The Works, while I've got a sec-style

A few quick mid-day links for ya ...



Mario Fun-nin? Lots of talk about Super Mario this week, most of it neatly wrapped into a nice package here by the O-A News's Collin Mickle. You know most of it by now, though: Fannin entered the ULM game as jack-of-all-offensive-trades (positive view) or the No. 3 slot wideout (negative view), touched the ball three times, got more-or-less publicly chewed out by Franklin, and now has allegedly had his duties scaled back to one, uh, trade.

This is, to the JCCW's way of thinking, the No. 2 question for the Auburn offense as it heads into tomorrow's game: how does it put this guy to use? Because Fannin is too talented not to use. Three touches aren't gonna cut it week-in, week-out. Yes, Auburn can beat ULM that way and I don't mind rewarding Fannin's poor play when the ball's in someone else hands by keeping it out of his. But I'm not sure at all Auburn can beat [SEC team of your choice goes here] with him so uninvolved. Here's to hoping for better things tomorrow.

More on Fannin and the holes at outside WR here, courtesy of Luke Brietzke, who I suppose is David Ching's fill-in.

Update. Burns remains a "game-time decision." If I'm reading between Tubby's lines correctly, I think we only see him if Auburn's in danger in the second half.

Good stuff at Track'Em, starting with a bunch of worthwhile information from Jay and continuing through our one-liner of the week from War Eagle Atlanta:

At least SI saw fit not to put Sarah Jessica Parker Wilson on the cover. Like his fellow long-haired predecessor Brodie, he's more suitable for People, US, or Tiger Beat (pun intended).

ZING!

Yep. Not sure how I missed this wherever it appeared in the MSM, but Robert Dunn as quoted by Chris Shelling as quoted by TWER:

I know what plays we can run and what plays the coach could have been running. On the defense the middle of the field was wide open. Anyone could see that. Just throw a post and we score a touchdown every time. We really didn’t want to open up the playbook much. We were up. There’s no need to pile it on. You’ve got to have respect for the game. If you’re up 28-0 or 34-0 there’s no need to try to hail mary the ball. Things like that get players hurt. We just kept it basic and simple. I don’t feel like we have any struggles.

Part of me wants to say "I'm not so sure we want to be that cocky about our abilities whilst our quarterbacks are throwing balls directly into the arms of the opponent and we're dropping the ball on routine out routes, eh, Robert?" But most of me just feels reassured that the same balls-to-the-wall game we saw called by Franklin against Clemson will be back as soon as it's needed.

Wait, are you thinking rationally? We don't allow that in this conference. Richard Pittman at the delightfully new-and-improved ATVS applauds LSU and Troy for rescheduling:

Football is a big production. You have media; you have tailgaters arriving on Wednesday for a Saturday game; you have a visiting team that needs hotels to stay in; you have visiting fans that need to make it in; you have restaurants that need to be fully staffed and fully functional; you have to have portable toilets in place to accommodate all the people; you have to have ice for the concession stands; you have to have thousands of little things that Baton Rouge would have a very hard time providing right now. To try to put on such a big production during this sort of event would be, I think, foolish. As Mrs. ATVS said, "There's being resilient, and then there's just fiddling while Rome burns." Putting on an LSU football game during this is fiddling, particularly when the game can be easily rescheduled.

Football, less important than making sure everyone has electricity? Blasphemy! Thoughtful, well-reasoned, compassionate blasphemy, yes, but blasphemy.