Monday knee-jerk: Past is prologue, perhaps

"Kill anyone today?"
"Day ain't over yet."
--City Slickers

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Oh, I shouldn't compare this Auburn team in any shape, form, or fashion to Jack Palance or Jack Palance's character Curly. Palance and Curly are men's men, who chew sandstone like chewing gum and hunt game with nothing more than their steely glare and would never, ever throw a deep fade to the end zone on 4th-and-2 from the opponent's 21 with 4:17 to play.

But until Saturday, the secret feeling 'round these parts ever since that bitter, miserable second half against Vanderbilt was that Auburn's 2008 campaign was finished. The season was done. It had contracted a case of DEATH. Sure, there were games to play. Sure, we'd watch the underclassmen for improvement, for reasons to believe 2009 would be better. And sure, above all, there was Tubby-watch and the lingering hope--with Tubby, there's always some level of hope, isn't there?--that Auburn would catch lightning-in-a-bottle-made-of-opponent's-turnovers and stumble into victory.

But 5-7 was what we had to expect. 5-7 was what, barring Tubby pixie dust, we were going to get. The offense we saw against Vanderbilt and the spreading rot on the defense we saw take hold against Arkansas ... by that point, the ship had sailed. The die was cast. The sun had set.

Not so much now. There was a glimmer against Ole Miss. Maybe a further glimmer in Kodi Burns's dynamism (if nothing else) against UT-Martin. Now it's pretty clear the sun's been up all along. Oh, it's been hugging the horizon, and of course it may still set on a 5-7 record and Tubby in a mess of hot water. No doubt about that.

But the day ain't over yet.

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Why am I sounding a note of optimism after a game Auburn had half-a-dozen chances to win and didn't? After what might have been the worst special teams performance yet in a season haunted at every turn by poor special teams play? After a game in which our opponent gift-wrapped victory and handed it to Auburn in person, only Auburn thought they were playing Yankee Swap or Dirty Santa or however you call it and exchanged the victory for the package where every pass into the end zone hits the ground?

A ton of reasons:

--Between Burns still slicing-and-dicing his way for the occasional four or five yards, Mario Fannin threatening to return the word "super" to the beginning of his name, and Ben Tate actually succeeding in his daring "two steps backward, three steps forward" plan, Auburn had something that kinda sorta looked like a successful rushing attack against a defense that doesn't suck. 3.4 yards-a-carry isn't much, but it's a step in the right direction.

--That step took place in part because the offensive line got something resembling a push up front from time to time. The pass-protection (up until the very final play of the game, anyway) continued its relatively sharp form from the Ole Miss game, unless you really want to complain about giving up one sack to a team that tried to unleash Rennie Curran on the QB from time to time. This? Also a step.

--The first quarter excluded, the linebackers started tackling again. The defensive line started occasionally pushing people around again. The opponent wanted no part of throwing towards Jerraud Powers again and Walt McFadden was in people's faces again. The defense, in short, looked like the defense that choked the life out of teams in the early part of the season ... again. It's a step.

--A deficit of one first down, 19 to 20. A deficit of only 50 total yards, 303 to 351. Step.

--A lead in the fourth quarter. Step. A handful of attempts at the end zone to win the game. Step.

Over the past three weeks, this team has moved forward. Not enough to defeat a team like Georgia, unfortunately. But they have gone from not moving the ball to moving it but turning it over to moving it and turning it over on downs. From breaking to bending but-not-always-breaking to mostly just bending.

I don't know if these steps will be enough to win a week from Saturday or not. But after a season spent watching Auburn dash after its own tail, I will take these steps.

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Auburn did not lose this game so much as the field goal unit lost the game. Clayton Crofoot drops an extra point, the first out-and-out drop by an Auburn holder in what's got to be eons. Byrum misses another field goal. For want of a nail the rider was lost, and for want of those points two other drives that should end in field goal attempts end in passes launched fruitlessly into the end zone. Even if we assume one of those two hypothetical field goals is missed--an exceedingly fair assumption at this point--the one that was made plus the four lost points from earlier would equal 20 points.

Yes, the offense could have either made that first field goal attempt easier in a driving wind. Yes, they could have made them academic by scoring a touchdown on the two late drives. (For the record, the call to Billings on 4th-and-2 I'm not too troubled by; if Burns makes a better throw there, that's a touchdown. But why not have him take off on 3rd- or 4th-and-1 on the final possession? Maybe he scores a la Clemson. But as long as he makes the first--and as spread out as Georgia was, he would have--there's time to spike the ball and get yer shot, maybe two, at the end zone.) Yes, the rest of the special teams units were scarcely any better.

But the offense did enough to put 20 points on the board and the defense held Georgia to 17. There are many more steps to be taken, but the biggest one has to be taken on this unit.

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Because we are Auburn and they are Alabama and Alabama happens to be the No. 1 team in the country and Auburn has beaten them six consecutive times, Georgia--much as I want to beat them--was never going to be more than a sort of convoluted dramatic prelude, the first half of a special two-part season finale.

What kind of TV show are we talking about? Coming in, I thought it would be some "Wire"-like gritty HBO Original series, maybe part 1 demoralizing us even further before some brief flicker of hope in a competitive first half in part 2 before we Auburn fans all learn how truly cruel the world can be. Now? Maybe it's the TV version of Rocky, where the plucky underdog first learns from his setbacks before gaining a newfound dignity and respect in a slim, uplifting defeat.

Or, maybe, it's the same old cliched crap, where the sports team starts off cocky, loses in stunning fashion, loses again, grows, gets better, takes steps, and finally puts everything together in the biggest game of the year and wins in dramatic, crazy fashion and the previous no-account quarterback gets the standing ovation and the girl and everything's swell. It's been done a million times before. But that's because we can't help but love it every time. That's how The Story goes. And maybe that's what Auburn and Alabama are caught up in right now. If you squint and tilt your head a certain way, it kind of looks it, doesn't it? And it doesn't work if Auburn beats Georgia. It just doesn't. The Story doesn't have two wins in the biggest games of the year.

Like the rest of you, I cursed up a storm when Stafford took that last knee and had to resist drinking my brain to goo and sighed and sighed and sighed that 11 games in, Auburn still hasn't killed anyone that matters this season. But hey--they day ain't over yet, and maybe, just maybe, that's a good thing.

Knee-jerk: Mr. Brightside

Kodi Burns escapes the evil Auburn players from the Mirror Universe. No jokes about Mirror Universe Auburn being 8-2, please.

If a time-traveler from the distant future appeared in front of me at the start of this season and said, "Hello, Mr. Hinnen. I am a time-traveler from the distant future. You will live to be 117 years old before you die by rhino trampling on a visit to Baltimore. I'm curious: is it your belief that in those 117 years, you will ever see that Auburn is tied midway through the third quarter with a Smythe Division team ...

"Smythe Division?" I say. "Do you mean I-AA, FCS, whatever?"

"Oh, yes," the traveler says. "Sorry, the various divisions of college football will eventually be renamed for the old '80s NHL divisions as a method of appeasement for our new Canuck overlords after the Royal Canadian Mounted Invasion of 2047. Back to my question: do you believe the day will ever come when Auburn is tied midway through the third quarter with a I-AA team and that by the end of the game, you would be happy with Auburn's performance?"

"Tied midway through the third quarter? Unless it was one of those really good, Appalachian St., New Hampshire-type teams and it was a rebuilding season for a new coach, no I can't say that I would. There can't be any kind of excusing Auburn for remaining tied with a I-AA cuppitycake that deep into the game. It's not going to happen," I would say.

