Friday preview: Hope

First part here. Photo at the bottom of the post by Todd Van Ernst and borrowed here.



When the dust had settled on Wes Byrum's gamewinning field goal Wes Byrum's gamewinning field goal last fall, and the same Auburn team that had lost to Mississippi St. and trailed New Mexico St. deep into the second quarter walked out of Florida Field with a win, I thought at first it was the most pleasantly shocking experience I had ever had as an Auburn football fan.

Sometime later I remembered: No, no it isn't. Nov. 13, 1999. Auburn, 4-5 with two of those wins coming in one-touchdown games against Appalachian St. and Idaho. Georgia, 6-2, ranked 14th in the country. Georgia the home team. Halftime score: 31-0, Auburn.

By the time previously Ben "Eh, whatever" Leard had connected for his fourth touchdown of pass of the day, my ecstasy had actually waned a bit, having crossed over in part to pure, unadulterated confusion: 31-0? Today? What? No, seriously: what? I had never been more happily stunned as an Auburn fan. 10 years later, even with Tommy Tuberville at Auburn's helm for every one of those years, I still haven't. The first surprise was always going to be the biggest surprise, I guess. Once we knew what Tubby was capable of, the shock wasn't ever going to be quite the same.

In fact, by the end of last season (thanks in no small part to that Florida win), the shock wasn't that Auburn had defeated a much more talented, much higher-ranked team: the shock was that Auburn had lost to that team. The LSU loss earlier this year hurt not just for being a loss, but because this was twice consecutively Tommy Tuberville had his team in position to surprise again, to reprise in some small fashion that first wonderfully bewildering moment between the hedges nine years ago, and could not do it.

This is why I do worry about Tubby's Auburn future--and Auburn's future, period-- should he lose these final two games at the Amen Corner (a nickname that seems more appropriate in 2008 than it ever did during the tenure of the coach that coined it). Auburn is, once again, in the position of being a decisive underdog to two of the best teams in the country. Once again, there's precious little in the way of rational reasons to believe Auburn will win either game. Once again, a win will be nothing less than a wondrous, near-fatal blow to the Auburn fandom coronary. If Tubby can no longer win in these hopeless situations, if Tubby can't shock us any more, is he even Tubby? And would we want someone who is no longer Tubby still coaching our football team?

There is no other way to respond to that other than to say "we'll cross that bridge when we get there," because until then, he's still Tubby. He's still the same coach who took his a football team into Athens in 1999 and came back with the Auburn Tigers. Still the same coach who beat Florida and Spurrier in 2001, Alabama and Fran in 2002, Florida and Urban Meyer in 2006 and 2007. Until proven definitively otherwise, he's still Surprise made human and pacing the Auburn sideline in a headset and glasses.

Tommy Tuberville, flawed as he may be, is the reason I have hope for Auburn in tomorrow's game against Georgia. What he did for Ben Leard, he can do for Kodi Burns. What he did for that bunch of Tigers, he can do for these. He won that game. He can win this one.

Prove it, Tubby. Prove it, Auburn. Let's go.

War Eagle.