2007 A-U pre-view: the Sked

This post is the fourth in a series.

So, when you look at Auburn's schedule, and you've weighed up last year and all the positive things the Tigers have going for them against the negatives, where do you end up? How good a record are we actually talking about here? How close is the pit of late-model Bowden / 2003ish despair? What does it all really mean? cries the tiny terrible emo poet inside every Auburn fan. (Well ... maybe just some Auburn fans. Maybe a few here or there. Or, more likely, just me.)

What follows is the JCCW's best guess at what it means, game-by-game from least to most critical. The "outlook" designations are stolen outright borrowed from the exquisite Big 10 previews at MGoBlog.

The Light Workout, Focusing on Quads and Glutes.

The less said about the Tennessee Tech travashamockery the better. Though on some level, it's corporate genius: the team gets all the comforts of a bye week while the program still gets to charge full price for tickets. Everybody wins! Except, of course, those inconsequential fans.
Outlook: Functional DNP.

The Competitive Scrimmage.

I still fret a bit that New Mexico St. will offer more of a Lousiana Tech-style challenge than the AU powers-that-be intend, but barring a measles outbreak across the entire defensive two-deep, the starters should be on the bench and planning the invasion of Gainesville by the start of the fourth.
Outlook: Auto-win.

The Bling-Bling Opener.

With Kansas St. looking more and more like a 2006 Washington St. doppelganger, if a similar result does indeed come to pass I must offer one tip of the cap, at least, towards the Auburn schedule-makers. They have now arranged back-to-back season openers against BCS conference teams whose past reputations exceed their current abilities, earning Auburn national attention, a veneer of respect (patricularly when contrasted with certain other teams I could name), and excessive credit in the event of a win-- all even as the teams they face stare down odds of victory (we are talking about night game at Jordan-Hare, against a borderline bowl team) only degrees better than New Mexico St.'s. (I know, I know: Georgia Tech. There's no Jon Tenuta defense here, though.) In this case, I'll take zirconia-studded style over *cough* Oklahoma St. *cough cough* substance.

Please note that if Auburn loses Saturday, you have my permission to egg my car for this kind of attitude. But unless K-St. has an even better defense than I'm expecting and Auburn's offense is still suffering from its 2006 mediocrity spasms, I'm just not seeing it. Close for three quarters? Yeah. But a Wildcat win? When even their fans are expecting a two-possession loss, our fans can expect a three-possession win.
Outlook: Probable win.

The Exercises in Corporate Ruthlessness.

Auburn dresses in an expensive, finley-tailored suit and says: We really wish you nothing but the best, Ole Miss and Mississippi St. Why, Bulldogs, that Crooming of the Tide alone last year was enough for us to pick up your tab the next time we go out. But we're all professionals here, right? Letting you stay within a possession or two for three quarters, pulling away for the 17-point victory that we collectively understand was never actually in doubt ... it's nothing personal. Just business. And you in particular, Ole Miss, seemed to be a little unhappy with that arrangement last year. We'll be happy to remind you of its benefits as we play at home this season.
Outlook: Ole Miss: Probable win; Miss. St.: Auto-win.

The Potential Upsets, Bad

It may seem contradictory to show the kind of unwarranted arrogance I did above in regards to Kansas St. and nearly wet myself thinking about South Florida. Both were on-the-rise middle-of-their-league BCS teams last season, both pulled off one massive upset (USF over West Virginia, K-St. the shocker against Texas), both have good young quarterbacks, and both did struggle like all get out at times against seriously sub-par teams. But South Florida's upset came on the road, against a better team, whose QB wasn't hurt for most of the game. South Florida has a tradition of upsets. South Florida didn't get beaten like a pack animal in its final two games of the season.

In short, South Florida is better. But because they're name is "South Florida," and because that first-week victory may be decisive, Auburn will take them more lightly than they will K-St. And this, friends, is reason to fear.

The other potential pitfall is Vanderbilt. Whereas Auburn spent most of last year winning tight games in which they'd been outgained, Vandy spent most of it losing tight games in which they'd been outgainers. As you may have heard, the 'Dores had a better yardage margin in SEC play last year than Auburn did. This is a team that karma owes that will be facing a team karma's looking for a reason to smite the week after the latter plays in the Swamp and the week before it goes to Fayetteville. This is a game, in other words, that also scares the holy beloved crap out of me. I know it's Vandy. But that's exactly what Georgia said last year.

Nonetheless both of these remain ...
Outlook: Probable wins

The Potential Upset, Good.

Everything in the Cheese Puff Preview about the Florida blogosphere's ill-advised taunting of Cox, the series' history of upsets, Tubby's ability coaching as the underdog, and most importantly the hate crime against aesthetics that is Florida's choice of school colors ... all of that still stands. Yes, I am more optimistic about this game than I should be.
Outlook: Tossup (should perhaps be "Probable loss," but ... like I said, optimism.

The Home Road Game.

You can't explain the road team's perpetual success in the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry (home team = 5-11 in last 16) and neither can I. I just know that it will be a long, long time--like, 2046, assuming Georgia wins every game between the hedges between now and then--before Auburn goes to Georgia and I don't feel like the Tigers have a hell of a shot. When Ben Leard can go to Athens and throw four touchdown passes in a half and finish with 416 yards, you know anything's possible. I happen to like the Bulldogs' odds in the SEC East this year, but that doesn't mean I like their odds to beat Auburn at home ... and I'm not alone.
Outlook: Tossup.