"Thank you," the traveler would say. "By the way, if you look directly behind you right now, you'll see Vice-President Dick Cheney riding the unicycle that would eventually claim his daughter's life."

"What?" I would say, turning, as the traveler said "Kidding!" and vanished with a pop.

The point is this: much to the surprise of Jerry circa August 2008, I'm not that upset after Auburn found themselves knotted up at 20 against Tennessee-Martin Saturday before scoring the game's final 17 points on 89 yards' worth of Kodi Burns touchdown run. I might even be sort of ... satisfied?

Admittedly, this may be because I "watched" this game via the technological marvel that is the CSTV Gametracker, meaning that while most Auburn fans had their retinas seared by things like Brad Lester fumbling in Auburn territory to set up the tying touchdown or Burns starting the game 0-4, I was watching tiny Flash-animated cones representing Lester and Burns and a tiny bouncing cartoon football. The Auburn flailing that led to 20-20 was pronounced by no less an authority than the Mrs. JCCW as "cute" when presented via Gametracker. This may have altered my perceptions in a fashion no amount of box score-poring or vein-of-anger tapping can repair.

Also, no, a 37-20 win over Tennessee-Martin in no way met my hopes and/or pregame expectations for this game. "Satisfied" isn't related to those. My hopes and/or pregame expectations were that Auburn would give us some sort of reassurance they would compete--or, what the hell, pull off the miracle--against Georgia and Alabama. I was, as Rod Stewart would say, looking to find a reason to believe. When your team is tied with Tennessee-Martin 20-20 in the third quarter and would be trailing if not for three different Skyhawk drives into Auburn territory combining for zero points, you have not found them.

But here's the thing: when Martin scored to tie the game at 20, Auburn was staring directly into the abyss. The final, pack-it-in, "Who's gonna coach us next year?" black abyss. They were at the edge. They could look inside and even, if they squinted, see Tennessee plummeting out of sight. Teams that come that close usually manage to regain their balance and back away from the edge. But sometimes they don't.

Auburn did. Say that for them. They didn't even waste any time going about their backing-away-from-the-edge business: the drive following 20-20 went 60 yards in 7 plays for 7 points and and took just 2:59. I could have done without the SkyHawk drive to the Auburn 34 on the following possession, but after taking their peek into the bottomless depths, Auburn decided that was close enough and played accordingly. Touchdown, field goal, touchdown, 37-20, victory, Tubby safe for another week at least, thank goodness thank goodness thank goodness. They could have slipped. They did not.

How much is that worth? Not a lot. But this season, I will take it. Relief should not be confused with celebration. But there has been such little relief. It remains unlikely there will be any more. So yes, this season, this week, I will take this win and hold it and let it warm my shivering hands.

Assorted thoughts from the box score

--Wes Byrum, good from 48, 44, and 24, miss from 46. It's a start. Maybe he will come back to us after all.

--Hope has a name, and that name is Tristan Davis. By the by, I am going to open up Gametracker for the beginning of both Auburn's final two games. I have done it twice this season: once when Game Plan didn't show the start of the Arkansas game, and Saturday. Both times Davis returned Auburn's first kickoff for a touchdown. If you think I am beyond calling upon such ridiculous coincidences for help against the likes of Georgia and Alabama ... wait, scratch that. I don't think any of the JCCW's readers would think that, actually.

--I know that so many various limbs across the defense have been bent in unhelpful ways this season, it seems unfair to gripe about the defense bending yet some more against Martin when they broke so rarely: the bottom line is that the defense gave up 13 points and one of those was after a short field provided by Lester's fumble. However, note that Martin finished the game with a fumble inside the Auburn 15, two interceptions on Auburn's goalline, and a turnover-on-downs at the Auburn 10. Four possessions inside the red zone, zero points. This game could have gone very, very differently and however you would like to slice it, giving up 5.3 yards a play to a I-AA team does not bode well for what Auburn will give up this weekend.

--It's been my opinion that Burns just wasn't been as aggressive running the ball as he could have been against WVU and Ole Miss. He slid early rather than gutting out a yard or two, picked his way through blockers when he could be more direct, etc. I'm guessing that this was not an issue against UTM. I'm guessing this is what Auburn will have to hang its hat on against Georgia and the Tide: other than the threat of Burns making chicken salad out of the chicken feathers of protection breakdowns and waggles, what are opponents of these cailber really going to fear about Auburn's offense? Burns will have to be as aggressive on the ground as he can possibly be. Saturday was a good sign in that department. (At least, I'm assuming it was. 158 yards suggests so.)

--Between some nice gains on the ground and a competent (if not explosive) passing attack, the offense actually finished with the better day than the defense. Consider: only one punt. I don;t care whose defense they were facing: this offense finishing the day with a single punt is some kind of accomplishment.

--Dear Auburn coaches: please do not give Eric Smith the ball any more this season when Auburn is trying to run the clock out on a victory. Thank you. (Not that this will very, very likely be an easy request to comply with.)

Knee-jerk: And the winner is ...

Recently, I issued a call for submissions for a convenient nickname for this Frankensteinian horror-show of a season. Apparently I wasn't the only one thinking this Auburn teams needs some sort of handy NO WE CAN'T! NO WE CAN'T! slogan, because the suggestions poured in both via comment and e-mail.

We had straightforward "we suck" suggestions: The Little Season that Couldn't, The Execrable Season, The Season of Utter Failure, the F.O.R.D. Season (i.e. "Fix or Repair Daily", via Acid), the Late Unpleasantness, the Season of Bitter Emptiness, and in a sharp bit of Bowden-era parody, God-AUful. We had a bevy of Franklin and/or spread-related suggestions: Spread Too Thin 2008, Season of Spread and Sputter, the Year of Spreading Dangerously, War Feeble: the Tony Franklin Story (or how I Stooped Worrying and Learned to Hate the Spread), The Season of Country Crock Spread (100% Offense-Free), the Season of Dread-Spread, the Season of Unintended Consequences, 2000-Franklin-8, the Season of Lost Minds, or the Spread Evil Season. We had a host of musically-related suggestions, including System of a Down(er), the Season I Started To Hate You, and a bunch from Grotus: the Hard Time Killin' Floor, the Long Gone Lonesome Season, the Lonesome Johnny Season, the Season That Should Not Be, and, um, the Season of Race-Car Ya-Yas. We had a handful referring to Auburn's penchant for first-half heroics and second-half collapses: the Season of Bad Halftime Speeches, the First Half National Championship Season, the Year of All-You-Can-Drink Jager Bombs at Halftime. And lastly, we had a couple of appeals to to the Arts, with Grotus offering Winesburg, Alabama to warm the cockles of my English-major heart and Sullivan013 suggesting the Duck! Rabbit, Duck! Season, which leads us to this rather excellent visual metaphor for the experience of being an Auburn fan in 2008:



That's it exactly, actually: every week we take look at the opponent and expect our team to find a way to dispose of them, every week they instead take aim and give us another embarrassing faceful of pain. ("More briefing? More briefing." = "We've removed another 20 percent of the playbook.") But no matter how violent it might look, it has to keep happening, over and over and over. Cartoon characters don't die. Auburn fans stay Auburn fans. We just have to put ourselves together again, and again, until we're out of anger or any kind of rational responses. That's when we crack and start gibbering about this being Fiddler Crab Season. Shoot us again. We enjoy it.

