see the other guys wipe out that margin while still in the first half.

I thought Auburn improved a good bit against Ole Miss, even given all the aforementioned buffoonery, but the Tigers still couldn't put together a four-quarter game.

The best of Saturday: Auburn's passing game finally reappeared after a four-plus-game absence. Clint Moseley had an excellent second start at quarterback, going 12-for-15 and four touchdowns, and Philip Lutzenkirchen added to his "human highlight reel" reputation with that ridiculous Lawyer-Tillman-flashback catch for Auburn's last score, but the straw that stirred the drink was Emory Blake.

Let's take it as a given that Ole Miss does not have a great defense, but the difference for Auburn with Blake in the game was still blindingly obvious.

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More of Pete Thamel's BS Exposed

Remember little Petey Thamel's breathless NY Times story about how Gene Chizik had a shouting match with NCAA enforcement honcho Julie Roe Lach?  Like most of Thamel's "reporting," the story was an innuendo-heavy piece sourced mostly by people with axes to grind against Auburn.  Also like most of Thamel's "work," it wasn't remotely accurate. 

Lach, interviewed recently by CBS Sports' Brian Fischer, had this to say:

Fischer: The SEC meetings, do you regret the run-in with Gene Chizik?

Lach: I have no regrets. I think a run-in is really a mischaracterization, it was a discussion.

Thamel, of course, made the exchange out to be an ominous sign of Auburn's impending doom at the hands of the NCAA. Instead, AU was exonerated by the NCAA a few months later. Oopsie.

Obviously, we're talking about the New York Times here, where editorializing and innuendo in the service of a pre-selected "narrative" is the order of the day, but one of these days, little Petey's penchant for exaggeration and innuendo is going to catch up with him.

Writing like he's working for the National College Football Enquirer is working for Petey, and his editors obviously don't care enough to correct him, but the real shame is that Thamel's buddies in the sportswriting world don't have the guts or the character to call him out when he runs this kind of garbage.

(Sort Of) New at Rivals: Dominated Up Front

My bad for not posting my Monday-morning Rivals column on the LSU game. It's been a hectic week. Here's the link and a preview:

It doesn't take detailed play-by-play analysis to see why Auburn couldn't hang with LSU on Saturday. All it took was seeing a couple of series: the Red Stick Tigers were just a whole lot better up front, on both sides of the ball.

For all the hoopla over Cam Newton, the real difference between the 2010 and 2011 Tiger Bowls was the relative performance of the offensive and defensive lines. Last year, Auburn owned the trenches; this year, it was LSU's turn to be dominant up front. The rest, as they say, is commentary.

But since commentary is sort of the whole point of this gig, here goes: the Auburn offensive line couldn't stop LSU's front four, most particularly end Sam Montgomery. At all.

Clint Moseley had somebody in his face the entire game, and running room was a rare occurrence for either Michael Dyer or Onterrio McCalebb. Give the level of pressure up front and a left tackle who would have had a great performance if he'd been a matador, I'm actually a bit impressed that Moseley only had one pick-six.

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New at Rivals: Ugly, But Winning

My Monday-morning column on the Florida game for Rivals' AuburnSports.com is up. A preview:

The recurring meme in the wake of Auburn's 17-6 win over Florida is, "winning ugly." I must object: anybody who tries to tell you that notching a third-consecutive win (and fourth of the last five) against an ancient rival like Florida isn't a pretty sight obviously missed the second half of the 1990's.

There's no such thing as a bad win over the Gators, no matter what the score or stats sheet might look like after the clock runs out.

But yeah, okay, if you want to get all picky and aesthetic about it, this wasn't the kind of game you'd want to have on a permanent replay in your football museum. For all the 21st Century trappings, Auburn-Florida 2011 looked an awful lot like both teams, at least on offense, had slipped into a time machine set for 1989.

Other highlights include a gratuitous shot at Charlie The Hutt, aka Mr. "Decided Schematic Advantage."

