Letdown, Shmetdown

There's not a whole lot to say about Auburn's 35-7 beatdown of Vanderbilt, or at least there wouldn't have been much to say about it if not for AU's early-season woes. Auburn handled Vandy the way to SEC's top teams are supposed to handle Vandy. The thing is, Auburn of 2007 wasn't supposed to be one of the SEC's top teams, at least not after dropping two home games to lightly-regarded opponents. ESPN shouting head Woody Paige actually equated AU to VU less than three weeks ago, and to be perfectly frank, it didn't look at the time like there was a lot in Paige's dismissal to argue about. Plenty has changed since then.

To state the exceptionally obvious, Auburn has a phenomenally better football team in early October than it did in mid-September. The Tigers' first-quarter performance against Vanderbilt demonstrated arguably the team's most flawless execution since the game against Arkansas in 2004. Missing four starters on defense? No problem--led in no small part by linebacker Chris Evans, Auburn swamped the Commodores' well-regarded passing attack and limited Vandy to 66 first half yards.

On offense, Brandon Cox showed no signs of reverting to early-season form, going 11 for 13 with a touchdown in the first half. His only blemish was a moderately-dumb interception after the game was in the bag (and long after Cox should have been pulled anyway). Brad Lester's return to the field certainly didn't hurt any, as Cox and Al Borges finally have something like a full backfield available, but for me the real story of this offense's resurrection is up front. You just can't say enough about an offensive line composed mostly of true freshman that's playing this well. I've taken a lot of shots at line coach Hugh Nall over the years, but I have to take my hat off to him right now. He's got those kids playing like they have no business playing at this stage in their careers (although if I were being mean, I'd ask why a bunch of guys he's coached for three months are so far ahead of the guys he's coached for three or four years). It's an amazing thing to see those eighteen-year-olds pushing around SEC defenses.

There's only so much you can get out of bludgeoning an outmanned opponent, but in my mind the very best thing about the Vandy game was that Auburn showed no signs of the dreaded "big win letdown" or "early kickoff flu." The entire team was sharp from the kickoff, and didn't let up until the game was long-since decided and the sides were riddled with second- and third-teamers. That's a big deal for a team as young as Auburn. A whole lot of people were speculating before the game that the Tigers would take a step backwards amidst all the adulation of the Florida win. It's a huge credit to the coaching staff that they could keep this team's heads on straight for a game against the SEC's synonym for "losers."

Where we go from here--especially in a season as insane as this one--is of course above my pay grade (and yours, too). Arkansas has been a trouble game for Auburn for about as long as the Razorbacks have been in the SEC, and the game after that one, also on the road, will be a bit challenging in its own right. I can't help thinking that all the injuries are going to catch up with Auburn eventually. Most notably, we don't know yet how badly center Jason Bosley's knee was hurt on Saturday. Losing any offensive lineman right now is bad, losing the line's center and upperclassman leader is really bad. In addition, Auburn's kick coverage is still terrible, especially on kickoffs.

But. Even for all of that, this team is, beyond all expectations (mine emphatically included) good and getting better every week. If they can keep that up, if they can continue to improve week after week, there's a whole lot Auburn can accomplish in 2007.

Who'd'a thunk it?

Requiem For Vanderbilt, Again

I think Vanderbilt football is a lost cause.

I've thought that for a long time. Seven seasons ago, I wrote the following:

The year 2000 was supposed to be Next Year for the endlessly-suffering Vanderbilt Commodores. After a long rebuilding process engineered by head coach Woody Widenhofer, Vandy was considered a better-than-even bet to have a winning season and finally make it back to a bowl game (as every Vanderbilt fan is sick of hearing, the Commodores haven't managed either of those feats since 1982).

Just about everybody who looked at Vanderbilt before the season saw an experienced team, deep by Vanderbilt standards, that had come within an eyeblink of going 6-5 and earning a berth in the hometown Music City Bowl. Widenhofer was justifiably confident, and in August promised that his team would finally make it to the post-season this time around.

Flash forward one month. Vanderbilt is now 1-4, 0-3 in the SEC. On Saturday, they were utterly dominated by Auburn, losing 33-0. The Commodores didn't cross the fifty yard line in the first half, and never threatened to score. Still waiting on the schedule: Georgia (3-1), South Carolina (4-1), Florida (4-2) and Tennessee (2-2).

Vanderbilt will not have a winning season in 2000.

Vanderbilt will not go to a bowl game in 2000.

Vanderbilt probably will not have a winning season or go to a bowl in 2001, or 2002, or 2003.

And they didn't. Nor did they do so in 2004, 2005, or 2006, and odds are, they won't in 2007, either. Continuing:

I say this with no malice, no spite, and no hard feelings towards Vanderbilt University, its alumni, its fans, its players, or its coaches--but it's time somebody said it: Vanderbilt cannot compete with the rest of the Southeastern Conference in football, and it is time for VU to consider other options.

Yes, Vanderbilt does play a lot of people very tough. Certainly, Vanderbilt pulls off one or two huge upsets almost every year, and I will be the least surprised person watching when they pull off one of those upsets sometime this very season.

But an occasional upset does not make a program, and eighteen [now twenty-four] consecutive losing seasons is as close to scientific proof of futility as you're liable to find.

The freshmen of this season's Vanderbilt team [and the entire squad in 2007] weren't even alive the last time their team finished above .500. Vanderbilt football should exist for some better purpose than to provide Alabama and Tennessee with an annual guaranteed win. It's not fair to those kids to continually put them in positions where they can't reasonably be expected to win, year after year.

God bless them for hanging in there, every week, every miserable year, but enough is finally enough.

It's time for Vanderbilt to take their pride and their traditions and their undying spirit to someplace where those kids can compete. The Commodores would be middle-of-the-pack in the Atlantic Coast Conference, or a top-three team in Conference USA, or one of the two best teams in the Mid-Atlantic Conference. No, those are not places where any self-respecting SEC fan wants to see their team--but aren't they better than last or next-to-last, one season after another?

Sadly, I see no reason to change any of that thinking today. Bobby Johnson is the best head coach Vanderbilt has had in decades. He's done an entirely admirable job of building Vandy up from a punch line to at least a respectable weak sister or better--and the Commodores still can't win six games.

Vandy is a lost cause. It's time enough for them to move on, and long past time for the rest of the conference to stop subsidizing a sister so weak she hasn't contributed a dime of football revenue in a quarter century. Yes, Vandy is strong in basketball and baseball and many other sports, and there's no reason why they shouldn't stay in the conference as a non-football member. But in football, Vanderbilt no longer has a place in the SEC.

Ray Melick: Nick Sucker

It's my pride and pleasure to announce the creation of a new award here at FTB, the Nick Sucker Award, to be presented as needed to the state of Alabama media figure who makes the most egregious show of fealty to Alabama coach Nick "I'm not going to be the Alabama coach" Saban.

There have been many notable candidates for the Nick Sucker Award over the past ten months, as the horde of delusional UAT fans and in-state media employees (please pardon the redundancy) sought to outdo each other in praise of the latest Savior. Paul Finebaum was practically Saban's unofficial press agent, at least until Alabama dropped two straight last month (although it should be noted that even after those Shula-esque collapses, Paul was back on the party line by Tuesday of the following week).

But even Finebaum falls short in the Nick Sucker sweepstakes compared to Birmingham News employee Ray Melick, who in a typically-turgid column on Tuesday managed to set off a media fracas between Saban and South Florida head coach Jim Leavitt. The only part you need to read is the following quote, elicited by a question from Melick (although Melick himself didn't identify it as such in the column):

"The distribution of players is not the same for everybody," said Alabama head coach Nick Saban. "There's a significant amount of players who don't qualify (at some schools) and they end up being pretty good players at some other schools. I think there are six guys starting on South Florida's defense who probably could have gone to Florida or Florida State but Florida and Florida State couldn't take them. And if you do a good job of recruiting that way..."

As you might imagine, that didn't sit well with Leavitt, a coach who turned down the job Saban currently holds not once but twice. In the Tampa Tribune, Leavitt said,

'That's amazing, a guy can make a quote like that when he doesn't have any idea,' Leavitt said. 'The truth is we have two non-qualifiers out of 110 on our team or I'll resign tomorrow. And those two will both get their degree.

'Why that bothers me is it takes a hit at the credibility of our program that we can't do it with just hard work. There always has to be some reason. That is the heart and soul of our program. So he's attacking the heart and soul.'

Saban's comments were not about schools admitting non-qualifiers, but about schools having different admission policies, said The Birmingham News' Ray Melick, whose story contained Saban's quotes.

'Six starters on our defense? He Saban doesn't know what he's talking about,' Leavitt said. 'Why's he making a statement like that? Florida, Florida State didn't recruit those guys anyway.

'I think he blew it, they Saban and Melick blew it. ... They'll hide behind the shroud of this and that. Nobody takes responsibility. If they made the comment, they need to come out and say I'm wrong.

'What bothers me is that story goes all over Alabama and they'll accept that as truth. That's why I get upset about media. There's no way I'm going to go out there and share this with 3 million people. It's not the truth. That's too bad, that's sad.'

Leavitt was certainly right about the last part; the Alabama media barely reported on the USF coach's response (other than nothing Leavitt was upset and had denied Saban's charges), didn't report on the factual details of Leavitt's rebuttal, and certainly didn't report on his calling out Saban and Melick for getting their facts wrong. But the story didn't end there.