The depths are such that there's a reason I've listed above every single suggestion I received: they're all appropriate, they're all a just description of what's happened to Auburn in 2008. Which, I think, I'm going to go ahead and refer to as the Season of DEATH or 2008=DEATH. Is it ridiculously over-the-top? Yes. But humorously so, in that wonderful all-caps way that we all love about the Internets.

More than that, though, when we think of 2008, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to think about it as a sort of death. Oh, we the fans are still Daffy, still there, still sporting our shotgun shiners. But the dangerous, exciting, successful Auburn of 2000-2007 is gone. And let's face facts: I'd prefer he stick around, but it's possible the coach behind the Auburn of 2000-2007 is, too. If he's not, 2009 might be rebirth or it might be just a sad confirmation about what was lost this year. A wake. Either way: 2008=DEATH.

Assorted thoughts

--I'm not expecting Auburn fans to be too harsh on Kodi Burns, but for the record: Auburn fans shouldn't be too harsh on Kodi Burns. Yes, he threw three interceptions, all three of which were eye-gougingly ugly. But he's a sophomore who's already working on his third quarterback coach, the first of which treated him as a running back who had a bit of an arm; the second of which championed a rag-armed Daniel Cobb clone at Burns's expense; the third of which is the same sometime tight ends coach who turned Jason Campbell into a basket case. It's going to take time.

--I couldn't care less that Ensminger called 43 passes to 27 runs. The runs at Ole Miss's fearsome defensive front averaged 3.0 yards (and got a full third of its yardage from the single Ben Tate TD run) and the passes against Ole Miss's eminently torchable secondary averaged 7.4 yards. I'll take potential turnovers in the Rebels' territory over an endless series of punts from Auburn's own 25, thanks.

--Entering the season, the one position at which Auburn simply could not afford to have injuries was cornerback. So, of course, now Auburn's top four corners are all questionable-at-best for Saturday and there's a good chance our nominal starters will be D'Antoine Hood and Harry Adams, two inexperienced true freshman. When it rains on the Season of DEATH, it's time to start leading the animals two-by-two.

--Chris Slaughter, 8 catches for 131 yards FTW?!?

--True, it was more-than-a-little encouraging to see the battered, bruised, Rocky-esque Auburn defense stand up and take a few punches without collapsing this time. They even got in a few jabs here and there and thanks to Jevan Snead showing up like he expected the fight to be thrown, hung in there to Round 10 or 12 or however long you'd like to stretch the metaphor for. But they never landed the haymaker, either: in a game in which we all knew forcing turnovers would be critical, they finished with zero forced fumbles and zero interceptions. So it goes.

--Another zero: sacks for Ole Miss. On 43 attempts, that's not too shabby. The stuffing of the run game was obviously, yes, on the shabby side, but eight-man fronts in which several of those eight men will stuff the run for a living in the NFL means it was never going to be an easy job.

--I'm pretty sure we've reached a consensus that this is the worst season of Tuberville's tenure, the worst Auburn season since the 3-8 debacle in 1998. But is it worse? It could be. Expectations were fairly low in 1998 with Dameyune Craig out the door and the obvious talent deficiencies up-and-down Auburn's roster by that point. Maybe it's just the recency effect talking, but here at the JCCW, the plummet in 2008 feels more painful, more disastrous. Is this the darkest period for Auburn since Dye was forced out under the cloud of five-win seasons and Ramseygate? It might be. I think it might be.

Friday Knee-jerk: Whatever

Oh, I should be so, so angry. This is the final year of Brad Lester and Tyronne Green and Robert Dunn and almost certainly Sen'Derrick Marks and a ton of other Tigers who defeated Alabama three times (minimum), took us to 11-2 in 2006, etc., and who I would love to buy a beer. Four of five of our offensive linemen returned, all of our receivers, all but a handful of defenders. The schedule handed us LSU and Georgia at home and replaced Florida with a crippled shadow of Tennessee. And if ever Auburn needed a strong season to turn the--excuse me while I vomit on my keyboard--Tide, this was it. In short: this was supposed to be Auburn's year.

Instead, the odds are now overwhelmingly in favor of Auburn's year ending at 5-7, without a bowl bid, and with fans squabbling angrily amongst themselves about what Auburn ought to do with it. As an Auburn fan, we are living the worst-case scenario, and I should be breaking things as I type this instead of typing.

But now, last night, you know, whatever. The rage is gone. It was there after the Vandy game, when it became obvious the season--as in, the season this team should have had--was over. I tried to keep it away from the blog because EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS TEAM SUCKS UP TO AND INCLUDING THE UNIFORM COLORS AND HELMET MANUFACTURERS rants aren't any fun to read and don't do much for the cause of rational fan enlightenment. But yeah, that night? Pissed. Swearing. Suggesting Chris Todd's throwing arm be amputated since it's obviously of no use to him or any member of society any more. Looking up gypsy curses for use against Tony Franklin and the future generations of Tony Franklin's family. Drinking, heavily. The whole routine.

This West Virginia game, though ... I mean, if you were stunned, shocked, or heartbroken by Auburn giving up a double-digit lead, going backwards offensively in the second half, and eventually losing to a halfway decent team, I'd like to know where you've been for the first seven games of this season. This is what this Auburn team does, this is their raison d'etre, their modus operandi, their fundamental identity: they score early, build a lead, then watch it dissolve and if they're playing an offense quarterbacked by someone more competent than Wesley Carroll or Jonathan Crompton, see it disappear completely.

Sure, I let myself believe otherwise when Byrum recovered that onsides kick and Auburn was one more good drive away from a three-score lead. But I wasn't surprised when that belief trickled away as the half came to a close, either. You could see this game in the microcosm of one play early in the second quarter, when WVU had just taken over and had first down on their own 27. White faked the zone handoff going right, then came back to run the option with Devine going left. Defending on that side were defensive end Gabe McKenzie and weakside linebacker Merrill Johnson, both seniors (albeit in one case a senior who's played tight end for three years). White made a slight tilt upfield, and both McKenzie and Johnson stepped forward towards the quarterback. Simple pitch to Devine, and the easiest 36 yards he'll ever pick up. Remember: this is after a bye week's worth of preparation with a defensive coordinator who's spent the last several years devising strategies to beat WVU plays exactly like this one.

That's how things were going to go in this game, just as that's how things have gone all season. There are reasons to think McKenzie and Johnson could make that play, just as there were reasons to think this would be Auburn's year. For whatever reason--players, coaches, the cruel and unyielding fates--it didn't happen, hasn't happened, isn't going to happen. If this was Playstation NCAA Football, I'd simulate us ahead to the Iron Bowl, see what happened there out of sheer, blinding hope and faith, and then get to recruiting.

As is, I'll keep watching, keep cheering, keep expecting the worst. But get angry? Nope. The rage is all used up, at least until the annual Iron Bowl blood boil. It hurts to say it, but this Auburn team just isn't worth it any more.

Random observations

--Usually I follow a specific script for Knee-jerks, but for some reason, Friday or whatever, I don't wanna. You get bullets.

--The one truly disheartening thing about this game was the final shattering of any illusions about this being a Classic-Heroic-Vintage-Game-Winning Auburn defense. Blameless, they most certainly were not. West Virginia has fantastic athletes and the scheme they inherited from Rodriguez has baffled many an opposing defense, but 7.7 yards a freaking carry is an out-and-out joke. No one on the Maountaineers' sorry excuse for a schedule-to-date had been worse stopping that run game, a I-AA team and Marshall included. Abysmal.

