The Works, Wearers of the A-style

Four weeks is a long time to go without linking up any of the always fine work produced by the Auburn blAUgosphere, so we've got quite a backlog I'm attempting to remedy in this post, starting with the welcome return of regular content from Jeremy, J.M., and TWER. Like this scan (amongst others) from the 1919 Glomerata:



Dude, "Wearers of the A"? How cool is that? It's pluralized and non-gender-specific and kind of even more Auburn-specific than even "Tigers." If Kyle can get away with the pretension of calling Georgia the "Classic City Canines," I think I can get away with working Wearers of the A in for variety's sake every now and then, right? (Another awesome Glomerata scan from the 1960s available here.)

Rebuttal. Just before leaving on my recent sojourn I wrote a post explaining why I thought burning Tyrik Rollison's redshirt wouldn't be the disaster burning Kodi Burns's two years ago was. And though it's a pretty rare occasion when Grotus' Acorn and I don't see eye-to-eye, this was one of those occasions:

It's probably true that Tyrik Rollison fresh out of highschool is a more polished QB than was Kodi Burns right out of highschool. Sure, 73% completion rate is nothing to sneeze at, and a mobile quarterback (I think) has to lean on his accuracy. But in no way does that mean that Rollison can afford to just give up a redshirt year of learning. Decision-making and command of the offense are the QB's first and most important job - even before throwing the ball - and Auburn has failed in great part due to lack of not physical talent, but this sort of leadership. Sacrificing leadership for raw talent is exactly the same mistake we made in 2007 with Kodi vs. Brandon. Most of the time, the defense would be in good coverage of the handful of pass plays Kodi could execute, or he would not find his open man and would just run. If he ever displayed his inaccuracy, it was on the rare occasion that he had the opportunity to pass and actually took it. He wasn't in true command of the offense, and that - not his inaccuracy - hamstrung him. It doesn't matter if Rollison can throw a football through a moving moon pie from eighty yards away if he throws the ball to the wrong receiver, if he can only run two plays, or if he takes off downfield because he can't find the open man.

This is an excellent point, and Grotus has several more to make, including a refutation of my claim that Auburn is in "win now" mode. For the record, Rollison's high school coach agrees that a redshirt is the best course for him:

"I'd love to see him redshirt and then see how good he could get where he could really understand the system," Owens said. "If he was rushed into it I think he could handle it, yes, but if he redshirted, I think he would understand it better and get adjusted to college life."

Now, so we're clear, I've always maintained that the optimum result from Rollison's first season on the Plains is that he sits it out. The question is: What do we do if Starter A can't cut it and Rollison appears to be the next-best option? Grotus is right that "We are Auburn, and we will always be Auburn," but even if Auburn can rebound from another 5-7 losing season, it'll be much easier from a lot of standpoints to rebound from a 7-5 bowl-bound season. If playing Rollison could conceivably make Auburn more likely to have the latter record than the former, wouldn't it be worth sacrificing that extra season? Maybe redshirt freshman Rollison is a little better and has that extra year of eligibility than true sophomore Rollison, but I don't he's so much better that it's worth making a decision that doesn't give Auburn their best chance to win this season.

Co-sign. Section 13 is counting down his favorite Auburn players of all-time, and it's nice to see someone else who remembers one of the biggest, most valuable weapons of the early Bowden years:

#29. Terry Daniel

Some would say it's wrong to put a punter on here, but Daniel was different. By hangtime and distance he may be the greatest punter in Auburn history. He was an All-American in 1993 when he led the nation in punting average with 46.9 yards per kick. That's possibly the best average in Auburn history, and is definitely the best average since records were kept in 1960.

If you think it was coincidence that Auburn won 20 straight games at the same time they just happened to have arguably the best punter in school history ... well, you probably just haven't thought about it, but you get the point: Daniels was as big a part of those teams as Frank Sanders, Brian Robinson, James Bostic, etc.

And hey, speaking of Bostic, look what else Section 13 found:



Delightful.

Plug of a shameless nature. I spent a good chunk of last week in B'ham and had just long enough to pay a visit to the "studio" where friends-of-the-blog Reed and Will record their daily Internet radio show, Oh Brother. On yesterday's show I fired off a series of predictions on Auburn, Alabama, and the SEC season; it lasts about 10 minutes or so and you can listen to that here. I'll be back on to battle Will in their weekly guest contest tomorrow and around to answer questions on Saturday's show, so be sure to check back.

I did make one minor error, claiming that the Tide will be hosting both LSU and Ole Miss when they have to travel to Oxford and host Arkansas instead. Still, that doesn't change the fact I'm giving the Tide the slightest of edges in the West division race ... right now. I reserve the right to change my mind on his one. It's such a toss-up that I feel Blutarsky's pain when he tries to decide between the three consensus candidates using ye olde pros and cons list and finally decides ...

That didn’t help much at all.

We'll come back to this later as the season approaches, but right now, I can't remember a divisional race that looked this close in the preseason.

Rapid-fire. Many of these are seriously old cheese by now, but I enjoyed them, so I'm passing them on: The Auburner explores the price Saban paid for his Iron Bowl villainy ... PPL previews Auburn's season in haiku, always a welcome format in blogworld ... maybe the SEC should have gone with the SEC Network over the ESPN mega-deal after all, particularly since we're talking about a contract lasting 15 freaking years ... Lifetime of Defeats digs up some always-welcome Bo shots ... Jay Coulter asks "What if Chizik Never Worked in Ames?", and while I think it takes some serious orange-and-blue blinders to pretend Chizik's awful--no two ways about it--tenure at ISU shouldn't count against him, it's true that it's easy to forget how impressive his list of accomplishments leading up to his time in Ames really are ... Pat White didn't trust Nick Saban, a pretty shrewd move if you ask Alonzo Lawrence (via) ... "College Football Team X is like Thing Y" posts have been done to death (I should know), but it's not surprising that Black Heart Gold Pants can still pull it off ... and lastly, the excellent "10 Questions" series at the AUfficial site continues with Jay Boulware, Jeff Grimes, and Phillip Lolley.