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Clean Bill Of Health

Kevin Scarbinsky, in the Birmingham News:

Instead of being swayed by public misinformation, the NCAA did what the NCAA is supposed to do. It assigned to the Newton case a bulldog of a lead investigator, Jackie Thurnes, whose previous work included the Derrick Rose-Memphis basketball case that cost the Tigers 38 victories and a national runner-up finish, and turned her loose.

Consider a list of states where the NCAA put actual boots on the ground to sniff around on Newton, the HBO 4 and beyond: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and Arkansas.

Now contemplate the multiple fronts covered by a wide-ranging investigation that, according to Thurnes' "It's over" letter to Auburn AD Jay Jacobs, "was not limited to" Newton and the HBO 4.

According to people who were interviewed by the NCAA, the probe looked into everything from the repairs that were done on Cecil Newton's church to the suits that Cam Newton wore in New York during Heisman week. They asked questions about everyone from an alleged street agent in Louisiana to an alleged street agent in Arkansas.

They combed through bank, tax and phone records of Auburn players, coaches, officials and trustees. They requested and were provided some records that went back almost two years.

Did I say requested? Demanded is more like it. The NCAA made it clear that, if those records weren't turned over, the NCAA would consider that suspicious and might find Auburn guilty of failure to cooperate.

What did the NCAA find after 13 months of that kind of determined digging? Not enough to substantiate any of the potential violations it examined. Auburn's unofficial probation ended, not only without sanctions, but without a single formal charge brought against the school.

It's extraordinary for the NCAA not to find something somewhere to charge a school with when it invests this kind of time and money. People who've been involved in infractions cases will tell you. When the enforcement staff turns over this many rocks, it expects to find some serious dirt.

Auburn expected to come out clean, but it didn't expect to get the detailed letter it received that was signed by Thurnes. There probably isn't a more rare and valuable document in the possession of any athletic department in the country today.

Read the whole thing.

BREAKING: NCAA Formally Clears Auburn

For nearly a year now, haters from coast to coast--but especially in Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Starkville and Gainesville--have been predicting that Auburn would receive a letter from the NCAA.  This afternoon, that prediction came true.  Problem for them is, the letter exonerates AU. The NCAA's public statement says:

After conducting more than 80 interviews, the NCAA has concluded its investigation into Auburn University. The NCAA enforcement staff is committed to a fair and thorough investigative process. As such, any allegations of major rules violations must meet a burden of proof, which is a higher standard than rampant public speculation online and in the media. The allegations must be based on credible and persuasive information and includes a good-faith belief that the Committee on Infractions could make a finding. As with any case, should the enforcement staff become aware of additional credible information, it will review the information to determine whether further investigation is warranted.

A few excerpts from the letter, which is addressed to Jay Jacobs:

[D]uring the past 13 months the enforcement staff and Auburn University have reviewed a number of allegations regarding the football program's compliance with NCAA legislation, including, but not limited to, allegations involving football student-athletes Cam Newton, Raven Gray, Stanley McClover, Chaz Ramsey and Troy Reddick.

Regarding Mr. Newton, the enforcement staff and the university conducted over 50 interviews regarding an alleged pay-for-play scheme.  Additionally, an extensive number of documents including, but not limited to, bank records, personal IRS tax documents, telephone records and e-mail messages, were obtained and reviewed as part of that inquiry.  As reflected in the university's November 30, 2010, self-report, it was determined that a violation of amateurism legislation occurred when Mr. Newton's father and an owner of a scouting service [Mississippi State booster and former player Kenny Rogers --ed] worked together to actively market Mr. Newton for compensation.  NCAA Bylaw 12.3.3 prohibits individuals or entities from representing a prospective student-athlete for compensation to a school or athletics scholarship.  It was also determined that Mr. Newton and university representatives were not aware of that activity. Based on the information currently available, the enforcement staff has not substantiated any other violations involving Mr. Newton...