--Wes Byrum, I know 44 yards isn't exactly a gimme for any college kicker. But when you've already missed four field goals less than 40 yards this season, screwed the pooch on an extra point in a one-point loss, and play for a team that needs every single point it can possibly scrape together, you get no sympathy. Hit your damn field goals, please.

--For the second straight game, Auburn's special teams and defense handed the offense a whole series of short fields--Auburn started drives on WVU's 27, 31, and 38, and once on their own 44--and finished the game with all of 17 points. The Tigers averaged 3.9 yards a play--an improvement on their last three games, but still well short of where they were against Mississippi St. and LSU. After the opening drive, Auburn collected all of 179 yards. Were they better, as expected? Yeah. Are they anywhere near "good" yet? Not even close.

--At least our quarterback play was acceptable, since I'm not sure you could ask a whole lot more from Burns than he gave. He hit several sharp third-down throws, was properly productive on the ground, and didn't turn the ball over. (The one pick on his stat line came on the game's final Hail Mary play.) The lack of throws down the field hurt his final YPA and he was off on a handful of throws, but between the buttoned-down game plan and the exceedingly motley crew of receivers he's working with, I'm not sure how much blame he ought to get for that. That he should have begun the season as the starter only became more obvious, not that I think it would change where Auburn's sitting right now, record-wise.

--So why did the offense struggle so badly? Primarily, because these are the final collective numbers for Auburn's running back firm of Lester, Tate, Fannin, and Smith: 29 carries, 74 yards, 2.55 average-per-carry. Tate, in particular, was a sinkhole: five carries, five yards. He's a solid back, but I just don't see why he's taking carries away from Lester or Fannin. I just don't.

--Has anyone ever seen a punter down his own punt? Ever?

--The tackling problems: due to discouragement? Season-long fatigue? Poor coaching? Just bad form on the part of the players? All or none of the above? It baffles me that something as fundamental as "wrapping up" could be a strength early in the season and a glaring, throbbing weakness just four or five games later.

--Auburn has held the lead at halftime in every game they've played this season and has led by double-digits at one point in all four of their losses. They are 4-4. Is there any other logical explanation for this other than that opposing coaching staffs are making better in-game adjustments and/or that Auburn gets fatigued in second halves? I would love to hear one.

--Four more games, Auburn fans. We'll get through this together, you and I.

Monday knee-jerk can't get it together

No overarching theme this week, no words of comfort or anger or disillusionment. This loss hurt, and hurt badly, but it wasn't a surprise. Vanderbilt was the game where Auburn was going to show, one way or another, what they were this season, and that's exactly what they did. Asking Steve Ensminger to take over the Offense of the Apocalypse was never going to change that.

So instead you're just getting a collection of scattered thoughts, a list of things that crossed the ol' noggin as Meltdown 2008 continues:

1. I wish Chris Todd all the best. I wish his time at Auburn was working out better for him. I wish he was healthy. I wish he didn't seem so imminently headed towards yet another transfer in a career chockful of them. But I don't want to see him take another snap ahead of Kodi Burns this season.

Auburn ran 61 offensive plays over the course of 14 possessions against Arkansas. By my estimation, Burns was the quarterback for 44 of those plays and Todd for 17. On the 44 plays Burns took the snap on, Auburn averaged 4.36 yards a play, scored one touchdown, had two interceptions, and had two drops by receivers, one of which was in the end zone. Over Todd's 17 plays, Auburn averaged .06 yards a snap (they only gained one yard total) and also suffered one interception.

The possession comparison probably makes things even clearer. Over the seven possessions Burns both began and finished, Auburn averaged a gain of 28.6 yards, and that includes the last-gasp eight-yard drive at the end of the game. Over the six possessions Todd started and completed, Auburn averaged .17 yards a possession. (I'm not counting the shared possession which Burns finished with a quarterback draw for a touchdown.) Although one of them ended with an interception deep in Arkansas territory and another with the fateful turnover-on-downs at the 5, the three drives belonging wholly to Burns before the last-gasp drive covered 50, 48, and 76 yards. The 48-yard drive came the possession after Todd had just thrown the ugliest interception of the season--the spirit of Evil Brandon cackled maniacally somewhere--and featured Burns's laser-dart down the seam to Trott for 33 yards. The drive ended with Byrum's missed field goal. Burns's reward was to watch Todd return to the field and lead a drive that went three-and-out and covered negative-22 yards.

And now, Burns's reward for having so decisively won the QB "battle" in this game is apparently to have a lightly-regarded true freshman step up to take Todd's place so the battle can continue.

I try not to criticize Auburn's coaching staff, I really do, unless a decision they've made just makes no sense to me. But this treatment of Kodi Burns just does not make sense. At all. I have tried to understand it. I cannot.

2. Likewise, remember how angry we all were at Tony Franklin for not shifting to a heavy set inside the 10-yard line when it came time to push into end zone? On first-and-goal from the 5 with the game on the line and three timeouts to play with, Auburn lined up in the spread against one of the worst rush defenses in all of college football and had Kodi Burns throw three passes, two of them fades to the corner that NFL quarterbacks regularly struggle with. This, also, makes no sense to me.

3. I guess that was improvement, Wes, but I'd honestly rather you made the 33-yarder and missed the 45-yarder. Same number of points, I know, but the boost the team gets from the latter isn't as great as the letdown from the former.

4. Auburn is just running out of bodies defensively. We said at the very beginning of the season that we could not afford to have any injuries in the secondary. Now both of those original starting corners (remember Aairon Savage?) are out. Defensive end was another sore spot; Goggans is now hobbled and Carter missed the game entirely. Blackmon was limited. Marks was limited. And then the offense left them on the field again, and again, and again against a team with decent offensive options coached by Bobby Petrino.

In other words: the defense is blameless. I don't care how many yards they gave up. Give them credit for the two post-interception field goals, and Arkansas finished the game having scored 19 net points. 19 points allowed in these beat-up circumstances should be enough to win a football game at home.

5. The JCCW's complete breakdown of Auburn's scoring would actually read as follows: 14 points special teams, 6 points defense, 2 points Hog charity, 0 points offense. I know it's not entirely fair to the offense to give them no credit for punching in after the kickoff strip and obviously it's just bad luck Byrum missed the FG opportunity the offense gave him while connecting after the defense's efforts ... but yeah. Auburn's longest scoring drive was 24 yards. I'd rather give guys like Tristan Davis, Neiko Thorpe, Josh Bynes--outstanding again--and Chris Evans the credit for those points. They deserve it.

6. Speaking of credit where it's due, welcome back, Saturn V. 46.6 net yards per punt is some mighty fine puntin' and no doubt about it. Between Durst and the rebirth of Davis on the kick return team, we're back to having a special teams again, almost.

7. What on earth was Petrino thinking with that safety? Auburn driving for a touchdown from the Hog 45 or so seemed a hell of a lot less likely to me than driving for a FG from Auburn's own 35 or so (they ended up on the 38).

8. This can't really be stressed enough: the Auburn defense, Auburn special teams, and Hog charity accounted for 22 points, Arkansas scored only 25 themselves, and Auburn lost. I do think there's a tiny bit of reason to hope that Auburn's offense will get better over the course of the bye week, but is there any reason to think the offense will get as much help again as it did this week? I'm not sure there is. Auburn's not likely to get quite that many bounces in one game again. Sigh.

Actually, this is 2008, isn't it? Let's try that again ...

SIGH.

Three Stars. The aforementioned Messrs. Durst, Bynes, and Davis.

