quickie thoughts

Busy Sunday means the LSU recap will have to wait until late tonight. Until then, some appetizer thoughts on Separation “Pinnacle of Human Evolution” Saturday:

Auburn-LSU

--I’ve seen a lot of manly games in my time, but that might just have been the manliest of them all. My voice dropped an octave by the end of the first quarter. By the end of the game, I’d eaten my weight in turkey legs, arranged to wrestle a bear later this week, and taken a solemn oath to never ask for directions again so long as I live. Ladies, if you’re an Auburn fan and you suddenly sprouted several chest hairs over the weekend, don't worry, it's just an unavolidable side effect from watching this particular game. *Insert obligatory, all-too-easy joke about female LSU and/or Tide fans having always had chest hair here.*

--Yes, LSU got the royal shaft on a call or two. Yes, Auburn was fortunate. No, LSU fans do not have the opportunity to whine and moan about it. (Not that the ones whose thoughts you can read are, mind you.) Not one of those calls would have given LSU a score—there was no overruling a did-he-drop-it-or-not touchdown catch on review, no failure to flag a facemask that prevented an LSU ballcarrier from crossing the goal line. The way Auburn’s D was playing, LSU could have gotten every single call that went against them Saturday and still never set foot in the end zone.

--Not that I’m the first person to say it, but Kenny Irons’s 70 yards in that game are the equivalent of 150 in any other game. No other back in the country save maybe Adrian Beastlyson gets that many, and you will never convince me otherwise.

--I would say “Cox needed to have a better game,” but it’s hard to blame a QB for looking spotty when he can’t make one three-stop drop without having approximately two tons of defensive linemen in his face, and meanwhile his receivers are taking on the hand-down best secondary in the country. Cox also did not throw the ball to the 5-yard line on the last play of the game down by four, which bears mentioning.

--I’ll have more to say about J**n V****n in the recap, but suffice it to say if he hasn’t already founded and become President of the “2006 Auburn Tiger Defense #1 Fan Club!,” he’d better get on that.

--Any Auburn fan who takes the media bait and so much as thinks the words “national championship” already needs to have some sense beaten into them with a sack of doorknobs. A hot Chris Leak could beat us by his lonesome. Georgia has perhaps the country’s best defense that wasn’t playing at Jordan-Hare last Saturday (and if you’ve forgotten how well teams do on the road in that series, get a better memory). Bama, of course, would like to beat us so badly they’ve already got their appointment with Mephistopheles set up and everything. (*Insert obligatory, all-too-easy joke about the Devil already living in Tuscaloosa i.e. hell, here.*) And then, whoopee, Auburn would still have the joy of a likely Gator/Dawg rematch in the SEC title game. Not to go completely Captain Bringdown (tm Dan Loney) on you, but it’s awfully hard seeing a Tubby-coached team take every single one of those games as seriously as they should. Even if this team is as good as the 2004 team, the road back to 12-0 is so much rougher I can’t get too excited about it … yet.

--That said? We have the best defense in the country. We just won a game against the second-best defense in the country. We have what might be the best set of coordinators in the country and arguably the country’s most manly man running the ball for us. We could be, if but for the whims of fate, Ole Miss fans. Times are good. They’re very, very good.

SEC

--Oklahoma 24, UAB 17 vs. Georgia in Matt Stafford’s first start 31, UAB 0 tells you everything you need to know about the SEC this season.

--Still hard to believe certain Gator fans were upset with Urban Meyer after a season in which he had to clean out the cobwebs left by the previous regime and still managed to go 3-0 against the Vols, Dawgs, and Seminoles. And now he’s 4-0 against that trio, has apparently found a running game, and judging by the huge contributions he’s getting from true freshmen he’s apparently as good a recruiter as his reputation suggests. I was distinctly unhappy when Meyer chose the Gators over Notre Dame, and I’m even distinctly-er unhappy now.

--I’m not a Photoshopper, but if I was, now would be the time for me to take the movie poster from “As Good As it Gets” and plug in David Cutcliffe in his Ole Miss gear over Jack Nicholson. Just couldn’t be happy with what you had, could you Rebel administration? And now you’re getting routed by a team coached by a 137-year-old man.

--Who are you, and what have you done with Steve Spurrier?

--If you’re a Vandy kid with a gambling itch, what’s your emotional state right now? Your ‘Dores are a winless 0-3 in the record books, but a perfect 3-0 against the spread. Are you happy or unhappy? Stoked or crushed? How much of your new income are you burning to drown your sorrows?

Elsewhere…

--LOLZ!
--Wanna hear a dirty joke? The Big 12 fell in the mud. Wanna hear a clean joke? The ACC took a bath. HAHAHAHAHA!

(These conferences are so lacking in quality it’s laughable, is what I’m saying.)