The Deciders.

Since the SEC division split in 1992, Auburn has defeated LSU and Arkansas in the same season precisely five times: '93, '94, '97, '00, and '04. Tiger fans can probably figure out that after discarding the two Bowden probation years, the three remaining just happen to be the same three seasons Auburn went to Atlanta. The wins over the Dawgs, Gators, and even the Tide (especially, especially the Tide) are sweet, yes oh yes. But what's really stood in Auburn's way on the path to more SEC titles are the one-two hurdle of the Bayou Bengals and the Hogs. In the same stretch, Auburn's only lost to both during the '98 Fiasco to End All Fiascoes and 2001. But Tubby has learned the hard way that one win isn't good enough. To win the West, Auburn must have both.

The on-field impact of Las Cronicas is probably overstated, but Nutt's year-to-year inconsistency probably isn't. And the more and more hype gets showered on LSU, the more and more they remind me of another, very familiar team of recent vintage that collasped under the planetoid-like weight of preseason expectations. So both are winnable. Atlanta should again be the goal.

But both do remain road games against vastly talented foes that have enjoyed as much success against Auburn as Auburn has against them in recent years. And worst of all, there's two of them.
Outlook: Arkansas: Tossup; LSU: Probable loss.

The Everything.

The day of the 'Bama game, I am going to go to the local store and buy both a bottle of Delirium Tremens and a half-case of Steel Reserve. The former is for celebration in the result of victory, of Auburn's longest winning streak against the Tide in the series history, of the Saban worshippers forced to crawl back to the holes for another year. The latter, in the event of a loss, is for plunging headlong into sweet oblivion as smoothly and quickly as possible.

This year, nothing means more. Nothing even comes close. Fortunately for Auburn fans, Tubby knows it too. And until 'Bama and King Crimson prove otherwise, this game has to be viewed as a ...
Outlook: Probable win.

Best-Case Scenario

I don't think any Auburn fan not under the influence of perspective-altering drugs expects to sweep the four murderous road games, but the Tigers will likely be favored in every home game and none of the roadies is out of reach. Hold serve at home, get the upset in Gainesville, split the West games, and keep the ball rolling in Athens and you're sitting at 11-1 just like that.

Worst-case Scenario

The Tigers sleep on South Florida and lose. The full force of Florida's fully-installed, Tebow-led and optimally-tuned Meyer offense is too much. Vandy takes advantage of the hangover and Lady Luck hands them the sort of fluky game they lost and Auburn won in 2006. Arkansas keeps running over the Tigers and LSU is as good as advertised. Psycholgically shelled, Auburn loses both ends of the Amen Corner and crashes all the way to 5-7.

Final Verdict

Finally, this season is a balance of two things: This is likely the most talented team, top-to-bottom, Tubby has had outside of 2004. This is also the most difficult schedule Tubby has faced, period. Put them together, and you get a prototypcial Tubby year.

Said years consist of mega-victories: I expect Auburn to split on the road, grabbing one of the Florida/Georgia tossups (more likely the Gators, despite the Dawgs' home-field disadvantage) and taking advantage of Arkansas's greenness on defense to earn a measure of vengeance for last season.

Said years consist of losing the SEC West title on tiebreaker: I expect Auburn to lose to LSU in excruciating fashion, the only fashion in which these teams lose to each other. LSU generally does so in Auburn; Auburn generally does so in Baton Rouge. The pattern holds. And let's be frank: of three tossups and a probable loss, getting two of them is just about the best we can hope for.

Depressingly, said years also consist of one soul-jarring upset. And South Florida, Vandy, and ... and ... grit your teeth, get through it ... the Tide (ugh) are all viable candidates. Yes, the Tide. The offense will be good. And what the coaching has lost in human decency, it has made up for in, well, everything else.

But I think Auburn skips that element this year. In part because South Florida and Vandy, while scary, just don't the kind of quality of, say, Arkansas and Georgia last year. And in part because I simply believe Tubby will not let his team lose to the Tide this year.

Perhaps this is misplaced faith. That I'm so much closer to the best-case scenario than the worst is a screaming red flag. So it won't surprise me at all if Auburn goes 9-3; honestly, that's probably closer to where the Tigers' talented-but-oh-so-young roster should finish. But the official pick? 10-2. No trip to Atlanta. But fewer Nebraska-game-like misadventures on offense, a win over the enemy, and a nice warm feeling going into the bowl season regardless.

2007 A-U pre-view: The Cons

This post is the third in a series. In the event you're looking for the next Cheese Puff Preview, the remaining editions have been moved to in-season. Best laid plans ganging oft agley and all. Sorry.



After hitting the Pros last time out, it's time to count down the Cons side of the argument for 2007 Auburn.