Three Opportunities for Improvement. 1. The aforementioned miss by Mr. Byrum 2. Yeah, like Acid said, the pass rush could have been better. 1 sack for two yards doesn't really cut it. I don't really blame the position-switchin' likes of Gabe McKenzie, but where was our new sack artiste Zach Clayton? 3. Whoever decided that my ESPN GamePlan couldn't show the Vandy-Miss. St. game on a different channel from the Auburn-Arkansas game, meaning I got to "watch" the first few drives of the game, including Davis's return, on the Auburn Gametracker. Boo.

Three Numbers of Importance. 2-5: Auburn's penalties and yardage. So at least we've got that going for us. Other than that, well, you've got Durst's punting net and the Burns/Todd stuff already, so you should be good.

Your bottom line: Thank everything holy for a bye week. Mostly so the players can recuperate, of course.

But also because after wallowing in the same unholy concoction of dread, anger, disappointment, and then dread again for the past three Saturdays, I suspect we Auburn fans could use the break, too.

Monday knee-jerk: Spare a moment

There's nothing to say about that game, really. Nothing to analyze. Nothing to break down. Nothing to parse, elucidate, tease out. If you watched the game, you saw the same train wreck I did. If you have a connection to this football team, you're gutted the same way I am.

I suppose we could discuss the degree of train wreck, the degree of gutted. Remember that Calvin and Hobbes Sunday strip where the "50-car" freight train jumps the track towards the exact same spot upon which a 747 is about to plummet out of the sky, and that spot happens to lie at the end of a collapsing fault line where inside his house an elderly man is about to light his stove, unaware of the house's gas leak that might be causing--in the strip's coup de grace--his eye to "twitch involuntarily"? Yes, this is the kind of train wreck we're talking about. And while I can't speak for how gutted everyone else is, the last time I felt this blindingly frustrated and abjectly hopeless while watching Auburn football, Gabe Gross was running around and trying to throw the ball so far he'd have long enough to run off the field, down the tunnel, out of the stadium, and all the way to the baseball diamond before anyone would notice he was missing. Which, of course, was more-or-less exactly what he did in the end, and there were times during the second half Saturday when I was cursing the Braves' failure to make the playoffs so that I couldn't do the same thing, figuratively speaking. That gutted? "I'd rather watch baseball" gutted? Yes, that gutted.

But past that, trying to respond rationally to the current Auburn offense's brand of apocalyptic incompetence is useless. We can say things like "they need to cut back on penalties"--they committed quite a few penalties, the other night, didja notice?--but it all feels like so many half-full sandbags haphazardly tossed down in the face of a tsunami. It's too much to deal with, this Auburn season. Just too much. Too much.

So all I'm going to suggest is that we, the Auburn fans, take all the anger and bile and cavernous disappointment that takes up the space where your stomach used to be and put them on a shelf for just a few minutes, just long enough to spare a moment or two to sympathize with the good Auburn people involved for whom this situation is still way, way more painful than it is for us.

The seniors, for instance. Spare a moment for Brad Lester, for Jason Bosley and Tyronne Green, for Merrill Johnson and Chris Evans, for Rod Smith and Robert Dunn, for poor star-crossed Tristan Davis, for all of them. They will be the first seniors to leave Auburn without playing for either an SEC title or an undefeated season since the class of 1982*, and they will wake up one morning when they are 67 and still not understand why. Deserve never has a damn thing to do with anything in college football, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve better.

Spare a moment for Chris Todd and Kodi Burns, who have put in the hours and said the right things and have left their hearts on the field to make this offense work and have been rewarded with boos for the former and transfer assumptions for the latter. From here, it appears that their coaches have tried so hard to do right by both of them they have ended up doing right by neither.

Spare a moment for Lee Ziemba. Now we know where the rage that seemed to swallow him whole over the course of the offseason came from; some of it belongs to him and is his alone and should be respected and nurtured as such, but much of it comes from being dropped unceremoniously into a system in which he has never found himself. He is lost, like the five-year-old in Sears who looks up and realizes his mother is nowhere to be seen, and he has no way out save for anger and the desperation of his holding calls.

Spare a moment for the whole of the Auburn defense, which has finished their day at the office allowing a net of seven points in each of the last two games, the sort of performances that should perhaps have songs written about them. Instead they walked off the field to be treated like losers after the first and walked off as actual losers after the second. This is a punishment for their efforts both cruel and, yes, unusual.

Spare a moment, if you can, for Wes Byrum, for whom a second-half Auburn drive into field-goal range was not just about the chance for victory it was for his teammates, coaches, and fans, but about personal redemption, a chance to shirk the albatross of his missed extra point that must have hung heavier and heavier on his neck as the seconds ticked away. That chance never came. And even if his miss grows lighter over the years, it will now tug at him forever.

And lastly, spare a moment, if at all possible--and I readily acknowledge it might not be--for Tony Franklin. Whether deserved or not, he has spent the last several years of his rapidly receding career either not actually working in his career field or trudging back up the ladder looking for his one final shot, his one single opportunity to get back in the SEC coaching game and maybe springboard himself into a head coaching position somewhere. This was it. Auburn was his chance, his big break, his all-in.

And it's over. For whatever reason, he has failed and it is over, all of six games in. He may stay on staff the remainder of the year, he may even see some kind of improvement from "his" offense--God help us all if Saturday was not, in fact, rock-bottom--but there is no possible way Tommy Tuberville will risk a second season like this one. His chance is lost, and it seems unfathomable it will ever come again. Years and years to build a career, and six games to tear it apart. Oh, he'll land on his feet. But he'll never stand so tall again.

So, yes, sympathy. We love to measure what is gained, what is won on the football field: the trophies, the dollars, the titles, the nebulous-yet-tangible halo of Respect, the euphoria of victory that we all crave like a drug. Sometimes it is worth it, however, to measure what is lost. Not because sympathy replaces the anger and disappointment--it will be there all week, all the following week, and longer--but because it's the only other response we have.

There's nothing to say about the game Auburn played Saturday night. But if we can hold on to the game these players and even coaches deserve to play, maybe at some point down the road we can start hoping again they'll actually play it.

Three Stars

Ben Tate. Ran as hard as you can possibly expect your running back to run. When you run for 110 yards and your team only finishes with 208 total, you have done your job.

Merrill Johnson. Held together Auburn's hobbled defense as best as it could be held together, which as it turned out could be held together pretty gosh-darned well all things considered.

Zach Clayton. Four solo tackles, two of them for loss including Auburn's only sack, is one heck of a night coming from a sophomore defensive tackle.

Three opportunities for improvement.

On one hand, I feel like I ought to stick to the script I've laid out in previous knee-jerks. On the other, let's just note that special teams continue to be a massive problem all the way around, make the obligatory call for a complete offensive overhaul, and move on.

Numbers of importance.

0. Combined number of points, first downs, offensive yards, and Tubby Tuberville smiles for Auburn in the second half. (Just kidding! Barely.)

0. Number of Auburn articles and/or blog posts I read yesterday. It just seemed like a good day to step away from the computer, you know?

0. Amount I hope Auburn's head coach and offensive staff get paid for last week's work OH SNAP.

Your bottom line: If there's any tiny, insignificant shred of silver lining in the freaking funnel cloud that blew through the Auburn football teams last Saturday, it's that there aren't any more illusions about the defense winning the SEC West title singlehandedly or sneaking some sort of backdoor BCS at-large bid. There's no expectations any more; I for one don't feel like there's any pressure on the team outside of the demand they don't completely embarrass themselves again between now and the Iron Bowl.