In a post to his al.com blog, Alabama graduate and Huntsville News UAT beat writer Paul Gattis reported on Leavitt's reaction and took a few shots of his own at the south Florida media.

(As an aside, the mind simply boggles at the chutzpah of Gattis, a former sports editor of the UAT student newspaper and leading Nick Sucker in his own right, referring to Saban "Giving his ol' media buddies in Miami something to shill about." Gattis is the about the last newspaper employee on the planet with any business referring to others as "shills." But I digress.)*

The interesting portion of Gattis's post was when he more accurately quoted Saban's original statement:

I think that the distribution of players is not the same for everyone. We can't take Props (partial qualifiers) in the SEC. They can't take them in the ACC. And there's a significant amount of players who don't qualify. And they end up being pretty good players at some of these schools. I think there are six guys starting on South Florida's defense who probably could have gone to Florida or Florida State but Florida and Florida State couldn't take them. And if you do a good job of recruiting that way--now the Big East has passed a rule that they aren't going to take Props at some time in the future. I don't know if it's next year or the year after or whenever.

"Now, will that affect their league? It shrinks the pool of players that they can recruit from. I'm not saying it's not a good rule by the NCAA that we have NCAA eligibility requirements. I think that's a good rule. I'm not saying that. But it's not the same for everyone and it does create a lot of parity when you're playing those schools, you're playing against guys you couldn't recruit."

On Wednesday, Melick was asked about the differences in the quotes on a WJOX Birmingham radio show he regularly co-hosts, in particular Saban's use of the term "Props," which was often used to describe NCAA Proposition 48, a now-obsolete term for incoming recruits who don't qualify academically. Melick, who changed Saban's actual quote from "Props" to "players who don't qualify" was asked why he didn't quote what the coach had actually said. Melick's response: "I was trying to protect Nick."

Now, I don't think it's all that big of a deal to clarify "Props" or even "Prop 48's" (we're not sure which version Saban actually used) to "players who didn't qualify." "Prop 48" isn't just obsolete, it's also fairly esoteric to the casual fan. If Melick had made the change for the sake of clarity, that's no big deal, even if he did turn out a disingenuous column in the aftermath.

But "to protect Nick?" Since when is it in the job description of a newspaper employee, much less an alleged "journalist" to be 'protecting' a $4 million-a-year football coach? That's so far outside the bounds of media ethics, one has to wonder what else Melick is 'protecting' Saban and Alabama from. He certainly hasn't had much to say about the Alabama boosters on staff at Hoover High School who've been allegedly involved in grade fixing for UAT signees, for instance.

I took it upon myself to ask Melick just what business he had "protecting Nick" in an email, and received a non-response worthy of Saban himself. Apparently Melick is among the many media employees who believe that asking and expecting to have answered pointed questions is for me, but not for thee.

So, Ray, congratulations. You're the Nick Sucker of the week. It's an award I've no doubt you'll wear with pride.


*Incidentally, Gattis was quite right about the south Florida media taking its shots at the man known as "Flipper." This particularly delicious column by Ray McNulty is my favorite to date. Best line: "I mean, we're talking about Alabama, which is little more than Ole Miss with indoor plumbing."

Mandel, Right And Wrong

From Stewart Mandel's mailbag column at SI.com today:

For me, the main reason Tuberville has never cracked my "Top 10 coaches" list in three years of doing them is that for all those big wins, his teams (with the exception of that one, perfect season) always seem to lose at least a couple games they shouldn't. Just look at this season: The Tigers beat No. 4 Florida in The Swamp but lost at home to Mississippi State. Last year, they beat two of the top three teams (Florida and LSU) in the season's final AP poll but lost at home to Arkansas and Georgia teams that were unranked at the time.

I was trying to figure out this phenomenon when I remembered something ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe said during the first half of Saturday night's game. She said she'd seen Tuberville in the tunnel prior to kickoff and that he looked "as intense as I've ever seen him." Well, of course she hadn't seen him like that before -- prior to her much-deserved promotion this season, Rowe had been stuck doing the Noon ESPN2 games (or something like that). She's probably used to seeing Tuberville before some of those not-so-big games. If you've never been around Tuberville, he is without question the most laid-back head coach of any major program. While most of his colleagues are Type A, tightly wound balls of stress, Tuberville's every-day demeanor is that of a guy who's out fishing.

Don't get me wrong, I love the guy's personality. But it may also explain the disparity. Because Tuberville is so laid back most of the time, I bet when he gets really fired up for a big game (as Rowe saw him), his players truly take notice. (Whereas if they played for a guy like Ed Orgeron, they probably wouldn't know whether they were about to face Florida or Florida International). Players feed off that kind of energy. But then when Auburn plays Mississippi State, he's probably more like his every day self, and the players feed off that energy -- or lack thereof -- as well.

Can you tell I put a little bit too much thought into this?

Nope. I think that is a dead-on piece of analysis. The only thing I'd add would be to expound on your thesis a bit by observing that Tuberville's 'laid-back' attitude has tended to lead to complacency, which in my mind is his real weakness as a coach. He's at his best when his back is against the wall--just look at the 15-game winning streak that started days after the fabled private jet flight--but he does have a hard time sustaining that high level of success. Prime example, that streak ended one game into the 2005 season, after a summer of unending accolades and a year when the program was surrounded by an aura of invincibility. I can't bring myself to get too down on Tuberville over that; every coach gets complacent after successes--which, of course, doesn't make the apparently-inevitable letdown afterwards any easier to take.

There's no questioning Tuberville's abilities when he's on his game. He just isn't on his game all the time. That's who he is, and that's what you get. What you get is some damn effective coaching... except when it isn't.

Then Mandel goes and blows it answering the very next question, which echoes my own take on the "Urban Myth" offense:

We've seen the spread work at enough different places in different conferences -- from Oregon to Louisville to Northwestern to Cincinnati -- that I simply don't buy the "SEC-is-too-fast-for-it-to work" argument. Shoot, it just worked to the tune of 59 points against Tennessee two weeks ago! The Vols may not have one of the conference's better defenses this year, but do you really think if we lined up Tennessee's defenders and Auburn's defenders at the goal-line, pressed our stop watches and let them to the run to the 40 that the Tigers would all be waiting at the finish line by the time the Vols got there? I highly doubt it.

Uh, Stewart, nobody ever said Tennessee's defense was slow, but they did say it was bad. The Vols are at or near the bottom of the SEC in nearly every defensive category, and they're a dismal 111th nationally in points allowed. The signature of Meyer's offense isn't that it only works against slow defenses (although it certainly does)--it's that it only works against bad defenses. Tennessee has a bad defense. Auburn doesn't.

Weekend Wrap-Up

Before moving on, as we must, to this week's game with Vanderbilt (anger not the god of football lest he take away your mojo), here are a few disparate items on the weekend past.

The wife and I made the trip from Atlanta to Gainesville for the game. I lived in Baja Alabama for most of the 1990's, and even if I hadn't been expecting Auburn to get blown out (which I did), the less time I spend in the state's central Tacky Belt--where redneck north Florida and Yankee south Florida meet, with catastrophic aesthetic results--the happier I generally am.


But hey, it was a fun trip. Our local friends not only had a great parking spot a block from the stadium, they also knew the lunatics who've converted an old Baptist church bus into one of the most impressive tailgate shelters you're ever likely to run across (Florida folks familiar with the University Avenue tailgate scene know exactly which bus I'm talking about). We had a fine time all around.

Also on the Florida front, fans susceptible to superstition on gamedays (I readily confess to be among their number) can but sympathize with the plight of Saurian Sagacity's Mergz, who says of the game, "It Was My Fault." Seriously, read it. One of the funniest non-exaggerated real-life posts I've seen in a very long time.

The morning after the game, I went out in seach of the Sunday paper. When I finally located a copy of the Gainesville Sun (no sarcasm, I'm a big Pat Dooley fan), I was greeted with the following photo on the front page:



That shot triggered a wave of emotion, and I'm not just talking about schadenfreude at the agony of a young man whom every male announcer on ESPN would apparently love to cart off to Massachusetts for a few minutes with a Justice of the Peace, followed by two torrid weeks on Fire Island. No, what I was feeling was... deja vu. Now, where had I seen this before?

And then I remembered:



Finally, no Auburn-Florida recap would be complete without recognizing the foul results of ESPN's "Hire The Senile" outreach program. Ladies and Germs, I give you Cheatin' Lou Holtz's pregame spluttering:

I'd like to be the firtht to congrathulate Thenator Holth on hith electhion. Hail thoo the thief!

Got That Mojo Workin'

Mojo is a magical, fragile thing. It's when you've pleased the god of football, and he decides to shine his glorious bounty upon your team. If you anger him, he takes it away.
--Hank Hill

Well. Quite a night, wasn't it?

In the stands at Florida Field, I think it's safe to say that the most heard phrase of the first half (well, at least the most-heard printable phrase) on both sides was, "Where did that come from?"

Here's what I thought last week, but couldn't really bring myself to write because I wasn't sure I believed it myself: Auburn got its mojo back. It didn't happen against Florida. It happened in the second quarter against New Mexico State, and it was like a switch had suddenly been flipped from "sucky" to "competent." All at once, the Tiger offense came to life, and the entire team started playing like a contender instead of a flop.