10. The blocking of Tommy "Not a Blocking Tight End" Trott. I think every fan has at least one player on their Favorite Team that they like, sure, I mean, they play for my Favorite Team but ... said fan would also like said player to be a just a bit better at playing football. We're not talking about the Chris Cappses of the world here. We're talking about the guys who aren't really bad ... they're just not as good as we'd like. And when Tommy Trott waved the ball around like a semaphore flag before having it predictably knocked loose inside the Florida 5 last year, he became that guy at the JCCW. He then didn't do much to lose said designation down the stretch as a disproportionate number of the many "Kenny Irons takes the handoff, looks for some room on the right, but there's nothing there and he's tackled for a loss of a yard" plays could be laid at his feet. Sorry, Tommy. But given the, ahem, inexperience along the rest of the line, I'm not sure Auburn can afford to play a TE that can't stick with his blocks.

Counter: Trott is a valuable receiver, and with Bennett and McKenzie both available, he doesn't have to be an every-down player any more. Trott can rotate in when receivers are needed and rotate out when power blocking is needed ... provided he doesn't do it so often it becomes a tip-off.

9. Carl Stewart's new trick hamstring. When I wrote that I didn't want Stewart to come back until 30 minutes before the K-St. kickoff, I was joking. Mostly. But it's looking like Stewart won't be back too much before then, if at all. He hasn't practiced a day this fall and still only "hopes to be full speed by early next week." This is precisely the sort of injury that hangs around like a stale fart (Sorry ...forgot Simmons has that charming phrase copyrighted) all season and even if Stewart does manage to get fully recovered, there's no way he's as in synch as he should be after missing virtually every minute of camp. And (I'll say it again) Cox is the only player the Auburn offense would have more trouble replacing other than Stewart.

Counter: The missed time won't really hurt a player as savvy and experienced as Stewart past maybe the first couple of weeks--and as difficult as those games might be, they're not going to Gainesville or Baton Rouge, either. Auburn's coaches know that, too. Maybe that's given them the incentive to be unusually cautious with an injury that's not as serious as the missed time might indicate?

8. The mortal terror of a potential injury to Cox. That's an obtuse way (the only way we know here, you'll notice) of saying the backup QB situation is still more heart-stopping than the Exorcist. It's terrific that Blake Field has convinced Phillip Marshall the Auburn offense wouldn't become a complete train wreck if he ended up under center ... but geez, I'll believe it when I see it. (Ironically, I desperately hope Cox stays healthy and we never see it. So Blake Field, one of my biggest wishes for Auburn this year is that I doubt you 'til the end. Apologies.) Caudle, of course, is an injury casualty for the forseeable future. Burns might be AU's best bet if Cox goes down, but to have to burn his redshirt the same year we've got a third-year senior starter would be the biggest waste since the Superconducting Suprcollider. And I'm far from convinced even Burns would be a match for most SEC teams.

Counter: Hey, knock on wood, Cox has been plenty durable so far. If he does stay healthy, we could have Canadian alt-country chanteuse Neko Case for a backup QB and it wouldn't matter. In fact, it might be a good idea.

If you'd listened to "The Tigers Have Spoken," you'd have a crush, too.

7. Perpeutual Tubbidity. The big bright green hype machine is spitting out names other than Auburn's these days, but if the undefeated Tigers take down an undefeated Gator squad in Gainesville? If they somehow survive Baton Rouge, even if there's a loss along the way there? Here come the "best team in the SEC whispers" and the talk about a Florida-like run ... and then that Tubby thing happens and everything comes to a crashing halt. 2004 obviously excepted, Auburn's been so allergic to prosperity in recent years I think it might be worth asking the team doctor if Allegra is right for the team.

Counter: Uh, Auburn'll cross this bridge when it gets there. Tubbidity means that, yes, an undefeated season is about as likely as Hillary Clinton getting an invitation to an Ann Coulter dinner party. But it's already about that likely ... or less.

Things get a lot more serious from here, by the way.

6. Rod Smith, No. 1 receiver. Prechae Rodriguez, No. 2 receiver. Nameless Faceless, No. 3 receiver. All right, so the real No. 3 receiver is probably Robert Dunn, or maybe James Swinton or Tim Hawthorne or Chris Slaughter or Montez Billings ... but geez, this year at least, none of these guys (Smith and Rodriguez included) is exactly going to be Terry Beasley. They're not likely to even be Devin Aromashadu or Willie Gosha. Rod Smith is a solid possession guy, but I feel fairly certain Bo Pelini isn't lying awake at 3 a.m. trying to figure out how to contain him, or any of AU's receivers. On paper, this the weakest corps of wideouts of Tubby's tenure.

Counter: It might be true that there's not much difference between Auburn's No. 1 guy and No. 8 guy, but the madding crowd at this position means that the odds are in Auburn's favor that someone is going to end up being a lot better than we expect. Ronney Daniels came out of nowhere. Courtney Taylor was a solid contributor as a freshman. There's too many recruiting stars piled up on that list of names for someone not to break out. (Hawthorne and your swollen recruiting rep, I'm looking at you. Injuries, I know, but I heard more about you last year than I have at any point this fall. What's up?)

