10 more Amen Corner thoughts

With where I stand on the 2006 regular season already posted, here's 10 other quickie thoughts on the 2006 Amen Corner:

1. Here’s to hoping Neil Caudle is worth a damn (or Blake Field undergoes a Campbell-like transformation), because we’ve got to get Brandon Cox more rest next season. The mega-clutch guy who we saw against Georgia and ‘Bama last season wasn’t even a blood relative of the guy we saw play quarterback against them this year, much less the same person. Some of that blame goes on the offensive line and Nall and Borges’s failure to get it fixed—you’d be skittish too if you’d been sacked at the David Carr-esque rate Cox was this year—but you’re not going to get much going offensively with that kind of play from your quarterback.

2. That said, Auburn needed just one play from their QB to win last Saturday, and on the road, against a solid defense, without his favorite receiver, Cox made it. I’m glad we’ve got him for one more, hopefully injury-free season.

3. As mentioned previously, the Georgia loss was, without question, the worst loss of the Borges era. Make no mistake--you could call Georgia a “dangerous,” “due,” or maybe even “talented” team, but they were not what you would call a “good” football team. Good teams don’t lose to Vandy and Kentucky, scrape past Colorado and Miss. St. at home, and get soundly beaten by Florida and Tennessee. You could perhaps even argue the loss was Tubby’s worst since his inaugural season—since then no team to win at Jordan-Hare has finished with more than five losses, a total the Dawgs would equal with a loss to Tech and surpass with a bowl loss. (Note that I wouldn’t argue this with the 31-7 drubbing at Bama’s hands in 2001 out there. But you could.)

4. Glad to see Kenny Irons score a TD, go over 80 yards, and average better than 4 yards a pop in his last Iron Bowl. Given healthy limbs, a better commitment to the running game, and an o-line that warranted that commitment, he would have done some amazing things this season. See you on Sundays, Kenny.

5. Whatever Tubby’s doing to prepare his teams for 11:30 kickoffs, he needs to stop doing.

6. I used to get my hackles raised by people calling Ohio St.-Michigan or Florida St.-Miami or anything besides Army-Navy the game’s best rivalry over the Iron Bowl, but not anymore. If you want to define “best” as “intensity plus national profile,” OK, whatever, pick something else, I don’t care. But the Iron Bowl is the most intense, bitter rivalry in the country, period. In all of American sports, UNC-Duke in college hoops or Sox-Yankees in MLB are the only possible candidates to equal Auburn-Alabama. No other game in college football means so incredibly much to so many people year-in year-out, No. 1 vs. No. 2 games be damned. You either understand that or you don’t.

7. I’ve gone back and forth on this, but if I’m Mal Moore I tell Shula that if he overhauls his staff, he gets another year. Shula’s willingness to accept the rancid, stinking pile of refuse that was the job in 2003 means common decency dictates he gets one “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Of course, when you’re talking about a fan base that’s willing to publicly blame a 20-year-old right tackle for “ruining my life” and starting a poll on whether he’s the worst lineman in the history of college football (94% say “Yes”), decency doesn’t necessarily play a big role, I suppose. (Note that the fan in question is not the author behind the site, please.)

8. I don’t blame UGa fans for crowing about the win, but just as I would have gladly swapped seasons with the Dawgs in ’99 (when Ben Leard threw for approximately 763 yards and nine touchdowns in the first half of 4-5 Auburn’s takedown of 6-2 Georgia) so I’d rather have our 10-2 than their 7-4. Could that fact have been lost on Journorock, who I have a great deal of respect for (we work in the same profession and I enjoy his posts) but who violated the Don’t Celebrate Other Teams’ Accomplishments karmic dictum and saw it turn out badly in the end. Not that I have room to talk after my oh-so-casual dismissal of Georgia followed by a lengthy discussion of Auburn’s national title hopes, mind you. Stupid, stupid, stupid. At least Journorock got some traffic out of it.

9. That said, the Iron Bowl was decided as soon as Corso and Herbstreit agreed that Alabama would win the game. “Good pick!” Corso told his colleague. Yes, taking the 6-5 team whose best win came at home over Hawaii over the 9-2 team who had beaten LSU and Florida … an excellent choice.

10. OK, so this isn’t really an Amen Corner thought, but I have to post the site news somewhere. For whom, I’m not sure, since I’m pretty sure 90 percent of the JCCW’s readership (i.e. nine of my ten readers) bailed the week before the UGa game and the remaining 10 percent surely did when the site went postless Iron Bowl week. If there are any stragglers, let me apologize—Sorry, know it’s not fun to check a site you like and see nothing new—then make excuses: my souvenir from my Chicago trip was a raging head cold that turned my routine this week into work-sleep-wake-up-work-sleep. I’ll try to make it up to you with a recap of the ‘Bama game. Coming Wednesday, or I’ll post my address and you can wait outside my door with water balloons.