I thought that, but I didn't want to say it. I mean, what the hell, the Tigers had just lost to the West's bottom-feeder and "hey, aren't they a club team?" on consecutive weeks. Beating New Mexico State didn't prove anything.

Except that it did, to the Auburn players themselves. Not unlike when the offensive dam finally broke against Vanderbilt in 2003, or when Auburn came off a bad game against Texas to demolish Tennessee on the road in 1983, when the lights finally came on, the AU machine revved up in a big hurry, and didn't even slow down when it ran into a puffed-up pack of Gators on a steamy night in Gainesville.

You can't say enough about Brandon Cox, who has shaken off the horrors of the early '07 season to reclaim the kind of play he has always been capable of (see the numbers from his healthy 2005 campaign if you don't believe me). The only player in recent history I can think of whose fortunes have turned around so much would be Ben Leard. Cox is back in his game, managing the offense, moving the chains, making the plays he can make instead of trying to force the issue.

He's helped immensely by the young offensive linemen who've taken up the challenge the upperclassmen couldn't fulfill, and maybe even moreso by the emergence of Rod Smith as a desperately-needed go-to receiver. Finally, finally, Auburn has found a receiver who can make those clutch catches on third down. Great work, Rod, now go pass it on. The re-emergence of Auburn's passing game gave the running backs much more room to work with in the Florida game, and the combination of the two has already given Al Borges the opportunity to diversify his schemes. Getting Brad Lester back next week will only help, but hats off to Ben Tate and Mario Fannin for carrying the load in Lester's absence.

Most importantly of all, especially in a big game on the road, Auburn only had one turnover, and the Tigers were far enough ahead to outlive that mistake (although I agree with several Florida fans I heard after the game remarking that Auburn was about to put the game away when that fumble occurred). Interceptions or breakdowns in the kicking game would have been flat deadly, as they were in the two losses, but an Auburn that can control the football is a team that can win a whole lot of games, because the Auburn defense is really, really good. For the second straight year, they're way too good for Florida to handle, and that hasn't been a matter of luck.

Here's the thing about Urban Meyer's offense: it really only works against bad defenses. Florida didn't kick and scratch its way to the SEC title last year by blowing people out, they did it with a hellacious defense and a good-enough offense. The only time during '06 when UF did anything remarkable offensively against SEC competition was in the championship game, and that was in a wild, turnover-filled track meet against an Arkansas program in the middle of a full-on implosion. Against Auburn Saturday night, the new UF defense wasn't good enough, and the offense couldn't pick up the slack.

Meyer's scheme works great against slow, under-talented, hesitant defenses; that's why he was so successful in the Mountain West and the MAC. The defenses there are absolutely talent-starved, and he ate them alive. As everybody saw back in January, a slow and tentative Ohio State didn't have a prayer against Florida's speed, but unfortunately for the Sleestak Nation, Florida doesn't get to play Ohio States during the conference season. The exception this year is obviously Tennessee, but the evidence to date is that the Vols' defense is about as tough as a layer of cotton candy.

Since that (entirely enjoyable) shellacking of the overrated Buckeyes, we've heard incessantly about how Meyer would be able to run "his real offense" now that drop-back passer Chris Leak has been replaced by Tim Tebow, or "Superman" as some of the dumber mediots had been calling him prior to Saturday. Every time I heard that, I said, "Yeah, and they're going to get worse as a result." As I wrote a couple of weeks back, there's a reason why the successful SEC teams quit playing the option a generation ago. You can fancy it up by calling it "the spread," and I wouldn't try to deny that Tebow is a terrific talent and a great runner, but when you push aside the ornamentation, Meyer is selling option football, and the option has very definite limitations.

Warning bells should have been ringing after Ole Miss forced Florida into a very limited attack the previous week, and it's clear now that Auburn's Will Muschamp heard them loud and clear. On Saturday night, it was very obvious that Meyer still doesn’t have an answer for quality SEC defenses. The Gator attack was limited to Tebow running and Percy Harvin catching, and that was it. With no credible running backs to draw away pressure from Tebow, Auburn was able to completely stifle the vaunted "Urban Warfare" in the first half.

Quite frankly, Meyer's game plan was stupid. If you're going to attack this Auburn team, you do it through the air, not on the ground. Harvin is an outstanding receiver, and if I had a closet full of that tacky Florida neon blue, I'd be up in arms at how Meyer kept running Tebow over and over again, especially in the first half. Stubbornly sticking to an option attack--especially when it was obvious that Tebow himself was the only real option--took Florida out of the game offensively for the first half-hour, and gave Auburn all the time and breathing room the awakening Tigers needed. By the time a thin AU defense started to wear down in the second half, it was too little, too late.

I think everything that needs to be said about Meyer's bush-league tactics at the end of the game has already been out there. The whispered time out call was silly and stupid, but it was all the Urban Myth had left. After watching Wes Byrum play over the first three games, there was no doubt in my mind that he would hit the second attempt, and as it happened, the actual game winner was a better kick than the one that didn't count.

Speaking of head coaches, is there any serious argument now as to the identity of the best big-game coach in college football today? Tommy Tuberville is now 15-10 against teams in the AP top ten, including winning nine of the last 10, and an astonishing 5-0 against teams in the top five. Gripe if you want about his tendency to be an average coach in average games (I'm sure I will myself--and let's not forget the all-important second half of Hank Hill's football wisdom, above), but there's nobody you'd rather have on the sidelines for the monster games than Tuberville. There just isn't anybody out there who's better at getting the most from his team when the spotlight is brightest.

Around the middle of Saturday afternoon, I was watching various games with friends from Gainesville. We'd seen most of USF's win over West Virginia the night before, and when Mississippi State took a (brief, as it happened) second-half lead over South Carolina and Kansas State was whipping Texas in Austin, I remarked to a friend who teaches at UF that people were going to have to re-evaluate Auburn after all these games.

"People will re-evaluate Auburn if they beat Florida," he said flatly, and although he didn't expect it to happen (heck, neither did I), he was right. It's a new season now.

Got A Deal On Detailing?

Over at the Joe Cribbs Car Wash, Jerry takes issue with the "unflavored yogurt" portion of my last post. I should hasten to note right up front that the JCCW is easily my favorite Auburn fan blog, and if not for Phillip Marshall, it'd be my favorite Auburn blog, period.

That understood, I stand by my opinion. Sure, Auburn beat the tar out of New Mexico State offensively in the second half, but, um... they're New Mexico State. Even this year's playmaker-challenged Tiger offense had more than enough talent to wear out and bury a defense that weak, and they could easily afford to keep pounding the ball until the Aggies gave out. Against a better opponent, well, Jerry himself says it well:

Play-action was pretty much as creative as Borges got on first down, and I think he will have to do more to keep the likes of, well, hmm, let me strain to come up with an example, Florida on their toes. And running a full 66 percent of the time on 1st-and-10 is probably still a little high, even for a team that was ahead the entire second half.

Just so.

Look, my complaint isn't really about first-down play calling (although I'm not crazy about it; as I said earlier, if you can stop Auburn short on first down, you're quite literally way ahead of the game), and certainly not about the NMSU game. It's about the entire offensive philosophy that we've seen pretty much since the second game of 2006. Last year that was usually good enough, as the offense could hold on to the ball and move the chains long enough to win. Even setting aside all the turnovers, this year AU has way too many three-and-outs to get away with that kind of football. It ain't ball control when you rarely have the ball--you can look it up.

Even if the offense weren't struggling, Auburn has too many other issues to play "we'll beat everybody 13-10." Crucial breakdowns in the return game have made things even worse; if the Tigers just don't give up a 50-yard return against USF or get buried deep late in the the fourth quarter against MSU, they're most likely 4-0 right now. A really, really ugly 4-0, but still.

All that understood, the idea that this 2007 team can turn things around just by playing unflavored yogurt on offense and relying on the defense to keep things close is simply nuts. That defense is staying on the field way too long, and the kick coverage still stinks. If I can see that Auburn's running an extremely limited playbook that doesn't fool anybody, you can bet the house that an actual defensive coordinator can, too. And that's what I've seen these last four games.

Baby Love

It'd be a safe bet that the most commonly-voiced phrase in Auburn Saturday night was "baby steps." I heard it all over the stands and I've seen it written numerous times since the New Mexico State game, and why not? After a two-game rolling debacle, the Tigers were clearly starting over, and they were doing so with a bunch of babies. No less than four true freshmen started on offense against NMSU, and that's not even counting the kickers, much less all those redshirt freshmen and sophomores elsewhere in the two-deep.

And hey, they won. By a mile.

Nobody should try to take too much away from this game. New Mexico State is not good. In the first half, Auburn's secondary play was terrible, and AU didn't manage a true first down for the entire first quarter. That understood, a win is a win, and anybody who's seen the first four games of this season has to admit that the Tigers made some real progress on Saturday night. I frankly didn't believe that Auburn could score 55 points against air; that's at least one conviction I'm happy to be shed of.