5. The Freshman Invastion. When copy editors are writing headlines about your team like "Nine freshmen may play key roles at your team" and your team doesn't play in the Sun Belt, that's not a good thing. Supremely talented as guys like Ziemba, McNeil, and Bo Harris might be, you generally need more than pure talent to survive against the likes of, say, Glenn Dorsey. As noted previously, this is a particular problem for the linebackers. As currently constructed the Auburn defense is an invulnerable fire-breathing death-beast. But should a couple of injuries (Johnson) and/or suspensions (Blackmon) strike, the linebackers are going to the blinking red light on a Dr. Wily invention that screams "weak spot."

Counter: It's not like freshmen, true or otherwise, succeeding in the SEC is unheard of. At Auburn alone since the turn of the century, you've got the aforementioned Courtney Taylor. DeMarco McNeil. Cadillac. SenDerrick Marks just last year. All terrific players, but did any of them arrive with so much more guru respect than Ziemba or McNeil? (Well, maybe Cadillac.) It would be nice, yes, if we had a senior Ziemba to keep freshman Ziemba off the field. But either Ziemba (particularly given that Nall seems so high on him) is probably going to be succeed. And even at linebacker, last year Craig Stevens was able to crack the rotation as a true frosh, and Auburn's world did somehow continue to spin.

4. Then again, it ain't just Ziemba along the offensive line. Redshirt frosh Mike Berry's now the starting right guard. Tyronne Green's a first-time starter at left guard. Jason Bosley only started a handful of games in 2006 and didn't set the world on fire. Ziemba means Auburn will start a freshman at both positions on the right side. The two-deep likely includes yet another true frosh in center Ryan Pugh as well as redshirt freshman Byron Isom. The one guy Auburn fans were definitely counting on to help out King Dunlap, one-time mega-recruit Leon Hart, has continued his underwhelming career by hurting his ankle and watching the unheralded Berry steal his spot.

The bottom line: as far as sure things in 2007 along Auburn's offensive line go, it's Dunlap and no one else.

Counter: Seriously: whatever. Last year's line was supposed to be oh-so-dominant, with seniors like Grubbs and Palmer and Duckworth and Cope around. It never was. Neither was the 2003 line that was going to pave to way to Cadillac and Brown's co-Heismans. Auburn's best lines under Tubby? Like his teams as a whole, the one we haven't seen coming: 2000. 2002. 2004. 2007? I know this: when last year's starters had as much experience as they had and they played as inconsistently as Auburn's did last season, it's better not having returning starters than it is having them. Experience or not, returning starters or not, there's too much talent here for Hugh Nall to let the problems that happened last year happen again. Scary as things are on paper, the JCCW's guess is that by season's end, Auburn's issues here will look greatly, greatly exaggerated.

3. Inevitable regression to the mean. I made a mental note ahead of my my look at Phil Steele's forecasts of doom based on Auburn's low yardage efficiency and repeated success in close games in 2006 that SMQ was a 100 percent guaranteed lock to echo those sentiments in the SEC edition of "Life on the Margins." I brain-locked and forgot to include the note, but sure enough, there it was this week, in handy chart form. Auburn was a very fortunate team last year and to rely on that fortune again isn't just tempting fate, it's having a few drinks with fate after work, asking fate back to your apartment afterward, and leaving fate on your couch while you "slip into something more comfortable." (Fate's going to have a hard time saying no, is what I'm saying.)

Counter: The linked post above mostly covers it. But it might be worth noting that Auburn is 22-6 since 2001 and 13-2 since 2003 in one-possession games (and the 2006 Florida game, which was in disguise). Auburn hasn't finished worse than .500 in those games since 1998, when it went 1-2. I wouldn't usually dare challenge the widely-held and sound statistical notion that there's no such thing as "clutch," that chance really does even out over time ... but that sure as hell looks like a trend, doesn't it?

2. (Un-?) Special teams. A true freshman placekicker. A redshirt freshman punter. The kickoff returner gone with a broken toe for the first several weeks. The punt returner barely hanging onto his job. If these units are as weak as they look on paper and Auburn gets back into the slugfests of 2006 where special teams will make the difference in the game, Auburn will be in Lake Baikal-deep trouble.


A song about what Auburn will be in if Byrum and Shoemaker don't come through.

Counter: For starters, Byrum and Shoemaker haven't sucked in practice. Not even a little bit. God only knows if it'll translate this Saturday, but there's hope. Additionally, when it comes to placekicking, Florida could have had a trained mule handling kicks last year and not done any worse, and it hurt them so badly they only beat Ohio St. by 27 in the national title game. As for the returns, well, Davis'll be back eventually and it's not like punt returning has been a strength since Cadillac left.

1. A schedule that hates you, and hates your children. The consensus SEC champ and No. 2 team in the country. The defending national champions featuring the offense their coach has always dreamed of building. The defending SEC West champs, Auburn's single biggest bogey team and home to the country's single best player. And the team that last November handed the Tigers their most emabrrassing loss in years and by nearly all accounts will have only improved. All four of them are on the road.

And that's just the start. There's also two quality BCS non-conference opponents, the second of which has made an annual habit of felling the biggest redwoods on their schedule. There's the traditional doormat who everyone knows is going to upset one of the conference powers and happens to be innocuously snuggled between the Gators and Hogs like a land mine. And there is always the Tide, now coached by an actual coach, and that game's razor's edge of adrenaline and pressure.

It is a schedule that only a sadist, or Idi Amin, or a Tide fan could love.