Because--as with 2007 after the LSU loss--that's the only game that matters now. Oh, a win over Georgia would be swell, don't get me wrong. But Auburn 2008 is now a one-game season, with every other contest between now and November 29 a glorified exhibition in order to get the Tigers prepared for Tuscaloosa and the Tide. It's not the way I'd like it, but that's the way it is.

And maybe, if I can keep that in mind, I won't scream myself hoarse lobbing obscenities at my innocent TV screen the next time Auburn, say, goes three-and-out on three straight possessions. Do it against Arkansas, whatever. Do it against West Virginia or Ole Miss, hey, just try to show some improvement. Do it against Georgia, I'll be worried. But it won't really matter now unless it happens in T-town.

*SEC champions '83, '87-'89, 2004; undefeated 1993; SEC West champions '97, 2000. There's a couple of close calls in there, but yes, this will be the first four-season gap without any of those banners on the wall since '82.

Monday knee-jerk: I am trying so, so hard to be happy

Rememberin' the good times, back in the first quarter when things were swell.

It's true: when you follow the ol' college wellness class instruction to take a deep breath and let go of the infuriating failure of the Spread Eagle, the placekicking, the quarterback situation, and those repulsive boos as you slowly exhale, Auburn has given us reasons to be satisfied, reasons to be happy, even, with the win over Tennessee Saturday.

For starters, for all of the Lifetime-quality drama we've gotten from the offense and the separation and eventual reconciliation of Khrisodi Burn-Stodd, five games into the season Auburn's record is 4-1. If in July you expected them to come out of this little two-week jaunt against LSU and Tennessee better than 1-1, you probably also expected Ed McMahon to stop by with your giant novelty check by now for subscribing to Self.

There's the fact that Auburn's defense may be human, but only just so; however intent Jonathan Crompton and the Vol offense may have been at taking careful aim at their own third metatarsal and firing away, it's still fair to label their effort Herculean. It's one thing to keep a blind squirrel from finding more than a single nut, it's another to do it when the offense keeps tossing the squirrel into the damn Planters factory. Sure, there's not much doubt that given the current state of the offense Auburn could lose to anyone on the schedule, but I also don't have any doubt that with this defense Auburn can beat anyone on the schedule. Where there are Markses and Powerses and Colemans and backups who are Josh Byneses, there is hope, and nothing will change that.

Kodi Burns is getting snaps and will continue to get snaps. This is a Step in the Right Direction.

If you keep looking, you can keep finding positives. Mathematics has no gripe with Auburn's SEC West chances, such as they are, not when LSU still all three of the other members of the conference's consensus top four remaining on the schedule. Auburn's ranking is still, somehow, some way*, holding steady inside the country's top 15. As baby buzzard-ugly as both the Mississippi St. and Tennessee wins were, neither one was a statistical fluke--Auburn outgained both. Durst is back and still a revelation. The fumbles have been cut out. Tommy Tuberville is still the Auburn head football coach and no one is expecting a single damn thing from his team anymore, which is generally when Tommy Tuberville does his best work.

And surely, surely, oh please dear God, the offense cannot get any worse. It cannot. It must improve. It will improve. The laws of Nature and logic and statistical probability and all that desperate jazz demand it. Don't they?

I don't know. Probably not. They can only mean so much when sure first-down passes go whizzing directly through the hands of your senior wide receiver. There's only so much improvement to be made when the starting quarterback's arm is clearly, obviously, glaringly shot to pieces and his ability to make up for this with his "legs" is "utterly nonexistent." There are only so many points Auburn can score when it becomes necessary for an offense this rickety to put the ball in the end zone each and every time they reach opposing territory, what with field goals no longer a viable option.

You can only be so happy when after five weeks of his inaugural season, the new offensive coordinator talks about how much he's taking out of the playbook as opposed to how much he's adding in, only so happy when on the same day your team wheezes to a two-point victory over the only team on the planet more discombobulated on offense than your own, your team's archrival goes on the road and tears one of the best teams in the country into tiny, quivering shreds. There's only so much optimism to scrape together when the offensive line that was supposed to hold the unit together while the skill guys worked out the kinks is causing the rot from the inside out, one false start at a time.

And, of course, you can only expect them to work so hard to get better when thousands of their own fat-assed fans choose to honor the hard work they've put in to this point, the countless hours they've spent, sacrifices they've made, etc. by booing the hell out of them.

So, yeah, I'm trying to remember the good things. I'm exhaling nice and slow and repeating Vanderbilt's yardage deficits to myself. But there's only so much good that will do when Auburn seems so irretrievably stuck in the good-but-not-great rut they've been in since New Year's Day 2006, when the only thing that would redeem that monotony--an Iron Bowl victory--seems to grow less and less likely every week.

Yes, I have hope. Yes, I have belief. But only so much of it these days.

Three Stars

Wait ... I have to have three?

Josh Bynes. There are many, many things I would like to go back in time and make a wager on--$100 on "Lee Corso will predict Alabama will defeat Georgia on the road and be correct" would probably have turned a tidy profit--but I bet I could have gotten some hella good odds on "Tray Blackmon will become arguably Auburn's second-best middle linebacker" in the preseason. That's not to say I think Blackmon ought to lose his starting job, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't face facts: Bynes made more of an impact Saturday than Blackmon has in any game this season.

The secondary, collectively. Crompton played as poor a game at quarterback as you can possibly play without being intercepted, but it wasn't entirely by accident, not when you've got Tennessee's more-than-serviceable crop of receivers and you finish averaging 2.8 yards per passing attempt. Powers, Etheridge, McNeil, McFadden, Thorpe: we salute you.

Clinton Durst. Not eye-popping numbers in Saturn V's return (43.7 a kick gross, 36.1 net, no fair catches), but a shank on any single punt in the fourth quarter would have meant a field goal try at least and quite possibly defeat no matter how stoutly the defense held. A shank might have even been sorta forgivable, given that we're talking about a guy who's playing his fourth-ever career football game and the first one at home with anything approaching this kind of pressure. The shank never came anyway.

Three opportunities for improvement

Placekicking. This team as currently constructed simply cannot afford to have a liability at placekicker. Unfortunately, that hasn't kept Wes Byrum from officially becoming a liability. 3-of-7 from 20-45 yards is not good enough. It's not even really close to good enough.

Hmmmmmmm, maybe the passing. The run game sort of secretly picked up a bit this week--I know that overall 2.6 per-carry mark is uggggggggly, but Tate and Fannin combined for 93 yards on 23 carries, up over 4 a pop--but the passing game that looked so worthwhile against LSU went face-first into the toilet this week. As in "4.4 yards an attempt with a devastating pick" face-first. Take away the one touchdown drive and Todd finishes 10-19 for 51 yards (or 2.68 an attempt). Some of that is drops, some of it is Tennessee's excellent secondary, and I do have some sympathy with the fact that getting yanked and reinserted isn't easy ... but this is still just bad, bad quarterbacking from Todd.

Offensive line penalties. On Auburn's first five possessions alone, the Tigers were flagged for three false starts and two holds. As if the rest of the offense needed the extra degree-of-difficulty just to make it challenging. Cripes.

Numbers of importance

7, 47, 6.7. Number of offensive touches for Mario Fannin, number of yards gained on those touches, and the average gain on those touches. Please please please let the talk this week about his shoulder just now getting truly healthy be true, because if our offensive coaching staff didn't realize "Hey, this guy's pretty good, why don't we try getting the ball in his hands and see what happens" until this week--or if this becomes a one-game fluke as opposed to a trend--I can't imagine it's a positive sign.