I'll be the first to admit that I can't figure out what the Auburn staff is trying to do offensively. I liked what Kody Burns did against Mississippi State, but I don't understand why you call six straight running plays for a pair of three-and-outs to start the game. Did those plays help to set up Burns' long touchdown throw to Rod Smith on the third possession? Sure, probably. But they also failed to move the chains, and contributed to keeping the defense on the field for most of the first half (ironically, the one-play touchdown drive probably hurt the defense as much as it helped, thanks to putting them right back out after a miniscule break). By halftime, an AU defense that had been chasing around Hal Mumme's receivers all night was winded, and it showed. When NMSU turned their own one-play touchdown drive to take a 20-14 lead, it looked for all the world like another upset was teed up and ready to go.

And then, of course, Brandon Cox stepped in and turned the game around. How's that for a sentence you didn't think you'd read again?

For an instant, it looked like more of the depressing same. Cox bobbled his first snap, the defense recovered, and the next time you blinked, Auburn was down by another touchdown. But after that, Cox played for the most part like the "old Brandon," or more appropriately, like he'd been expected to play this season. He made good checks, hit the right throws, got rid of the ball when he was in trouble, and just generally had a very nice game, one that would have been even better if Robert Dunn could catch footballs that hit him in the hands. It wasn't a perfect effort; there were still too many passes going to receivers in multiple coverage, but let's face it: Auburn's receivers are always in heavy coverage this year.

The running game got better as the game went on, no doubt partly due to playing a not-great defensive team, but also thanks to all those kids on the offensive front getting more comfortable carrying the load. It's taking a while, but developing a mix between Tate's power and Mario Fannin's speed seems to be coming along. That and getting more of a vertical passing game (see again the Burns touchdown and what should have been another one from Cox to Dunn) should help get all those defenders out of the tackle box as the season goes on. Most important of all, Auburn didn't turn the ball over again after Cox's fumble. If they can keep that up, things are almost automatically going to get better. Again, baby steps.

Still.

While I can understand difficulties due to personnel, I do not understand what's going on with Auburn's offense in terms of game planning and play calling.

Thus far the offense hasn't even been vanilla, it's more like unflavored yogurt. It's not just ineffectual a lot of the time, it's also predictable and even boring to watch. There's no misdirection, no deception, not even a hint of unpredictability. If I see Ben Tate run off tackle for a yard on first down again I think I'm going to scream (okay, I confess: it already makes me scream). It reminds me of the worst days of the Nallsminger disaster, and the sheer un-Borges-ness of Auburn's tactics makes me wonder just who is making the important decisions this year. If the answer is "Borges," then Al needs to get his mojo back. If the answer is "somebody else," that somebody needs to go tend to his knitting, because what he's doing so far ain't working, and it ain't going to work. Don't quote me numbers from Saturday, either; like I said at the outset, NMSU is not only not good, they're worse than 11 of 12 teams on the schedule.

Defensively, Auburn is so beat up and thin right now it's hard to make a judgment. The pass rush and coverage was just awful in the first half, as previously noted. NMSU exploited Auburn's inexperience at (healthy) linebacker in particular, getting all kinds of completions in the short and medium field. Things got markedly better after halftime. The Aggies were stifled for the rest of the game, and better yet, the defense finally starting forcing turnovers again. Jon Wilhite's second interception was a better catch than just about any of AU's receivers have managed this year. Baby steps, baby steps, even for a senior.

I'm not ready to make any predictions or grand statements on the state of the team today, not after one win, even an impressive win, over a weak sister. There's still too far to go, and too many issues still remaining, but hey, winning is better. Regardless of the opponent, Auburn needed a win, and needed a "good" win even more. The very best thing that came out of Saturday was a clear feeling of confidence on the field. It started flowing after Cox's touchdown to take the lead for good, and by the fourth quarter, for the first time in weeks, you could see an Auburn team that not only knew what it was doing, it knew again how to win.

Confidence is a funny thing in football. Auburn was not a confident team in 2004 until Jason Campbell connected with Courtney Taylor in the waning seconds against LSU. After that moment, the Tigers walked into every contest confident of their abilities, and scarcely had anything like a close game for the remainder of the season. Conversely, when the early confidence Stan White and Auburn earned by coming back against Tennessee and Florida State in 1990 was shattered on one awful night in Gainesville, it took over two years for White and his team to recover.

I don't want to suggest that Auburn is walking into a similar situation this week, but let's be honest here: beating Florida this Saturday would classify as not just unlikely, but really, really exceptionally unlikely. The next game will be a test not just of how well (or badly) this team can play football, but also how well (or badly) they can manage their emotions in the aftermath, no matter the outcome.

It's a tall order. Baby steps against NMSU were welcome, but these babies still have a very long way to go.

Croomed

Let's face it, nobody wants to get Croomed.
--FTB, August 8, 2007

While there's very little "good" that can be taken out of losing to what 24 hours ago was considered the SEC's worst team, Auburn fans now have at least the comfort of certainty: this isn't going to be a good year. No need to fret over the conference standings, much less the BCS. While this is hardly an ideal point of reference, it does have a clarifying effect. Now we can concentrate on simple survival.

I could go into another dissection of the game itself, but what's the point? Everyone who watched knows what happened, and why. You're not going to beat much of anybody when you commit five turnovers, especially when three of them go for points. You're not going to win games when your defense stays on the field for two-thirds of the first half. Not even South Florida, Not even Mississippi State.

I'm quite happy to give State credit for the win. For all the abuse he's received (much of it deserved), Sylvester Croom has succeeded in at least one crucial respect: he's taught his team not to give up. The first two or three squads he coached would have packed it in after getting crushed in the opener, but Croom found a way to get his guys ready to play again, and they deserved the win on Saturday. They played tough, they were well-prepared, and big Anthony Dixon is a heck of a good running back. The draw play on third-and-long late in State's game-winning drive was as perfect a play call as you're ever going to see.

As for Auburn... look, a blind man could see on Saturday that this is a team with a lousy offense. There are sparks here and there, but every time over the last two games I thought the ship was righting itself, somebody pointed a cannon at the deck and opened fire. Did anybody really think that last drive was going to be successful?

Before talking about the quarterbacks, let's talk about the guys they're throwing to. There's no point in being anything other than blunt here: Auburn has a bunch of receivers who can't get open, and when they do get open, they can't catch balls that hit them in the hands. That goes double for the tight ends, who've all gone backwards since they arrived on campus. Receivers coach Greg Knox and tight ends coach Steve Ensminger have collectively done a lousy job of developing these players. Period, dot. I'm still trying to figure out what Ensminger's actual job is. 2003 proved he isn't a competent play-caller or quarterback coach. Since being demoted he's managed to take at least one guy who had great hands as a true freshman (Tommy Trott) and turn him into a one-man incompletion machine.

Tommy Tuberville and his staff do deserve some credit for doing something about the painfully-obvious fact that Brandon Cox is having a terrible senior year, and particularly over the last two games is doing more harm than good. I don't like writing that, and I have no doubt the staff didn't like realizing it, but at least they did accept the rotten reality and moved to get another signal-caller ready last week. They ignored my advice in doing so (a decidedly low hurdle, I hasten to add) and ramped up true freshman Kodi Burns, who all things considered played well in his first outing as a Tiger. Yes, Burns turned the ball over twice, the second time letting State back in the game, but those are the breaks when you play a true freshman.

That said, while Burns brought a tangible spark to the offense, a spark isn't enough. Sure, it's fun to watch Burns and the running backs bolt through option plays, but there's a reason why no successful SEC team has run the option in nearly a quarter-century: it doesn't win games any more. Al Borges and Auburn have got to have more than that up their sleeves if there's to be any hope of salvaging something out of this season.

I'd like to sit here and tell you how and why 2007 can be turned around into something other than a twelve-week debacle, but finding bright spots is pretty tough right now. The worst negative trademark of Tuberville staffs is complacency, and I suspect we're seeing the results of yet another round right now. With the exception of the last-minute addition of a limited "Burns Offense," we haven't seen any indications that the staff knows how to correct its offensive woes. It shouldn't have taken three games (certainly not against these three opponents) for the staff to understand that they have an immovable object on that side of the ball. What's worse, Auburn is plagued with injuries, at least suggesting that the conditioning program may have fallen off.

Where we go from here is anybody's guess. Right now only the Tennessee Tech game should be considered a probable win. I've already seen people calling for Tuberville's head, but even given the crash landing the team suffered on Saturday, I have to suggest that these people get a life--and I say that as one of the loudest voices who said he needed to go in 2003. Tuberville made his point in the aftermath of that year, and at the very least he's earned the right to survive one bad season, even if that forbearance is not due to all of his assistants.

Now we're at rock bottom, and now's when coaching can make a difference. Now we'll see how good they really are.

Or not.

Going South

Ask a dozen Auburn fans what they think about Brandon Cox and you'll get a dozen different answers--or at least you would have prior to Saturday night. Those who remember Cox's sophomore year will tell you that he's a accurate passer who, given protection, can rip a defense to shreds. And they're right. The defenses of Georgia, Alabama and LSU were all abused by a Cox-led offense that season.

Others, who recall last year, will tell you that despite Cox's limited physical skills compared to some other quarterbacks, he's a warrior on the field who will soldier on despite injuries that would bench most players. And they're right. No player at any position had any business going on the field in the condition Cox played in for most of 2006, but he did it anyhow, and earned eleven wins along the way.

Still more will say that Cox can't throw a consistent deep ball, that he's too immobile in the pocket, and that he's making inexplicable throws for a guy who's effectively a sixth-year senior. They'll tell you--particularly after last Saturday--that he's gone backwards in 2007, and that his play is hurting the team.