Counter: There's no real counter here. Sure, Auburn will stand a good shot of surprising the Gators. No one really know what's going to happen with Arkansas and the Tigers will be ready to sacrifice various minor appendages for revenge. LSU is coached by Les Miles and not Jimbo Fisher. And it's not like winning in Athens has ever been an issue. But blowing any of these teams out will be an order taller than tallerson, and that nagging 6-0 close game record last year makes me think that close games will simply not break AU's way this year. Going just 2-2 on this yellow brick cobblestones-made-from-the-bones-of-baby-seals road will be a terrific accomplishment.

Of course, all but the most "National title or bust!" Auburn fans will be happy with 2-2, because the consensus is that the Tigers will sweep their home games. But since 1993, Auburn's finished with an unblemished home record precisely twice, in 2000 and again in 2004. And three (maybe four, though I really think K-St just isn't that big a threat) teams that will visit Jordan-Hare will have more than a fighting chance and grabbing the upset that Tubby's teams have been so vulnerable to over the years.

There are bright sides to many of the arguments brought forth against Auburn's success this season. The team's critics should remember them. But it's true there's no bright side to this schedule.

2007 A-U pre-view: The Pros

This post is the second in a series. In the event you're looking for the next Cheese Puff Preview, the remaining editions have been moved to in-season. Best laid plans ganging oft agley and all. Sorry.



I doubt I'll ever be much interested in writing the traditional "Auburn is set at seventh-string tight end, where walk-on Forrest McWilliker has proven himself more than capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time" exahustive positional breakdown. Or even a more casual unit-by-unit thing. There's a bajillion magazines and half a bajillion websites out there that have already done the same thing, and I can't imagine anyone who's reading this isn't already well aware by now that, say, Antonio Coleman, Octavius Balkcom, Zach Clayton, etc. give Auburn great depth at defensive end.

I'd rather talk about exactly how pumped up Auburn fans should be about the fact that we have great depth at defensive end, or how worried sick that we have less than great depth at linebacker. So here's a countdown of 10 Pros, the 10 biggest reasons I'm confident about the 2007 season, accompanied by their respective counterpoints for balance's sake. Next post will be the 10 Cons and their counterpoints. By the end, the JCCW will have pretty much covered the things worth covering with the season now a week away, thank everything holy.

So, the Pros, with the quick caveat that I am most certainly the glass-half-full type and these reflect that:

10. The comic off-season hijinks of our nonconference opponents. When I first started really buckling down on my research for this season (i.e. blew my entire weekly Panera-double-mocha-and-a-cream-cheese-bagel-for-every-breakfast allowance on Steele, Street and Smith's, Sporting News, etc.) the 1-2 jab of K-St. and South Florida had me deeply uneasy. Sure, Auburn had finally gotten over that Week 1 hump (and how) against Wazzu last year, but that was just one decent non-league opponent. What happens when there's two back-to-back, with the substantially more dangerous team potentially lying in wait on the back half after an over-confidence generating initial rout?

Well, the first thing that happens is that Team A's quarterback hops on the Phillip Fulmer see-food diet and starts going 0-for-the-whole-practice*, and Team B sees virtually everyone on the completed o-line two-deep pick up some form of nagging injury. No, Auburn's injury situation hasn't exactly been cause to break out the party hats and kazoos, either, but overall I would guess Tubby's still happier with how his two-a-days have gone than either Prince or Leavitt. Consider the JCCW's Terror Alert level been downgraded a color.

Counter: Isn't this exactly how K-St. and USF want Auburn to see them?
Counter-counter: At home and at night, will it matter?

9. A coaching staff that's better than yours. And I'm not even talking about the two guys at the top of the heap. I'm talking about Will Muschamp. Eddie Gran. Hugh Nall. James Willis. Every one of those guys is a proven, bankable commodity. Say what you want about Ensminger, but he's a former OC at La. Tech (when they were worth a damn) and Texas A&M ... and on Auburn's coaching staff this season, he's coaching the tight ends. The stability and continuity here from is also particularly important when you consider that some other teams we're just a bit interested in defeating ain't got it.

Counter: Nall's Midas touch from 2004 and 2005 didn't seem to be entirely in effect last season, did it? And Muschamp's forces weren't exactly prepared week-in and week-out, were they?
Counter-counter: Meaning a) Nall's due for a rebound b) he'll make adjustments in Year Two.

8. Three professional-grade tight ends. Most schools would be happy just to have "Stone-" Cole Bennett, a Jason Witten clone capable of eating defensive linemen for breakfast in the power running game and when Auburn airs it out, nabbing an on-the-go lunch of any linebacker who tries to cover him. But Auburn also has athletic-as-hell Gabe McKenzie and Tommy "Not a Blocking Tight End" Trott, who while not a blocking tight end has the kind of hands that make Borges gush about his potential every time he's brought up. (You know, I should probably change "the kind of hands that make Borges gush" to a less ... peculiar-sounding phrase. Oh well.)

Counter: Bennett may say he's in great shape after the season-ender last year, but is he? And it's not like Borges seemed to go to great lengths to get these guys involved down the 2006 stretch.
Counter-counter: Borges likely would have paid the tight ends substantially more attention if Bennett had been on of him. Also, with McKenzie and Trott around Bennett doesn't have to be an every-down player--just every critical down.

