The Works, open letter to Sammy the Cat-style

Dear Sammy,

How are you? My name is Jerry and I am an Auburn fan. Like a lot of Auburn fans I know--actually, pretty much all of them! You're famous!--I saw you on the TV yesterday when Pat Dye himself came to see you and make fun of Tennessee fans:



OK, so I didn't actually see you on TV. I saw you on the Internet, which maybe means you're not as famous as I said. But at least they are letting you inside the post office now! I bet it's warmer in there. If you lived in Michigan, and they didn't let you inside the post office, I bet you would be dead!



It's SOOOOO cold! Maybe if they'll let you live in the post office, I could come live in the post office in Notasulga too and we'll both be warm and be Auburn fans! It'll be like that story by the nice lady from Mississippi and I'd tell you all about the cool things that are happening in Auburn football and the college football in other places. Although there aren't very many right now, which is why I'm taking the time to write you.

Hell, while we're recruiting their players, might as well recruit the coach, too. The hot name for Auburn's offensive line hire: Steve Campbell, the current head coach at the suddenly very-familiar Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. Campbell's coached the line in the SEC before with a stint at Mississippi St., but probably the standout line on his resume is that he was the head coach at Delta State from 1999-2001 when the then-Fighting Okra (now Statesmen--seriously, Sammy, why'd the hell they do something so stupid?) rode a no-huddle offense to a bajillion-and-a-half points and a 63-34 national title victory in 2000. So he should have some idea of how to get the line ready for the new Spread Eagle, the theory must go. Sounds like a pretty good theory to me, but it's not like I'm really the sort of person who can sit in judgment of whoever Chizik hires as an offensive line coach.

False alarm. So Rueben Randle's coach said Randle was going to visit Auburn last weekend, that didn't so much happen, and now his Dad is saying Randle never planned on visiting at all. Too bad--I guess it'll take the rest of the week to build Rome after all. As for the talk here and elsewhere that Randle's visit was a good sign for the future of Auburn's recruiting even if the odds of him sticking at Auburn were forever nil, whatever, it holds--if Luper and Taylor can convince recruits like Randle to visit Oklahoma St., they'll eventually convince them to visit Auburn, too.

Of course, that little bit of news combined with the report that Chizik's offered no-star Daphne QB Robert Cooper will surely reignite the cackling from Tide fans and wailing from Auburn fans that the Tigers' three-star recruiting sky is falling. Again: the No. 1 job for Chizik is just to keep the guys who committed to Tubby committed. Everything else this late in the game is gravy, and if it's Robert Cooper-flavored gravy, hey, I'm cool with that.

(For the record: I can't say I'm excited about the Cooper offer, even though I sort of suspect it's one of those "let's get the promising athlete on campus by giving him a shot at QB and if it works out, great, if not, we can figure out what to do with him later" kind of offers, because it looks like Clint Moseley will probably look elsewhere at this point. Usually I'd shrug my shoulders about this sort of thing with maximum shrugginess, but a friend of mine follows Alabama high school football pretty closely and whose opinion I respect swears that Moseley's legit. So part of me worries a bit that we're looking at some Philip Rivers-style "one that got away" redux even as the overwhelming majority of me worries that I'm clearly losing my mind for even keeping that first part around. Oh well.)

Ramsey footnote. Luke Brietzke makes an interesting point re: yesterday's Ramsey story:

In regard to Ramsey: One thing that isn't addressed in the story is Ramsey's possibly non-existent relationship with teammates. One fellow offensive lineman during the season said "I haven't talked to Chaz in a long time." While Ramsey could get a new start with the new coaching staff, he might have major repairwork to do with teammates.

It doesn't change anything but it's food for thought, particularly on the "maybe Ramsey isn't quite as much of a victim as his Dad is claiming him to be" front.

Cinderella breaks a heel. In most cases a MAC quarterback declaring for the draft a year early would not be news at an Auburn site, but when the MAC team in question is on next year's schedule and the quarterback is a legit Day 1 pro prospect who his team to an 11-2 record and all sorts of points ... well, yes, it's news that Nate Davis has declared. Combination Ball St./Kentucky blog OverThePylon (yes, there's a combination Ball St./Kentucky blog, and a good one at that) has some quality reaction.

Important news. Steve Ensminger landed on his feet, although given that the landing took place at a position-coaching spot at Smiths Station High School, it's probably fair to say he at least turned an ankle ... Johnnie Lett's academic troubles wound up being a one-game issue; we'll see if it matters against Florida tonight ... and most importantly of all, it looks like the Arrested Development movie is closer to reality than ever before.

Well, that's all for now, Sammy! Hope you don't mind that I wrote you on the Internet, but I'm way too lazy to trudge through the snow to the P.O.

Your Pal,
Jerry