And unfortunately, they're right, too.

Nothing hurts worse than losing one you had in the palm of your hand. After a shaky start, Auburn took control of the South Florida game in the second quarter, and to all eyes was cruising to a bumpy but still acceptable win until about 11PM, when the wheels started to come off. While an absolutely stunning defensive effort kept South Florida from scoring a single point off of Auburn's five turnovers, those turnovers also prevented the Tigers from adding the extra scores that likely would have put the game away. Two of those turnovers were fumbles by Mario Fannin, a redshirt freshman seeing his first serious minutes of college play. Nobody likes to see a freshman turn the ball over, but nobody should be particularly surprised by it, either.

The other side of that coin, of course, is that nobody expects a senior quarterback to fumble on a sneak and throw two bad interceptions in the same game. What's worse, that pick total could easily have risen much higher.

I don't think all of Auburn's problems can be or should be deposited on Brandon Cox's doorstep. Even given all the angst over Cox's poor play, he'd have led AU to another late victory if the kick return game hadn't completely broken down after the Tigers' final go-ahead field goal. Auburn was spoiled over the last few years in having Matt Clark's kickoffs fly out the back of the end zone on virtually every kick. The Tigers' special team coverage got slack, and the combination of that plus the '07 rule change and losing Clark all caught up with AU at the worst possible time as Saturday turned to Sunday.

It's also fair to note that Cox looked a whole lot better when he was being protected by Ben Grubbs and Marcus McNeil, and throwing to Devin Aromashodu, Ben Obomanu, Courtney Taylor and Anthony Mix, to say nothing of handing off to Kenny Irons. It's painfully obvious that Auburn just didn't do a good job of recruiting and/or developing the players who've replaced all those famous names. Two games in and not only does AU still lack even one go-to receiver, there aren't any obvious candidates for the job making their presence known. A deep tight end corps was supposed to help support the wideouts, but one third of that corps seems to have forgotten how to catch.

Things are somewhat better on the running back front, where Fannin's speed and tough running gave Auburn a great spark in the second quarter; getting Tristan Davis back in the next week or two will also help, but there's no getting around that fact that this is a largely moribund offense. Put Auburn in second and long and you are most likely going to get the ball back sometime within the next three snaps. All those great players helped make Al Borges call some brilliant games for a couple of years, but now it's time for Borges to really earn his money. Thus far in 2007, we haven't seen a lot of the creativity and unpredictability that we came to expect from a Borges offense. If his offensive plan is too complicated (or too conservative) for the current players, then the plan has to change. The players won't.

It would be grossly unfair to stop here without recognizing the astonishing play of the Auburn defense late Saturday night. As seems to be the norm for a Will Muschamp squad, they gave up a score on the opening drive, but then just played lights-out for the duration. I don't think I've ever seen or even heard of a quality offensive team failing to score on that many trips inside an opponent's red zone. I've certainly never heard of five turnovers resulting in zero points. Anybody who can fault the defense for giving up the last score in overtime was not paying attention; those guys had been on the field doing yeoman's work for virtually the entire second half. Anything less and there never would have been an overtime, because Auburn would have been losing by three or four scores. You also can't say enough about true freshman placekicker Wes Byrum, who came through on one long, high-pressure field goal after another in a bravura performance.

The greatest shame and frustration of the USF game is that those efforts went for naught.

Auburn can't go out and get new players two games into the season. Despite all his problems, it's likely that Cox is the only real option at quarterback. If Blake Field could outplay Cox, he'd be playing by now. Anybody who thinks the Tigers should rip the redshirt off of a true freshman and throw him in at quarterback is frankly nuts, and the suggesting of putting Neal Caudle in at this point is only slightly less nuts. New receivers are in the pipeline, but it's going to be a while before the very young guys are ready. Auburn doesn't have the luxury of that extra time.

I suspect there isn't any amount of coaching that can make this a great offense, but it needs to become at least a respectable one in a very big hurry. Offensive line coach Hugh Nall likes to brag to recruits that he's the highest-paid position coach in the SEC. Al Borges is also one of the highest-paid assistants in the country. It's time for the two of them, to say nothing of their boss, who himself is a rather high earner, to get it together.

A Gameday That Doesn't Suck

I've stopped watching "ESPN Gameday" entirely this season. The show was always on the light-and-fluffy side of football analysis, and over the last three or four years it's just devolved into a morass of schtick, host posturing, vapid hype for teams with ABC contracts and outright homerism from the likes of Kirk Herbstreet and Lou Holtz.

Fortunately for all of us, there remains a department of the Worldwide Leader that hasn't surrendered to the crapitalization of college football on television, probably because that department isn't on television. I refer here and once again offer an unabashed plug to ESPN's College Football Insider podcasts, which are available for free at ESPN's website and from iTunes. The podcasts, hosted by the likes of Ivan Maisel and Todd McShay, and featuring regular guests like Beano Cook and Jim Donnan, are everything Gameday should be but isn't: Funny, detailed, entertaining, and chock-full of actual meaty information about the games of the week past and the week to come.

I've gotten into the habit of pushing an entire week's worth onto my iPod for driving around town, or while I'm on the road going to games on Saturday. I just finished listening to this week's Maisel-Cook show while mowing the backyard this morning, and it was better than anything Fowler, Herbstreet, or Corso have managed to bleat out, well, ever.

So turn off the tube, fire up your Pod of choice, and listen in. Trust me, it's much better than waiting around to see which mascot head a failed loser coach is going to put on.

Memo To ESPN

Since I was at Jordan-Hare Stadium Saturday night (very late into Saturday night, as it happened, but still not as late as the lovely 9PM Eastern kickoff awaiting fans for the next game), I didn't see any of ESPN's game coverage until sometime Sunday. On the plus side, somebody at the Worldwide Leader managed to reverse their rectal/cranium disorder for one evening and assigned Ron Franklin, the best play-by-play man in the business right now to cover the game. Well done, but you're still idiots for condemning Franklin to the purgatory of mid-afternoon Big 12 games for the rest of the year.

That said, I was among the fortunate 87,000 or so fans who were not subjected to ESPN breaking away from the Auburn-Kansas State game midway through the third quarter. The network in its brilliance decided to switch over to a meaningless Major League Boredom game in Boston in order to cover the ultimate in dull sporting events, a no-hitter.

Hey, all you nimrods up in Bristol, here's a news flash: The millions of people who were tuned in to see an SEC vs. Big 12 football game Did Not Care What Happened In Pro Baseball That Night. They were there to watch college football, and they damn sure weren't adding to your ratings to see a bunch of spoiled, steroid-addled millionaires fail to hit a little white ball. ESPN has at least four networks on the air, and two of them were probably showing idiotic poker game reruns or "Stroker Ace."

So the next time you feel the urge to cut into an important college football game in order to broadcast an MLB snooze-a-thon, why not just put an alert on the screen, and broadcast the baseball garbage on ESPN Classic or ESPN News? Because I guarantee you, SEC football fans did not care what the hell was happening on Boston. If we wanted to be put to sleep by a lame "sport" like pro baseball, we'd sell out Braves games instead of SEC stadia (and in case you haven't been paying attention, we don't sell out Braves games, even for the playoffs).

Don't you EVER do that again.

Glory, Glory To Old Appy

While driving home from Auburn in the wee hours of Sunday morning, I was tuned in to ESPN Radio's overnight talk show. One of the participants proceeded to rail on Appalacian State radio announcers David Jackson and Steve Brown for their reactions to the Mountaineers' monumental upset of Michigan on Saturday. In case you're one of the three people who haven't heard Jackson and Brown's call of the final blocked kick, just click below:



That is what college football is all about.

That is a moment of unrivaled glory and heart-bursting elation the likes of which few of us will ever experience. To go into that place and do what tough little Appy did is not just unprecedented and cause for headlines; it's an affirmation of why we all follow this crazy game in the first place.

If you can listen to that call and not be absolutely transported by the uninhibited, once-in-a-lifetime joy of those thirty seconds, you are either an exceptionally bitter Michigan fan or a damn fool. It is the sound of college football at its very finest. It is the sound of the human spirit living in a rare and wonderful moment, and it is a sound not one of us will ever forget.

To you, the unidentified ESPN Radio snob, I can only say: get a life. Or better yet, a soul.

Oh, K (State)

The mood in the immediate aftermath of Auburn's season-opening win over Kansas State was an odd mix of euphoria and gloom. You can't walk out of a last-minute comeback over a good opponent without being "up" from the moment. Then after the adrenaline wears off, you start thinking about all the many unpleasant minutes before the comeback, and wondering what's going to happen next.

I don't know how good Auburn is going to be this year, but I was ferociously impressed with Kansas State. They're young, and they lost a little of their composure right at the end there, but that is a fundamentally well-schooled football team. Auburn's defenders could learn an awful lot about tackling from the Wildcats, and we're going to be hearing the name of quarterback Josh Freeman for many years to come. I'm not ashamed to say that I'm quite relieved Freeman's eligibility will be long-since exhausted by the time Auburn goes to Arrowhead Stadium for the follow-on game in 2014.