7.King Dunlap. I made this same joke last year, but if your name is friggin' King Dunlap, you are going to be an all-conference caliber offensive lineman if your ancestry is Borneo pygmy on your Mom's side and Tom Cruise on your Dad's. These are the bedrocks great lines are built around.

Counter: Does Auburn really have the materials to build around Dunlap with?
Counter-counter: Either way, it's simply not going to be any worse than last year. Can't be.

6. The Auburn running back tradition upheld. Remember, if you've forgotten: there were times in 2005 when Brad Lester and Kenny Irons were both healthy, and Lester got more carries. Remember than Ben Tate had the team's highest rushing average for a running back last year by more than two full yards, impressive even if he'd been running against Boy Scout troop 673. And of course Borges has more or less gone on record as saying Fannin's got more talent than either. Two years ago Tre Smith had first crack, but we all expected that even if it didn't work out with Smith, someone would emerge to carry the load. I have confidence in Lester. But if not, hey ... someone's going to emerge again.

Counter: Lester injures himself tying his cleats, Tate's a paper Tiger who built his rep against the Sisters of the Poor, and no really knows yet about Fannin.
Counter-counter: Call me crazy, but I think Al Borges would, in fact, know. This is Auburn. We're not going without a competent running back.

5. Quentin Groves. Tray Blackmon. I pray thusly for you, O my enemies in purple, in crimson, in red-and-black and whatever they happen to call that color at Arkansas cardinal: May your death, at the least, come swiftly. For it will not come without pain. To rest in even the most infintesimal flicker of hope that it shall not is to entreat the grandest of self-deceptions, and bitter lies.

Counter: Groves can be run on and you just know Blackmon's still got one foot in the doghouse.
Counter-counter: Straws, the grasping of, etc.

4. Al Borges. 33-5 overall. 22-3 in the SEC. With his unit coming off of a subpar year and detractors everywhere slamming his quarterback, his line, his receivers. This is a man with too much skill and pride to fail in nearly any circumstance; with these circumstances, when that quarterback is a healthy senior in his third year of starting and the blanket dismissal of his receivers ignores the solidity of Bennett, Stewart, and Smith and he has this many weapons to line up behind his quarterback ... he is simply not going to fail us.

Counter: If the line doesn't hold up, all of Cox's experience and the running backs' speed and the tight ends' versatility won't make any difference.
Counter-counter: If the line does hold up, those things will make this offense one, if not exactly to be feared, to have its efficiency unquestionably respected. Though it will depend on that line holding up.

3. Brandon Cox and the season of disrespect. How startling it's been to see the same quarterback who as a sophomore walked into the overflowing cauldron of noise and hatred that is a 6:47 p.m. kickoff in Baton Rouge, faced fourth-and-goal from the 5 with under five minutes to play, and calmly flipped the ball into the back of the end zone to give his team the lead suddenly told he would not be fit to quarterback at Troy, or Rice, or Lousiana-Monroe. That if Auburn had the sophomores currently quarterbacking at Ball State, SMU, and Arkansas St., they would be better off.

To take Jay Coulter's highly appropriate history lesson one small step further, Auburn has started four other senior quarterbacks in the previous 15 years. Three of them won the SEC West and the other went undefeated while on probation. And now the fifth has every drop of motivation and karma behind him he could ask for. As they were when Campbell got (essentially) booed in the opening game of 2004, the redemption stories are already writing themselves.

Counter: Who's to say he wasn't permanently broken last year? MG isn't the sort of disease that just magically disappears from the body like Magic Johnson's HIV.
Counter-counter: I'm taking his word and his coaches' word that he is 100 percent. If he is not ... well, yes, that will cause problems.

2. Tommy Tuberville, LSU, and Nick Saban. I have precisely zero doubt that after 2004, any coach in the SEC takes public perception more seriously than Tubby does. In fact, you will never convince me he wasn't already invested heavily--and delighted in--his team's clippings in the summer of 2003. That year he was able to blame the overflow of hype for his team's demise. Then the very next year he could blame the lack of hype for his team's vicious snub. It seems unlikely, to me, that Tubby will ever be happy with the amount of goodwill his team receives in the preseason, but that's how it goes for a coach whose teams have been floundering as the favorite and deadly as the underdog for nearly a decade; there will always be too much attention or too little.

But this off-season is a new animal all together. One one side there is the actual business of expectations, and by this point any public figure claiming that LSU will somehow drop the division title is a lone voice crying in the wilderness, taken as seriously as the bum on the park bench babbling madness. In the coaching staff appraisal above I linked to an outstanding RBR post from Outside the Sidelines that goes into great detail on the hidden problems and obstacles LSU faces this season. But for all his quibbling about the tongue-baths lavished on the Tigers recently, OTS still rankes them fourth in the nation and picks them for the SEC title. Brian of MGoBlog has twice now made strong arguments on behalf of an Arkansas team that I happen to agree is being written off far too quickly (just to warn you, he's also predicting an Auburn crash-and-burn). But there, again, sits LSU at No. 3 and as Brian's de facto SEC champ. Even experts (and I mean that as sincerely as I can ... OTS and Brian know far, far more about this sport than the likes of, say, Dennis Dodd) who don't think LSU's that good still think they're better than anyone else in the SEC; even those that think other SEC teams are very good don't think they're as good as LSU. That his team has gone (again) 33-5 in three years and now isn't even considered a threat surely, surely has Tubby griding his teeth in his sleep ... and just as surely has him stoking the fires of his players at every possible opportunity.