Regarding Mr. Gray... The enforcement staff and the university conducted multiple interviews, including those of Mr. Gray and Mr. Gray's family, friends and others.  Ultimately, Mr. Gray's allegations were not substantiated, and in some instances were disputed by others...

Regarding Mr. McClover, Mr. Ramsey and Mr. Reddick... even though the enforcement staff made several attempts to interview those individuals, they refused to cooperate.  Therefore, the allegations made during the HBO show have not been substantiated...

The enforcement staff appreciates the university's cooperation in these matters.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me.  Thank you.

Sincerely, Jackie A. Thurnes, Associate Director of Enforcement

Pete Thamel (hey Pete, NOW we know it's over), Thayer Evans, Joe Schad, Mark Schlabach, Chris Low, Spencer Hall, Matt Hinton, Danny Sheridan, Paul Finebaum, Dan Mullen, Megan Mullen, Urban Meyer, Jody Wright and a host of other goons who did their damnedest to do to Auburn off the field what Auburn did to their teams on the field in 2010 were not immediately available for comment.

So: despite the uncountable amounts of ink, pixels and bandwidth spent predicting doom upon the Plains, there will be no probation. There will be no vacations, no forfeits, no returned trophies, and no asterisks. The 2010 season will remain what it always was: glorious.

Boys, you can pick up your crow at Cam's house. He'll be glad to serve it to you... at high velocity.

New at Rivals: Similar Feelings to '09

My Monday-morning column for the Arkansas game is up at Rivals' AuburnSports.com.  A preview:

Years ago, inimitable football-analyst-emeritus Beano Cook observed of the Arkansas Razorbacks, "They're like the Russian Army: terrible on the road, unbeatable at home."

That hasn't always been the case for Auburn, which was actually one game over .500 in Fayetteville going into Saturday, but the Tigers' long collapse against the Razorbacks still felt equally familiar and frustrating.

For what seemed like the umpteenth time (although AU has only lost 9 games to Arkansas in its history), the Hogs exposed every missing piece in the Tigers' squad, and left the visitors to slog home with more questions than answers.

One much-asked question that did get answered Saturday night was, "Why aren't they letting Kiehl Frazier throw the ball?" The answer--obvious then and now--is, "Because you don't do that to a true freshman." Frazier is a tremendous football player, but he's also five months removed from high school. As his last couple of series showed, calling on him to outfox grown men in an SEC secondary, on the road, is at least a year premature.

Watching the offense struggle Saturday night brought on a strong sense of deja vu from the last time the Tigers tripped over their tails in Arkansas, in 2009. Once again, the offense lacked any resemblance of a downfield passing threat, allowing the Hogs to key on the running game in the early downs and pin their ears back on obvious passing downs.

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New at Rivals: Chicken Soup for the Auburn Soul

My Monday-morning column for the South Carolina game is up over at Rivals' AuburnSports.com. A preview:

The defense that couldn't get Utah State off the field allowed only two third-down conversions against Carolina. The secondary that had spent four games with its backs to the line of scrimmage suddenly turned around to look for the football, allowing only nine completions and reeling in two interceptions. Linemen and linebackers who'd been diving at feet and clutching at air were now wrapping up and gang-tackling, holding the remarkable Marcus Lattimore well below the century mark for the third time in 12 months.

To call it a turnaround would constitute a landmark of understatement. How completely bottled up was South Carolina? This much: Prior to their last, desperation drive, the Gamecocks snapped the ball in Auburn territory exactly once; although to be fair, that one play was Lattimore's only notable run of the day, the 15-yard third quarter touchdown scamper through most of the AU defense.

The rest of the day, Carolina was playing with their backs in close proximity to their own end zone, and while the Tiger defense can take justifiable pride in keeping the Gamecocks backed up, I'd wager they don't have a bit of a problem in complementing the stellar day had by punter Steven Clark and his special teams compatriots.

Carolina had exactly one kick return (and it was on a kickoff) the entire game. For old-line Auburn, having suffered through the ridiculous surrendered yardage and points of September, play and numbers like that were a soothing tonic.

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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.

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