As I feared, the Auburn offense hasn't progressed much since the Cotton Bowl. As in most of 2006, the offensive line wasn't able to open holes for the running backs with eight or nine defenders in the tackle box, and the the receivers couldn't break out of man coverage fast enough to bail out a constantly under assault Brandon Cox. Cox, who once again had to man up and take a severe beating, didn't help himself any by often holding the ball too long and throwing two terrible interceptions.

It's well worth giving credit to Al Borges for changing his attack for the game-winning drive, and to Cox and his teammates for executing that drive so well, but c'mon, guys, why did you wait 56 minutes to change things up? It was painfully obvious by the second quarter that Auburn just wasn't getting anything going on offense. The game plan was as vanilla as Dairy Queen and as predictable as an old soap opera. As I've said many times in the past, when I can predict the next play, there's a problem.

What's worse, some of Borges' decisions just didn't make any sense. I love Carl Stewart. He's arguably the best pure fullback Auburn has had since Fred Beasley, but he's, er, a fullback. For all his many gifts, Stewart just doesn't have the speed to carry the ball on a toss sweep. Put him out there to kill a linebacker or cornerback and break loose a ball carrier, but don't ask him to turn the corner. That's a waste of your resources.

Defensively, the game was also a mixed bag. Kansas State only had one touchdown drive on the night, but they moved the ball far more consistently than the Tigers. Yes, Quentin Groves was able to put on his patented whiplash-inducing mojo on Freeman by the end of the game, but that was thanks in no small part to Kansas State's thin-ish offensive line just running out of gas (and to K-State's coaches not helping Freeman out with any blockers in the backfield). Freeman had all the time he needed for most of the first forty-five minutes, and Auburn did a pretty lousy job of picking up the short slants and receivers coming out of the backfield on Saturday. If the Wildcats had had anything resembling a running game, I think they'd be right behind Appalacian State in this week's upset hall of fame right now.

Clearly, Auburn has a lot of work to do, and it doesn't help things any that a tailback corps which was anticipated to be five-deep just six weeks ago is now down to two guys, and only one of them--Ben Tate--is apparently trusted enough by the coaches to actually carry the ball. Between Brad Lester's suspension, Tristan Davis' broken toe, would-be incoming freshman Enrique Davis' bad grades and Mario Fannin's inexperience, what should have a major team strength is now a very serious concern. On the brigher side, linebacker Tray Blackmon, who left the game after turning an ankle right before halftime, is expected back for South Florida. Hopefully Blackmon and his teammates will get some remedial work in basic tackling this week. Saturday night indicated that they can all use some review time.

Outside of that four-minute flurry, Auburn just wasn't impressive Saturday night, but let's be fair here: those four minutes still meant a lot. Kansas State coach Ron Prince nailed it after the game when he observed, ""Our kids, I'm really proud of them. They gave it everything they got but Auburn demonstrated why they're a great team because they got a fourth quarter pass rush and they put together a championship drive in the fourth quarter. Those are things we aspire to."

With all due respect to Coach Prince--and I think he's due an awful lot right now--Auburn is not a great team, but Auburn does know how to win, even if it means winning ugly, and that's worth a lot. Whether it's enough as we roll into this thresher of a season, I don't know, but we're going to find out in a real big hurry.

Thanks Where They're Due

I will confess up front that I am not much of a fan of Sports Illustrated, but I'd be a cad indeed if I didn't thank SI's webmasters for including FTB in their short list of Auburn-related sites at CNNSI's Auburn team page.

Like the man said in The Kentucky Fried Movie, you haff my gwatitude.

Looking Forward: Auburn

My apologies (again) for not getting anything posted the last few days. Suffice to say, real life takes priority over blogging, and real life has been busy.

At any rate, I ought to get in at least something of a post on expectations for 2007. I'll break from my own tradition this time around and start out with Auburn, and I might as well jump in with what scares me.

After jumping out to a solid start in the opener against Washington State, Auburn took a giant step backwards offensively in 2006. The backfield was riddled with injuries, the receiving corps was an object lesson in what happens when you lose three thousand-yard receivers to graduation, and the line was rarely better than average. Even so, a battered Brandon Cox could usually move the football between the twenties, and with an all-senior kicking game and usually-solid defense, that was enough to win in eleven games, two of those against the eventual #1 and #2 teams in the final polls.

I wish I could say that I expect things to be much better in 2007, but frankly, I can't. I'm not worried about Cox, or at least about his play. I am worried about his health, particularly given the youth of four of the five guys charged with protecting him. If Cox absorbs another 34 sacks this year, the record isn't likely to be pretty. I also wish I could say that I trust Hugh Nall to coach up the line, but frankly, I don't. I do think Nall is capable of doing so, but his lack of consistency from year to year just doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

Auburn has quality running backs and tight ends stacked up from here to Sylacauga, but as of A-Day, I didn't see any receivers who could get open down the field. Phillip Marshall, who's seen the August practices, thinks the receiver problems have been solved, and I sincerely hope he's right, but I'll have to see it before I believe it. I'd also like to see the fireworks return to Al Borges' attack (and I don't mean that flea-flicker from the Georgia game, Al) after a season in the doldrums; happily, I am optimistic on that front.

Unhappily, I am less optimistic about an all-freshman kicking game. This is probably as good a time as any to dredge up Dye's Law, which states, You're going to lose a conference game for every true freshman you have to start. I'm not making a prediction here, but there are two true freshmen starters in the current Auburn two-deep, and one of them is Wes Byrum, the placekicker (the other is offensive tackle Lee Ziemba). I'm not saying that freshmen can't perform on special teams, but I am saying that having freshmen on the field tends to make weird things happen. Sometimes those things are good, but more often they are not. Suffice to say, the kicking game makes me nervous.

With all that hand-wringing out of the way, I'm quite happy to say that I expect great things out of the 2007 Auburn defense. Up front, the only SEC team that can even touch Auburn in quality or depth is LSU (which has beaucoup of both, and then some). Auburn has traded some experience for talent at linebacker, but I don't expect to see any significant fall-off there. I do think the secondary will miss David Irons, but I suspect an improved pass rush and more experience coming back at safety will help cushion the blow.

What I'm really expecting out of this defense is consistency. The 2006 defense was good enough to hold LSU to three points (chew on that for a while, Notre Dame snobs), but also bad enough to get shredded by a good Arkansas and mediocre Georgia. I think it's more than reasonable to expect much more consistent performance in DC Will Muschamp's second year. With the exception of freshman backup free safety Mike McNeil, everybody in the two-deep has had a couple of years in the system now, and that ought to mean a much more cohesive squad, one that can change looks and coverages with fewer mental breakdowns. The talent and schemes are certainly there, now it's just a matter of execution. With senior leadership from quarterback-killer Quentin Groves, I like this defense's odds.

Let's just be up-front about the schedule: it stinks, even the home slate. After the more than respectable opening pair of Kansas State and South Florida (the latter of which is the really worrysome opponent in my eyes), Auburn doesn't have an eye-opening opponent at home until the Tolbert Game at the end of the season. This isn't to say that none of the visiting conference teams will be any good; anybody in the SEC can trip you up if you aren't careful. Vanderbilt (which probably has its best team in a generation) and Ole Miss (which gave an error-plagued Auburn fits last year) could both be trap games if AU isn't mentally ready, and let's face it, nobody wants to get Croomed.

And of course, the road schedule speaks for itself. In point of fact, it kind of sounds like Hannibal Lecter. Beyond Auburn's traditional second home in Sanford Stadium, none of the road sites are places where the Tigers usually play well, and all four of the road opponents (Florida, Arkansas, LSU and Georgia) should have pretty good teams, at the very, very least.

I hate to put a damper on expectations, but splitting that slate would probably be a hell of an accomplishment. Problem is, Auburn will certainly have to go at least 3-1 on the road to have any hope of making it to Atlanta the first week in December. As the aforementioned Dr. Lecter remarked upon sizing up a Kenyan marathoner, "That's going to be tough."

Six Days And Counting

First up, my apologies for the extremely light blogging here during the off-season. It's been a very busy year so far, but still, I ought to have kept FTB much more up-to-date than it has been. Many thanks to all the regular readers who've been checking in to (usually) no avail. I'm very happy to say that with less than a week to go before the season kicks off (to be more precise, before LSU kicks the ever-loving corn dogs out of Mississippi State), I've finally got enough breathing room to get some SEC blogging in.

More to follow today, and over the weekend as we all get ready for some FOOTBAW.

Burying The Lede

The Birmingham News waits until the end of a snoozer Hoovergate follow-up story to get to the interesting part today:

Hoover and University of Alabama officials have not said which grade will be used if they re-evaluate Chapman's eligibility. NCAA spokeswoman Jennifer Kearns declined to discuss the case.

Speaking generally, Kearns said the NCAA would look at academic credentials after an athlete is certified - as is the case with Chapman - if "questions or irregularities" arose.

Kearns said all grade changes are reviewed by the NCAA Clearinghouse and Eligibility Center to confirm changes were made in accordance with the high school's policy.

If grade changes are made "late in the game," Kearns said, the institution must file an initial eligibility waiver for the change.

"If there is evidence of academic fraud, an investigation would likely be triggered," Kearns said.

Hoovergate Rising

It took a couple of months, but the full story behind the academic shenanigans at Hoover High in metro Birmingham is finally breaking. I have to admit that I'm completely shocked to have read this in the Birmingham News, but credit where it's due, the paper has stayed behind this story amidst what had to be incredible pressure to spike it:

Counselors at Hoover High School this spring sent a second, different transcript for a football player to the University of Alabama after the university called to say the player was unexpectedly ineligible, according to the high school's former principal.