But methinks the LSU hubbub merely motivates Tubby. The Saban hubbub likely enrages him. A team that he has beaten five consecutive times, often in brutal fashion, now coached by an opponent he fought to a stalemate at the barest minimum (and once utterly horse-whipped with a team that didn't even win the division) ... and this, and this, and this is already the result.

This, almost certainly, is the most disrespected, overlooked, and just plain infuriated Tommy Tuberville has ever been. This is a coach who made public that he felt slighted on behalf of his quarterback not being named pre-season third-team All-SEC. That is a much, much smaller issue than the media storm enveloping 'Bama and LSU at the moment. And I suspect that Tubby, at this moment, would do nearly anything imaginable to crush the two of them and I suspect he is, at this moment, doing every single thing he knows to do to make that happen. No, he hasn't made too much noise about to the media. But I suspect still he is angry, he is wounded, and he is driven.
And when that has been the case for Tubby--see that horse-whipping I mentioned earlier, coming off the back of back-to-back defeats and LSU being made a heavy favorite on the road--he is not one to lose.

Counter: Motivation doesn't matter if, oh, Cox isn't healthy or Byrum wets his pants or the receivers can't get open in an empty meadow.
Counter-counter: Auburn's had problems before. As I've pointed out previously (at the tail end of that post), they're still 7-1 in three seasons as an underdog or three-point favorite or less, and the "1" was the John Vaughn catastrophe. That is what happens when Tubby and his team are focused and prepared, and they will be focused and prepared often this season.

1.A defense that will devour everything in its path. It's not just Blackmon and Groves. Pat Sims has allegedly been an unholy terror in camp, and he's the only one of the four up front that didn't start last year. Blackmon is flanked by one returning starter who's as steady as they come in Merrill Johnson (when healthy, admittedly) and another talented enough to crack the rotation as a true freshman in Craig Stevens. In the secondary, corner Jerraud Powers and safety Zac Etheridge have been two of Auburn's best players in practice, and neither one is SEC All-Freshman and appropriately-named Aairon Savage or seen-it-all veterans Jonathan Wilhite or Eric Brock. Or, hey, Patrick Lee ...

The point being: find a weak spot. Please. Throw, and Groves and Sen'Derrick Marks are on their way with Savage, Powers, and Wilhite out there waiting. Run the middle, and Thompson and Sims are happy to collapse the middle and expose Blackmon's terrible and merciless wrath. Run on the ends and ... well, best of luck moving Marks (6-1, 291) out of the way. My sole recommendation would be to run right at Groves and whichever of the less-terrifying linebackers is behind him, and pray you make the edge before Blackmon arrives. That's all I've got to offer.

But don't take my word for it. Phillip Marshall's been around Auburn for a long time and isn't prone to hyperbole. Hell, he's the sort who'd be perfectly happy with 9-4. And he says, completely straight-facedly, that this defense could be Auburn's best since 1988. Read it, opposing SEC offenses, and weep.

Counter: All you've talked about is the starting 11. There's no depth here and by the end of the season, this defense will be in shredded tatters just like they were vs. UGA last year.
Counter-counter: At linebacker, this is a vaild point--though Tubby's bunch once stuffed Spurrier and Grossman playing what I recall as a Pop Warner star, Andy Dick, and a J.C.Penney's mannequin at linebacker, so maybe it's not. Regardless, Tubby's recruited well enough that both the line and the secondary can stand a couple of blows. Again: Eric Brock and Patrick Lee may come off the bench. I happen to think that qualifies as good depth rather than the opposite.

This was relentlesly cheerleady, I know. The Cons post will be different. I do have genuine worries.

*HT to Bring on the Cats. Also, their TE is suspended. Good times.

2007 A-U pre-view: Phil Steele and 2006 in the rearview

The first in a series previewing Auburn's 2007 season.

Auburn's 2006 campaign was the single most bizarro season this particular AU fan can remember. I'd like to think my running-gag recap of the Tigers' 2006 season from the Cheese Puff Previews encapsulates it in reasonable fashion: Auburn handed the eventual national champion and the SEC's second-best team the only two defeats either of them would suffer to a team that wasn't the other, went undefeated on the road including the record-tying fifth straight win over the Tide, and won the Cotton Bowl over a solid Big 12 team. Auburn also got absolutely crushed in a pair of home games against their second-tier rivals, letting a chance to contend for the SEC title slip away despite the kindest schedule the program has seen in years. After the season-opening drilling of Washington St. the injury-plagued Tigers also never looked like the offensively explosive team projected in the pre-season, relying more and more as the season progressed on a defense prone to game-changing plays, the SEC's best special teams, and good old-fashioned luck*.

