The Works, problem solved!-style

Graph of Auburn's percentage chances of winning as they move into the second half.

Good to know. Hey, remember when Tubby said this about Auburn's weekly second-half collapse, plunges so spectacular I hear Nestea's now in talks to become the team's official sponsor (obsolete 90's ad campaign ZING!):

“We’ve got to find some answers there,” Tuberville said Friday in a teleconference. “They’ve got to be there somewhere.”

It's been a week now. Coach, you're a highly paid professional who's had that time to go back to the drawing board and discover the "answers" that have "got to be there somewhere." Want to tell us what they are?

We might go scrimmage at halftime. No, I don't know. There's really no answer to it other than the fact we need something good to happen to us when we first go out there ... There's no miracle formula. We've just got to go out and play better and play for four quarters and coach better and coach for four quarters.

Ah. The solution is to just play better. Got it. Translation: we're boned. (Not that we didn't know this already; as I pointed out in the previous edition of the Works, the entire first half-second half dichotomy is a bit of a red herring.)

The stakes are high. Scout's Barrett Sallee on the LIFE OR DEATH import of the Ole Miss game:

With only nine seniors on the two-deep depth chart, Auburn desperately needs a bowl game – of any kind. If, for no other reason, to capitalize on bowl practices. At this point, a bowl game itself would be secondary to improving the roster for the next season ... (F)or the Tigers to salvage anything out of this season, they need to forget the disaster that has been the first two months of this season, and play November for what it is - a fight for the right to practice in December.

All together now: You gotta FIGHT ... for your RIGHT ... to practice in DeceeeeeeeeeeeeemBER! There's two sad things about Sallee's statement here:

1. He's not being ironic in any fashion.
2. I completely agree with him.

Ca$h Rules Everything Around Me. Tubby's Magic 8-ball says signs pointing to another year say yes:

Tuberville's buyout contains two key provisions.

The first is well-known. If Auburn fires Tuberville this year, it owes him $6 million. Conversely, if Tuberville leaves Auburn for another job this year, Tuberville - or his new employer - owes Auburn $6 million.

The seldom-discussed provision is just when exactly the side that files for divorce has to fork over the money ... the total amount is due and payable with two big checks within one short year.

If Auburn fires Tuberville, Auburn has to pay him one $3 million check within 30 days of his termination and another $3 million check on the one-year anniversary of his dismissal.

So not only are we talking about Darth Lowder scraping up 6 million dollars from the cushions of his couch (on the jet), we're talking about him scraping up the entire amount in the space of a year, in the middle of what might wind up the worst economy of our lifetime. I shouldn't put it past him, but I think I might anyway.

If you think all the pregame stuff is cool, wait 'til you see the actual game. Via TWER comes quite possibly the sweetest Auburn Youtube of the season, the BBC's Stephen Fry getting his Iron Bowl on:



It's official: the JCCW's alternative nickname for the Iron Bowl is the Dixie Derby. (Yes, the Brit term for "rivalry" Fry pronounces "darby" is spelled "derby." As Wilde once said, the Yanks and the Brits are truly two people divided by a common language.)

What on earth? This would indeed be the strangest Auburn stat I would ever remember seeing:

If Swinton doesn't catch another pass this season, he will leave Auburn with a bizarre and frustrating box score--exactly one reception in each of his four seasons.

Seriously, what are the odds? Though there's not much question you couldn't ask for a better emblem of Swinton's remarkable ability to avoid improving over the course of his Auburn career than "one catch every year for four years."

You've gotta be kidding me. Next year, I'm going to campaign that I should be given Tommy Hicks's Harris Poll ballot, because clearly it shouldn't be in the hands of someone who's willing to vote like this:

-- 12. Missouri -- 13. Oklahoma State

Dude, no exaggeration, there really are sea urchins who could tell you that ranking a team with two losses one spot ahead of a team with one loss that freaking beat the first team head-to-head and lost to the same third team the first team lost to by 20 fewer points is the sign of a diseased mind. Unacceptable.

Damn fairness. After praising Tubby for his Nall-hoppin' exuberance this week, and specifically calling out the Tide's coachbot as the sort who could never allow himself to experience that kind of hu-man emotion, I suppose I should note that Saban did, in fact, chest-bump one of his players during the Tennessee win. As TSIB points out, if Saban has indeed learned to mimic or possibly even experience actual feelings, this is indeed a dark day for humanity. Thanks goodness Ian Rapaport had the gall to ask the coachbot about it. The response:

It's not the first time I've time I've been excited and jumped up in the air, and I'm NOT going to evaluate how I act on the sidelines. (Getting louder) I'm an emotional guy. Sometimes, I chew 'em out, too. You're NOT going to get an explanation for that, either.

Whew. Everything's right with the world again.

FWIW, I agree. I've gone this entire post without making any Halloween-related puns or eferences, haven't I? Well let's take this opportunity to point out how downright spooky it is that not one but two different Dawg bloggers have spent their Florida Hate Week ... defending Tim Tebow? It's true. Michael unleashed his fiskin' hammer on Mark Bradley for daring to suggest Stafford was the better QB at this year's Cocktail Party, and holy hell no one's going to accuse Doug Gillett of pandering to his audience anytime soon after this must-read man-crush love letter to the Tebow Child.

It's all enough to make me damn glad I'm not a Dawg blogger this week. Because I'd have to admit to my readers I pretty much agree with everything they've got to say; Tebow might not deserve all the hype, but he deserves a lot of it, and my reaction after watching him in the press conference following the Ole Miss defeat--when he not only swore that he'd work as hard as he possibly could to keep Florida from losing another game but said with his words, his voice, his posture, his whole damn being that that was exactly what he was going to go out and do--was "Man, I wish he played for us."