Wrong

Mike Svetitz recycles a meme started by a certain Mobile Register columnist--or, I'm assuming he started it based on the headline in my feed reader; per previous stipulations, I didn't actually read the thing--that Tubby's coaching for his coaching life tonight:

But what about your vote? Did Tuberville say enough during his (Monday) rant to sway you one way or the other?

Well, if this was the real election, you’d have two more weeks to make up your mind. Unfortunately, Auburn’s D-Day is today.

The Tigers’ game against West Virginia tonight in Morgantown is the biggest Auburn will face all season. No, it’s not the national championship, but it’s close. About as close as this team can get to one.

Seriously. It’s that big.

No, seriously, it's not.

I daresay Auburn fans--many of us, anyway--aren't still under any kind of illusion that this team is going to suddenly rise up and sweep its way to 9-3. We watched the Vanderbilt game. We watched the Arkansas game. We know what this team is already, or at least what kind of season this team has produced. A loss in Morgantown tonight, yes, would make a lost season all the more lost. A loss would cut the wounds just a little bit deeper. But the wound's already been made. The season, in terms of any meaningful non-Shreveport or non-Iron Bowl goals Auburn might have had, is already lost. Tonight changes none of that.

This is not to say that there isn't hope for at least 6-6, 7-5, maybe even 8-4 if Tubby has a Fairy Godmother of Offense who visited during the bye week. This is not to say I won't see winning in Bryant-Denny as a possibility right up until the very moment the final zeroes hit the scoreboard. It's sure as hell not to say Auburn doesn't have a very, very good chance tonight against an offense as aerially-challenged as West Virginia's and a defense that should, theoretically, give up some yards.

But there's only one game remaining on Auburn's schedule* that genuinely has a direct impact on Tubby's potential employment status, and it will be played in Tuscaloosa on Nov. 29. When it comes to a decision as momentous as "Who will be Auburn's head football coach?", I have a hard time believing 6-6 with a win over West Virginia is any different from 5-7 with a loss to West Virginia; if Auburn does lose the Iron Bowl, I can't see how in Tubby terms 7-5 with a victory in Morgantown is any different from 6-6 with a loss.

Yes, I'll be screaming bloody murder at my television tonight as always and yes, in the unfortunate event of an Auburn defeat I'll settle into a funk similar to the ones that gripped us all after Vandy, after Arkansas. But to pretend that a nonconference game against a 4-2 Big East team in a season where Auburn is already 4-3, unranked, and out of the SEC race is "as close as this team can get" to a national championship game is absurd, mindless hot air for the sake of hot air. To call this game "D-Day" wen the Iron Bowl still waits on the schedule is 100 percent USDA-approved nonsense.

Tonight matters--they all matter--but at the JCCW, at least, what matters most if Auburn looks like a team that's put the Vandy and Arkansas losses behind them and is ready to salvage whatever they can out of 2008, or like a team that's ready to put the entire sorry mess behind them and move on to next year. Tubby's die just won't be cast tonight.