So which view do you take: that putting together an 11-2 record and claiming the quality of wins Auburn did despite the injury issues and offensive struggles is another example, like 2000, of Tubby's teams overachieving? Or that the complete choke against the Hawgs and Dawgs with a national title shot in view (in both cases), deterioration of an offensive line that should have been one of the nation's best, and general inability to ever look like the exciting, dangerous team that finished 2005 despite the return of so much key personnel was another example, like 2003, of Tubby's hotly-hyped teams underachieving? It's like the arguments between those half-white half-black guys in that ridiculous Star Trek episode with those half-white half-black guys: you can see both sides of the argument at once at all times and it's well-nigh impossible to tell them apart no matter how hard you look at them.

Which one is beating Florida and which is losing to Georgia by 22?

Long-time readers (both of them) will remember that I was pretty decisively on the underachievement side of the fence at the end of the regular season. I have to admit the Cotton Bowl win (and greater distance from the embarrassment against Georgia) softened that stance substantially, as it became painfully obvious just how hobbled (i.e. quite) Cox and Kenny Irons were by that point. 11-2--particularly when the team's key offensive players were operating at about 37 percent for half the year and 3 of those 11 are Florida, LSU, and a Thumb--is still 11-2 is still 11-2 is still 11-2. Yes, it's still a season we're going to look back on with a fond glint in our eye 10 years from now.

But I don't buy the Tommy Tuberville's Best Coaching Job Ever evaluation, either. On the opposite side of the scale of 11-2 is this statistic from Phil Steele: Auburn was outgained in SEC play by an average of 33.4 yards a game. Average yards gained minus average yards allowed. Pretty simple, elegant statistic, and the only SEC teams with worse marks were Mississippi St., Kentucky, and Ole Miss.

Now, does that mark matter as much as the 6-2 record in SEC play? No. But it's not irrelevant, either. Auburn may have been 11-2, but it didn't exactly play like an 11-2 team, either. As I said in the post from last fall, Auburn should have been a better team in 2006 than they were in 2005, and the record--as important as it is, obviously--was the only measurable way Auburn got better. The injuries excuse some of that, but not an offensive line with that much experience and a first-round draft choice (and a second potential one in Dunlap) playing as poorly as they did, or the utter defensive collapse against Arkansas or Georgia, or the occasional coaching blunder like the late first-half ill-advised blitz that helpfully ushered 'Bama back into that game. A good coaching job? Most certainly. Tubby's best? Uh, no.**

The end result of Tubby's actual best coaching job.

The upshot of Auburn's struggles on the stat sheet, if not the scoreboard, are that certain commentators like Steele are expecting the pendulum to naturally swing back the other way, for the breaks that helped lift Auburn to a 5-0 record in single-possession games last season (6-0 if you include Florida, as you should) to break back in 2007. Thus does Steele rank Auburn all the way down at No. 41 and several prominent bloggers leave them out of their initial BlogPoll ballot entirely. Worse luck + tougher schedule + loss of critical special teams advantage = more losses, the equation goes.

And I would agree there's something to it. It's simply not feasible to think that Auburn could go 6-0 in close games again, though they may also not play nearly so many--the Tigers only played five in 2004 and 2005 combined (going 4-1, though two of those were the more-comfortable-than-they-looked W's over 'Bama and Va. Tech in 2004). If Auburn continues to run deficits in the battle of total yardage, yes, this year--without Bliss and V****n and Davis for a while, most notably--they will lose games they won in 2006.

But will they run those deficits? There are plenty of arguments that they won't, but my personal favorite is to look at a second, very different kind of pendulum. Here's Auburn's offense under Al Borges, in terms of points, rushing yards, and passing yards per game:

2004: 32.1 PPG, 183 RYPG, 237 PYPG
2005: 32.2 PPG, 194 RYPG, 216 PYPG
First two games of 2006: 37 PPG, 202 RYPG, 234 PYPG
Remainder of 2006: 22.5 PPG, 139 RYPG, 162 PYPG

In other words, the performance of the Tiger offense didn't just decline after the Week 3 LSU slugfest; it fell off a cliff, with points dropping by a third, rushing by more than a quarter, and passing around a fifth. I would argue that even with the understanding that Borges doesn't have the kind of overall personnel he had in 2004 or 2005, those first 27 games paint a truer picture of Auburn's future offense than the aberrant and injury-hampered final 11 games of 2006. All bets are off if Cox goes down, but otherwise, it's fair to expect the Auburn O to regress closer to (if not match) the mean established during Borges's crackerjack first two years. Combine that with a defense that by most accounts is poised to become a soul-destroying, hope-swallowing Death Machine, and that yardage deficit seems likely to become a yardage surplus in 2007.

So with one pendulum swinging one way and the other swinging, uh, the other, where does that leave Auburn? Although the official JCCW prediction will come later, my guess is right in the same zero-to-three loss range they've dwelled in since Borges arrived. Sorry, Phil.

*I know some fans will take extreme umbrage with the notion that any game won by their team was decided by something other than the brilliance of the athletes and coaches involved, but it's still unlikely Auburn gets the calls the way they did vs. both LSU and Florida (correct calls IMHO, mind you, but ones that could easily have gone the other way), the idiotic fake punt from Nebraska, the continued presence of Mike Shula on the Tide sideline, etc., all for a second straight year.

**BBC link just for the "Wait, the Brits have even heard of college football?" of it.