7. Consecutive combined three-and-outs for both teams in the fourth quarter. I'd always wondered what it would look like if you could somehow translate the 1990 World Cup into a game of college football, and now I know.**

4.04; 6. Todd's and Burns's yards-per-pass attempt, respectively. Make of it what you will.

Your bottom line

All those who looked at the 2008 schedule over the summer and thought "That Vanderbilt game could very well prove to be the one that defines Auburn's season" raise your hand. That's what I thought. And you there, in the back: either you misheard me or you're a liar.

Nonetheless, that's where we are. If Auburn can get out of Nashville with their hide intact, it seems pretty gosh-darned likely they'll be able to survive the catastrophic Hogs at home (as if Tubby's willingness to sell his soul for that one didn't make it likely already) and escape into their bye week at 6-1. From there the road trips to Morgantown and Oxford will each be a colossal pain-in-the-arse, but Auburn will at least have extra preparation time for both. IF the Tigers win Saturday, it will seem entirely possible (if not likely, exactly, depending on how close Franklin appears to solving the offensive woes) that the Tigers will head into Amen Corner 9-1 and maybe even in control of their SEC West destiny.

Lose Saturday, and of course all of those wonderful dreams dissipate as quickly as the one you had this morning, just before you woke up, where Auburn won a big SEC game by more than the skin of their teeth.

*That way is called "Wake Forest losing to Navy and East Carolina falling apart."

**I'm well aware that like two people will get this, and I do apologize to the rest of you, but I really think those two people will be like "Oh, dude, totally."

Monday knee-jerk: Human after all

This is going to come off as beyond trite, a statement from a strange fifth dimension of trite where we all walk around sounding like NBC's Olympic sideline reporters dithering about "guts" and "heart" as they cover a sport they understand nothing about, but it's true and I'm saying it anyway: One of the great things about college football is that makes you feel like a kid again.

The overwhelming majority of the time, this is a Good Thing. When you are a kid, every single thing you encounter or do is worth getting WAY EXCITED or WAY SAD about. A quarter's worth of rubber bouncy ball you can throw hard enough so that it bounces from the floor to the ceiling and back is a week's worth of entertainment. A dead bird beneath the sill of the window it crashed into will start the waterworks up not only for an immediate half-hour, but again at dinner, and again as your Mom tucks you in for the night. We can't help but eventually grow into thinking of the ball as just a piece of rubber and the bird as just one dead bird in a flock of hundreds, but it's an awfully dull life you lay out for yourself if you don't feel that way about something on a regular basis. Every week for 14 weeks in August, September, October, and November--and, with luck, one day in late December or early January--college football gives us all a reason to either dance with joy or cry in frustration.

This is important. Auburn-LSU is important. We don't follow college football because we want to bring back the repeated thumping of the heart and swoop in the guts that come with being nine; we follow college football because when the next-biggest thrill of the week is a particularly good rerun of House on USA you hadn't seen before, we freaking need them.

Of course, there's a flip side. Having access to the emotion of a nine-year-old also means putting away the rational thought processes of the 29-year-old, which is how a bunch of college-age kids dressed up in plastic armor become your heroes. There's no point in pretending that's not what they are. They are gifted in ways that allow them to win battles we could never even compete in, to defeat the villains we hate but can do nothing about. They're the ones who will prevent the crushing sadness of defeat and give us all the euphoria of victory. They'll Save the Day. And so despite the fact you are 29, you spend all last week believing the same things about Auburn's defense you believed about Dad growing up. They can fix anything. Everything will be OK as long as they're around. There's nothing they can't do.

There is always a point, however--when he gets the family hopelessly lost on vacation, say, or slices his hand wide open carving the Thanksgiving turkey, or something like that--at which you realize that as much as you love and respect your Dad, he's not Superman. He can make mistakes, however forgivable. It's a realization that's inevitable, and even necessary--but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like bloody hell itself.

And so we finally come to halftime of Auburn against LSU, the stadium still buzzing the buzz of thousands with Gabe McKenzie's pick-six and the Good Tigers' 14-3 lead. I had no illusions about the game casually ending with Auburn two possessions in front--it's simply not the way this series works anymore--but I had a hard, hard time imagining at that point that Auburn would lose the game. Not only would LSU have to score at least 11 points after a half in which they'd gained barely more than 100 yards, they'd probably have to put up 14, since I figured Auburn's offense had moved it just well enough to be worth a field goal at least. That was two touchdowns, and there was no way--just no way--Auburn would let LSU into the end zone twice, not in a home stadium this crazed, not with so much on the line. LSU would have the ball last and as they had in 2004, as they had in 2006, Auburn would stop them. I believed this with as much fervor as I have anything that wasn't gravity or God, with a faith I have no problem calling childlike.

So the most painful moment of the game for yours truly was not the 15-yard sack of Chris Todd on Auburn's final desperate possession that for all intents and purposes ended the game, not the LSU touchdown that snatched away in decisive fashion the lead Auburn's offense had so thrillingly scratched out for itself, not even the long silent walk out of the Jordan-Hare upper deck, a walk that after a loss always feels like leaving a giant birthday party where one of the guests accidentally ran over the birthday kid's dog.

No, the most painful moment was LSU's fourth possession of the second half, when after watching the 14-3 lead somehow become a 17-14 deficit, Auburn's defense at least had the good fortune of seeing LSU pinned back at their own nine with the chance to reclaim a modicum of field position. Instead, Charles Scott burst through a gigantic hole for 12 yards. The next play Scott ran untouched into the secondary for nine more. A quick screen to a wide-open Brandon Lafell gained 18. And then, for your coup-de-grace, Scott dashed footloose and fancy-free through the heart of Auburn's defense for 31 more yards. In four plays, LSU had gone from their own 9 to Auburn's 21.

Each one of those plays felt like having a nice clean hole in the pit of my stomach carve out with an ice cream scoop. I'd been wrong. There weren't any capes after all. None of them could fly. Antonio Coleman? Human. Tray Blackmon? Human. Jerraud Powers and Zac Etheridge and Merrill Johnson and Antoine Carter and Chris Evans? Human, every one of them. Even Sen'Derrick Marks, terror of terrors, who for all his blindingly-obvious brilliance was one of our two defensive tackles on a drive where the middle of the line parted in a fashion the Red Sea would be ashamed of? Achingly, heartbreakingly human. The Auburn defense is not, as it turns out, composed of an unending chain of demons. It's just made up of very, very good football players.

That's not meant as an insult. I mean it: these guys are very, very good. But they also gave up 293 yards in that second half to a team with a completely untested freshman quarterback who'd finished off the first half throwing what might be the single dumbest interception I've ever seen. They gave up 23 second-half points. Most damningly, for the second straight year they needed one stop to defeat LSU and put Auburn firmly on the road to Atlanta; for the second straight year LSU drove the ball all the way into the end zone. Very good, yes. Heroes, no. The truth, as it so often does, hurts.

In their defense, let me say several things, this first: at times they did not receive help from their defensive coordinator. Paul Rhoads dialed up a seven-man delayed blitz against Southern Miss and had it result in a simple completion for a first down on 4th-and-10, but for some reason neither this nor LSU's far-superior offensive line nor that this call would leave a freshman corner one-on-one with one of LSU's freaks stopped him from calling a virtually identical play with the Bad Tigers facing 3rd-and-10 from Auburn's 39. The result is what you see pictured above: a simple touchdown catch despite the fact that Lee was clobbered by Spencer Pybus as he released the ball. This one is not on them.