The second transcript contained a grade change that was "an honest mistake" and that made the player eligible, said Richard Bishop, who has sued the school system over his dismissal as principal.

The player is Josh Chapman, a highly recruited freshman defensive tackle at Alabama, The Birmingham News has learned.

The grade change is one of several allegations involving academics at Hoover High that are being investigated by retired federal judge Sam Pointer Jr. on behalf of the school system.

Some other allegations involve whether a teacher was pressured to give a certain grade to a football player. The News has learned that player is Kerry Murphy, a highly rated Alabama signee who failed to qualify academically this year and is attending prep school.

The University of Alabama declined to comment about Chapman's case. Messages left with Chapman were not returned, and Alabama denied an interview request to speak with him.
...

Pointer's probe also includes complaints of a teacher feeling pressure from Borie and Martin over another senior football player's grades. The News has learned the student was Murphy.

Bishop said teacher Nikki Townsend reported to him in February that she felt pressured by Borie and Martin, who was the ninth-grade assistant principal at the time.

The contract for Townsend, who was Murphy's English teacher last year, was not renewed at Hoover and she now teaches at Vestavia Hills High School. She declined to comment.

Ivan In Auburn

ESPN's Ivan Maisel was in Auburn today to check out the official arrival of the freshman class. Some very nice work from Mobile-native Maisel here, peeking into a world most fans never see:

All of a sudden, the players against whom these prized freshmen will line up can be four years older and stronger. That's where football equipment manager Jim Vanzandt comes in to protect them.

Vanzandt measured the scholarship freshmen over the summer for their helmet and pad sizes. He measured the invited walk-ons on Wednesday. Many freshmen don't realize he knows what he is doing.

"In high school, their pads didn't fit them," said Vanzandt, who has been working at Auburn since 2002. "They managed to protect themselves by being bigger and faster. Your helmet should fit tighter than they're used to and their shoulder pads should be tighter. Some of the defensive linemen will literally get their helmets slapped off their heads. They've never been slapped by somebody this big and fast."

Good stuff. Regardless of who you root for, read the whole thing.

... And There Was Much Rejoicing

After a six-month hiatus, Tony "I'm The Only Reason To Read The AJC" Barnhart's college football blog is back, featuring Barnhart's take on the toughest and easiest schedules in the SEC (and the ACC, but c'mon, who cares? Okay, I admit it--six weeks from the season kickoff, I care. A little, anyway).

Today's other reading assignment is this summary of Auburn's 2007 prospects from Steve Megargee at Rivals.com. It's an excellent rundown of the good (defense), bad (road schedule) and ugly (all-freshman kicking game) ahead of the Tigers this fall. I could probably come up with a quibble here or there if I really tried, but I'd have to work at it. Very solid and knowledgeable work by Megargee.

Full disclosure: I did some freelance work for Rivals from 2001-2003. I've never met Steve Megargee.

Cracking

Birmingham News staff writer Joe Solomon, in a column today:

Academic impropriety in athletics is hardly new. What's changed is that across the country - and lately at Hoover - high school teachers trying to teach prominent athletes, not enable them, are facing more pressure than ever before.
...

At some high schools, teachers - especially those without tenure - face mounting pressure to not just pass athletes, but give them high grades to offset a low test score.
...

College coaches can use charm to subtly apply pressure on teachers. What high school teacher or administrator doesn't feel a little flushed when a multi-millionaire coach shakes his or her hand?

There are some teachers and administrators who believe that a player will become a success in life only through athletics. It's this type of enabling that ensures the player will become a janitor in five years after he blows out a knee.

Who wants to be known as the person who prevented Joe Star from playing at State U? It's easier - check that, it's safer - to do what you're told and move on with your life.

It's not entirely clear what's been happening at Hoover.

Oh, I don't know about that. Reading between the lines, I'd say Solomon has a very good idea of what's been happening at Hoover, and of which college's coaches and boosters may have been applying pressure to get grades changed.

A math teacher said a final grade was changed for one of his students, a football player, without his consent so the player could be eligible in college. Another teacher went to the school system's assistant superintendent concerned she would lose her job - which she did - because she resisted pressure to boost another player's grade.

This is still the Bamaham--uh, I mean, Birmingham News, though, and I really don't expect that particular college to be named first in its pages, no matter how many stories about Hoover High make it to press. You have to tip your hat to the already-developing spin; I wonder whose bright idea it was to try and deflect the blame to the NCAA?

Speaking of spin and what information makes it to the public, there's also this out of Hoover today:

A retired federal judge investigating possible academic impropriety involving athletes at Hoover High said Monday he will report his findings to the Hoover Board of Education, which will then decide whether to make the findings public.

Sam C. Pointer Jr., who met Monday with Superintendent Andy Craig to discuss the investigation, said he cannot promise anonymity to sources he interviews.

"I don't know whether the board will say, `Let's let it all hang out,' or if the board will say, `Let's at least protect names of people,'" Pointer said.

A.W. Bolt, a member of the school board, said his understanding is Pointer will examine allegations of grade fixing or changing for athletes and efforts to pressure teachers. Bolt said he supports making the report public, but will initially treat it as a confidential attorney-client communication.

"I'll have to read it and see if there are things in it that I think should not or could not be made public," Bolt said. "My hope is this particular attorney-client communication will be made public."

Secret investigations? A board determining whether or not to release results to the public? Why, it's almost... machine-like, isn't it?

UPDATE: I completely missed Kevin Scarbinsky's Sunday column, which meant I also missed this reference to the Ghost of Violations Past:

[Hoover principal Richard] Bishop has been a high school football coach himself. He's been an assistant at Emma Sansom in Gadsden when Gene Jelks played there and a head coach at Gaston and Cherokee County.

The principal likes football so much that when Alabama's new head coach visited Hoover during the spring evaluation period, Bishop had a sign posted in the front office.

The sign said, "Welcome, Coach Saban."

Yeah, I'd say Scarbinsky knows the score, too.

Breaking

From today's Birmingham News, the real story that's been lurking behind the scenes for months finally sees the light of day:

A math teacher at Hoover said Thursday a final grade was changed for one of his students, a senior football player, without his consent. And an assistant superintendent for Hoover schools confirmed that a teacher came to her this year concerned about losing a job over another senior football player's grade.
...

A Hoover teacher in February met with Assistant Superintendent Jan Dennis and said she felt pressure over an athlete's grades and was concerned about losing her job, according to Dennis, who is on sick leave until the end of June after the school board fired her in May. Dennis has said the reason she was given for her firing was her friendship with former Superintendent Connie Williams.

The teacher told Dennis an athlete had been transferred into her class and it didn't appear he would make a grade needed to be eligible to play college football, according to Dennis. She would not identify the teacher but said she taught a core academic class. She would also not identify the student.

To be eligible for an athletic college scholarship, athletes must have a certain grade-point average in core classes - English, math, physical/natural science and social science - that corresponds to an SAT or ACT score on a sliding scale.

The teacher, who would have earned tenure if she were renewed this year, was not renewed by the school board, Dennis said.

The teacher said she understood the expectation was that the athlete had to make a B, but she thought that was unlikely even with the extra help she was giving him, Dennis said.

Dennis said the teacher told her she asked for an administrative meeting to talk about expectations and how the student was doing. At the meeting, an administrator said the student needed to make a B in her class, but no plan was offered for how to achieve that, Dennis said she was told.

"My advice to her at that point was, `Help him like you help all your other students. Keep documentation about what you're doing. Don't do anything unethical to compromise your professional judgment,'" Dennis said. "`But do everything you can to help him achieve the best grade he can achieve in your class.'"

According to Dennis, the teacher later told her that another of the player's instructors informed her in March that the new plan was for the student to get a C, but again without offering a means for that to happen.

"Instead of having to come to the board (central office) to talk with the assistant superintendent about this, ideally she would have been able to go to the principal of the school, but the teacher did not feel comfortable doing this," Dennis said.

The teacher believes she lost her job because she resisted the pressure to give a certain grade, according to Dennis.

Dennis said she is speaking publicly because she believes what happened is wrong, and described the teacher as an "excellent educator."

Bishop said the school system does not have to give a reason for not renewing a teacher who does not have tenure, and said "that's merely speculation on the employee who was not renewed."

Hoover superintendent Andy Craig has hired former federal judge Sam C. Pointer, Jr., an Alabama Law School alumnus, to investigate the matter. Based on information that hasn't gone public yet, there's at least one conflict of interest in Pointer's "independent" investigation, but we'll see where things go from here.

Developing

In today's Birmingham News:

Hoover High School's principal said Wednesday he investigated concerns from his athletics director that athletes were receiving preferential academic treatment, but said they were "unfounded" and based on rumor.

Athletics Director Jerry Browning, though, said his concerns came from several teachers and coaches who approached him this year questioning how some athletes acquired grades and whether they deserved what they were given.

Principal Richard Bishop said Browning raised issues to him about the college eligibility of athletes before meeting with Superintendent Andy Craig. Craig confirmed Tuesday he is investigating Browning's concerns but would not elaborate on the specifics.

