Afternoonlinks

Man oh man, has it been a slooooooow couple of news days in Auburnland. When the biggest story of the day on the beat blogs is the hiring of a new "senior associate athletic director for external affairs," you know the illustration Joel Hollingsworth picked out for his news-starved Dr. Saturday post this morning is on the money.

But here's a few things worth taking a gander at:

-- AuburnUndercover was nice enough to leave their story on Clinton Durst outside the paywall. Durst unsurprisingly comes off as a pretty likeable guy, referring to himself as a "bum off the street," leading to this particularly interesting passage:

Playing for the first time before 80,000-plus at Jordan-Hare stadium can be a daunting experience even for those who were high school stars. When Durst trotted onto the field for the first time against Louisiana-Monroe last season, it was his first football game, period.

“My heart was beating out of my chest,” Durst said. “I couldn’t breathe. But after that first punt, it was just a game, just people, no big deal. That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway.”

It's almost the usual athletic blither, but that little touch of honesty at the end gives it away. Of course, if nerves ever really did bother Durst last year, he didn't show it--it's more than a little ironic to read this and remember it was Shoemaker who helped gag a game away in his one appearance last year.

--You may have already seen this, but Braves and Birds' Michael offers some pretty conclusive evidence that a Coach of the Year trophy isn't the best omen for a team's karma going forward. The 2008 winner on that list I'll be watching most closely is Paul Johnson--you would think a second season of transition into a system as unorthodox as his option would mean nothing but improvement over the first, but the Jackets have arguably the toughest schedule in the ACC.

-- Auburntron says this billboard was spotted in Mobile:



To answer your question, yes, I think it's a recruiting billboard ... but for recruiting students. (Mostly, anyway.)

--South Carolina reports a secondary violation for offering "impermissible snacks," which is totally the name of my next fantasy team or Rock Band band or whatever.

-- Barrett Salleee runs down the top 5 non-conference games in the SEC this year, and all you need to know about the league's scheduling habits is that LSU at Washington makes the list. (I'd have gone with Carolina at N.C. State myself, but that LSU at Washington is even in play pretty much says it all.)