The phrase "fox guarding the henhouse" springs to mind here. A suggestion for our friends in the press: have a look into the backgrounds and recent actions of the people involved here (and not just the ones mentioned in the News articles). You'll learn some interesting things. Continuing:

Donna Frazier, president of the Hoover school board, said she is concerned that Browning is leaving Hoover, a national powerhouse, for Saint James, a much smaller Class 4A school.

"If there's something that's going on, I do want to get to the bottom of it," said Frazier, adding she hopes to speak with Craig and Browning.

As noted previously, you will be hearing a lot more about this story in the future.

Something To Keep An Eye On

It might be a good idea to read and remember this story from Tuesday, June 19th's Birmingham News:

Jerry Browning resigned Monday as Hoover High School athletics director and accepted the same position at Saint James School in Montgomery.

Browning said he is leaving after three years because of "philosophical differences" with the current Hoover administration and the chance to spend more time with his family.

"There have been some changes this year that differ from my philosophical approach to education," said Browning, who declined to discuss specifics.

"My entire career, one thing that's very important to me is honesty, integrity, character development. Those are things that I cherish, and I think it's very important those things have to be maintained."

Attempts to reach Hoover Principal Richard Bishop for comment were unsuccessful.

First glance, this is a who-cares, especially if you don't live in Alabama... but a veritable flock of little birds are telling me that this won't be the last time you see the words "Hoover High," "athletics," "education" and "integrity" in the same newspaper article this summer.

Like I said, one to keep an eye on.

UPDATE: From Wednesday's News:

The superintendent for Hoover City Schools said Tuesday he is investigating concerns raised by Hoover High School's athletics director, who resigned Monday and took a job with a private school in Montgomery.

Superintendent Andy Craig said Jerry Browning, Hoover's athletics director for three years, came to him with concerns about the school's athletic programs before he resigned and took a job as athletics director at Saint James School.

Craig would not elaborate on the concerns, saying he did not want to speculate on anything that has not been confirmed.

"It's just too vague. There's nothing decisive," Craig said, adding that he is taking the concerns seriously.

When asked if the concerns related to the football program at Hoover, Craig paused and said: "It's not just football."

Not just football. Perhaps not just one recently-recruited football player, either.

Crossing The Line

A brief blurb from Sunday's Miami Herald is perking up ears in message board land this week.

Four months after his criticized departure from the Dolphins, Alabama coach Nick Saban received a celebrity-type reception at one school when he returned here for a recruiting trip last week. ''The faculty was excited,'' Fort Lauderdale Dillard coach Keith Franklin said. Security guards and administrators requested pictures with Saban, and he obliged. 'They said, `We love you here at Dillard,' '' Franklin said.

Kind of mildly interesting as a local-color piece, but it appears that the Herald missed the real story. The portion that's really getting attention follows (emphasis added):

Miami Northwestern defensive tackle Marcus Fortson and Hollywood Chaminade-Madonna linebacker Jordan Futch -- two of the top junior prospects in South Florida -- spoke with Saban and said he left a good impression. ''Good guy,'' Futch said.

Saban also approached Northwestern offensive lineman Brandon Washington, a UM oral commitment. 'He asked me if my heart was in Miami. I said, `No,' '' Washington said, adding there's a good chance he will sign with UM but wants to take other visits. Washington said the way Saban left the Dolphins ''bothered me'' and ''was on my mind,'' and he might not consider Alabama.

"Last week" would have been the week of May 14, which falls within the NCAA-mandated 2007 "Evaluation period" of April 15-May 31, when college coaches may evaluate potential recruits, but may not have actual contacct with those recruits. Based on this report, it appears that Alabama coach Nick "I am not going to be the Alabama coach" Saban" violated NCAA rules regarding contact with recruits on both occasions.

Evaluation - An evaluation is that period of time when it is permissible for authorized athletics department staff members to be involved in off-campus activities designed to assess the academic qualifications and playing ability of prospects. No in-person, off-campus recruiting contacts are made with prospects during an evaluation period.

Contact - A contact is any face-to-face encounter between a prospect or the prospect's parents or legal guardian and an institutional staff member or athletics representative during which any dialogue occurs in excess of an exchange of a greeting. Any such face-to-face encounter that is prearranged or that takes place on the grounds of the prospect's educational institution or at the site of organized competition or practice involving the prospect or the prospect's high school, preparatory school, two-year college or all-star team shall be considered a contact, regardless of the conversation that occ

At first glance, this looks like the kind of minor secondary violation that happens all the time, and frankly gives the NCAA's convoluted rulebook a bad name. Slap on the wrist and move on? Maybe... but maybe not. This note from Colorado's 2002 infractions case might indicate otherwise:

The report noted that the pattern of violations caused the case to rise to the "major" level. A significant number of the findings involved contact with prospects, or "bumping," during non-contact periods in the Spring when only evaluation is permitted. "When viewed separately," the committee's report said, "each of these contacts might be considered secondary; however, taken cumulatively, they reach the level of a major violation."

In testimony before the committee, representatives of the university, as well as former members of the football staff, including the former head coach, characterized the violations as "inappropriate pushing of the rules to their limits," or attempts to be inappropriately "creative." A former assistant football coach testified, "the former head coach had the attitude that he was not traveling to the high school of a prospect without encountering that prospect."

One former assistant football coach said he had "compromised" his integrity by "simply going along with the culture that was out there."

In its public report, the committee said it was taking "this opportunity to send an unequivocal message that the custom of 'bumping' prospects during non-contact periods is a violation of NCAA rules no matter how widespread the practice, and coaches who continue to do so will be held accountable for their actions."

Although the former head coach characterized the encounters as "inadvertent" since often times the high-school coach initiated them, the committee found that, "there was little indication of any attempt to discourage such contacts from occurring."

The committee report went on to say that the former head coach wanted to be seen by the prospect. "He recognized his celebrity status during visits to prospects' high schools and that his presence conveyed his special interest in the prospect," the report said.

That kind of practice does sound a bit familiar, doesn't it? As another former resident of south Florida once said, I think somebody's got some 'splainin' to do.

UPDATE: Forty-eight hours later, newspaper employees who've read blogs and message boards realize what they missed the first time. Advantage: FTB!

Sometimes It's Just Too Easy

Red, meet Neck. Again:

As early as mid-January, the Witts knew their second child was a boy, and they knew his name would be Saban.

That's right, Saban Hardin Witt, who was born Tuesday at about 5 p.m. in Decatur General Hospital, is named after Alabama head football coach Nick Saban.
...

The Witts of Hartselle named their first child, who is 23 months old, Tyde Timothy Witt. He's already attended several Alabama football games.

No mention whatsoever of either of the "Witts" ever having attended a single class at UAT, much less graduating, of course.

Sidewalk alums naming their kids after a football team (misspelling it along the way) and a coach who hasn't even had a spring game yet. Like I said, sometimes it's just too easy.

Today On "As The Pig Squeals..."

The latest casualty in Arkansas' ongoing soap opera: Athletic Director For Life (or so we'd all thought) Frank Broyles, who's apparently set to announce his resignation/retirement any day now.

On the one hand, if I were a Hog fan, I'd be inclined to think Broyles stuck around about ten years too long, and at the very least things ought to be less tumultuous with someone else in charge. On the other, there's about to be a power struggle of epic proportions over yonder in the Ozarks, and somebody--likely many somebodies--are not going to be satisfied with the eventual outcome.

Either way, I'm making some popcorn. It oughta be fun to watch.

Messy Divorce In Fayetteville

Over the last nine seasons, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette assistant managing sports editor Wally Hall has been as big of a cheerleader for Arkansas coach Houston Nutt as Nutt himself has been for his own team--and given Nutt's over-the-top sideline proclivities, that's really saying something. Come hell, high water, losing seasons, sniffing around other jobs and general restlessness on the part of the Arkie fan base, you could always count on Wally to come to Nutt's defense, usually including creative (to say nothing of outright fictional) cheap shots at other SEC teams and coaches along the way.

That long and happy marriage between head coach and local homer appears to be way, way over. Wally's column today is one of the more brutal lambastings of a coach and football program you're ever likely to read. A quick sample:

So, it was not Houston Nutt’s fault that his latest recruiting class ranked No. 9 in the SEC.

According to him, it was the media’s fault.

Well, no one in the media was continuously rude to Gus Malzahn.

No one in the media promised Malzahn and every Razorbacks fan that there would be a passing game.

No one in the media overruled Malzahn’s play calling.

No one in the media tried to hire David Lee as co-offensive coordinator behind Malzahn’s back (after a 10-victory season ).

No one in the media had anything to do with Malzahn’s decision to quietly leave the UA, take a cut in pay and go to a smaller school.

... and on and on and on, for some length. Check out the rest, if you're interested. Suffice to say, Wally has placed himself firmly on the side of Gus Malzahn and the Springdale Brat Pack in Arkansas' current civil war.

Nutt wasn't about to take all of that lying down, and called in to a local Arkansas radio show this morning to refute Hall's column--while Wally himself was apparently in the studio with the hosts. As far as I can tell, Wally didn't say a word of substance while Nutt was on the air. Once Nutt hung up, Wally muttered, "I stand by what I wrote," but didn't try to debate a single point while Nutt was on the line.

Not much fun for Arkansas fans, I'm sure... but for the rest of us, this is as entertaining as a Three Stooges marathon with no Shemps.