Also not on them: a special teams performance I might call comical if it didn't make me want to grind my teeth into dust in frustration every time I start to think about it. LSU out-punted Auburn by a net of 48.3 to 35.7 and with the game on the line, our pre-season All-SEC punter shanked it all of 25 yards--without Trindon Holliday even on the field. Comical? No, after seeing Auburn's last three defeats to LSU all come down in massive part to easily fixable special teams blunders, I have to say it strikes me as something closer to tragic.

But particularly in this series, I wasn't expecting too much more out of Auburn's special teams. The defense, obviously, is another matter. Let there be no faulting their effort--they played as hard as they possibly could for as long as they possibly could. Let there be no questioning their outstanding, even amazing abilities--they will flat stuff several teams between now and the end of the season, I have no doubt. Let there also be no illusions about how good a team they faced Saturday--I suspect Scott and that offensive line will flatten virtually anyone who dares oppose them.

But let us also go forward with the understanding that as much as we love them, as much as we respect them, neither our fathers nor our defense are going to make everything perfect just by the snap of their fingers. Growing up is never easy. I just wish I hadn't had to have been reminded of that Saturday night.

Three Stars

Robert Dunn. Caught everything thrown his way, in the process becoming the first Auburn wide receiver since Aromashadu was running around I feel confident in calling a difference maker. Would have been nice to see him take an end-around or two on a night when Auburn was having so much trouble running the ball, yes/no?

Sen'Derrick Marks. Despite the second-half troubles containing Scott, Marks nonetheless was his usual wave-of-destruction self for most of the evening, racking up seven tackles from DT including 1.5 of them loss. I hesitate to think how bad things might have been if we didn't have him.

Chris Todd. Watching in person, it becomes painfully obvious: Todd's got nothing on his fastball. Given the condition of his shoulder and his positively Leardian and/or Coxesque mobility, I can't imagine there's a less physically gifted quarterbacking starting in the SEC today. Hard to say his decision-making was perfect, either, considering the two picks and the multiple sacks-out-of-field-goal-range. But on a night when Auburn got less than nothing from its running game, he still managed to get Auburn into the end zone twice against what's probably the best defense they'll face outside of Georgia's. I'll take it.

Three opportunities for improvement

Punting. [/obvs] Durst better not just have had the flu, he'd have better been in the critical care ward hooked up to about four IVs. That Shoemaker continued to see the field after that seven-yard shank is, well, let's just say "deeply unfortunate."

Finishing drives. Speaking of that seven-yard shank, consider: Auburn drove to the LSU 19 on that drive and eventually handed the visitors the ball on the 27. It would have been better if they'd simply turned the ball over. With the two TD's I'm not going to gripe too much about red zone execution per se, but Auburn has to at least get a field goal out of a drive like that one--which is why I'd have had no problem with the 4th-and-1 play-action call the next time down against, say, an offensively-oriented team like Ole Miss or Arkansas. (Or if Auburn had been behind by a score or two.) But in this game, in that situation? Take the first down and hope Byrum can do his thing.

Conditioning? No question about it, Auburn looked tired at the end of the game and--more importantly--a lot more gassed than LSU was. I'm sure LSU's rotations along each line (not to mention their size) and in the receiving corps may have had something to do with it, but come on: Auburn ran one more play than LSU did, the game was on ESPN (not CBS, but still), and the defense had something likely approaching 35 minutes of rest between halftime and Auburn's six-minute drive to open the second half. Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about--someone correct me if I'm wrong in the comments--but seems to me that under those conditions, there shouldn't be so much difference in fatigue as to make that a viable excuse.

Numbers of importance

7.8, 14.7.; 7.6, 15.7. Yards-per-attempt and yards-per-completion for Auburn's quarterbacks and LSU's, respectively. Given the dramatic increase in competition, those numbers mean this was far and away Todd's best performance of the season, even considering the two interceptions. The problem is that the same could easily be said for LSU's quarterbacks, too.

1.9. Auburn's average yards-per-carry. Ewwwwww. More on this, Auburn's quarterback situation, and Tony Franklin in a second post.

0. Combined number of offensive touches for Mario Fannin, Tristan Davis, and Kodi Burns in a game in which Auburn rushed for--again--1.9 yards-a-carry.

Your bottom line

A lot of this post has been on the negative side, I know. A large part of me wants to say that's only appropriate; Auburn lost a potentially season-defining game, at home, they could have easily won. We're not supposed to be happy, particularly when this isn't a case of Auburn outplaying LSU and coming undone by a series of bad breaks.

But I'm well aware there were several positives to come out of the game. Heroes or not, the defense is still hellacious. Chris Todd kept his pants pristine and excrement-free in the biggest game of his life and against one of the best defenses he'll ever face. Look past the devastating sack to close the game, and you realize pass protection was fantastic--allowing just two sacks against a line as ferocious as LSU's with a quarterback as statuesque as Todd is a tremendous accomplishment. (Run blocking was obviously meh, but made much more difficult in-my-humble-opinion by Auburn's peculiar insistence on running the same play over and over again. More on this later.) I was surprised to see Acid Reign chastise the receivers for drops; aside from Trott's early bobble I don't recall any, and that would be the first time in a long time for Auburn's wideouts as a whole. Add all the positives together and this is still a team whose goals--win SEC West, win 10 games, BEAT BAMA--are still more than attainable. There remains no reason to think Auburn will be outmatched in any game on their schedule--yes, even Georgia--and no reason to think our Tigers won't continue to play very well in big games. You have to admit that much: Auburn played very well Saturday night, against a damn strong football team*.

But that's thing: against the LSU's of the world, Auburn just isn't talented enough right now--especially on offense--to win these games merely by playing well. Todd isn't Campbell. Tate isn't Ronnie Brown. The receivers aren't Aromashadu, Obamanu, Taylor, etc. As good as the defense is, its nickel and dime backs are still true freshmen. There is no margin for error when facing a team a dripping with talent as LSU.

It's not the end of the world; it's been this way ever since 2005. Since that point, Auburn's had to play not just very well but damn near out of their minds and catch a couple of breaks to beat the other upper-echelon teams in the SEC. They've done that several times, of course, and it won't surprise me much if against Georgia and 'Bama they do it again. Against teams in the second tier like Tennessee, Ole Miss, and Vandy, Auburn's more than capable of making enough plays to pull out a victory, a la Arkansas last year and 'Bama the last couple.

That's the good news: after the LSU game, it's safe to say Auburn's just as good as they were in 2006 and 2007. Unfortunately, that's also the bad news.

*You try resisting writing that sentence when trying to quantify how good LSU is. Impossible.

Sunday knee-jerk isn't talking about the "Auburn Tigers"

Proposed: we stop talking, right now, today, about the "Auburn Tigers."

Because it's impossible. After last night's 3-2 win, there's nothing coherent to write or say about the Auburn baseball soccer field hockey football team. Trying to address the "Auburn Tigers" as a whole is like calling both heads and tails on a coinflip, like rooting for both teams at the Iron Bowl. You can't do it.

Because the "Auburn Tigers" we saw last night weren't a football team. They were two separate football teams, two unique sets of Auburn Tigers, two subspecies of what our more scientifically-minded readers might call Auburna tigris: namely, Auburna tigris defensis and Auburna tigris offensis. Both subspecies have identical markings and are indistinguishable to the naked eye, but the comprehensively divergent behavioral patterns of each--and the differing projected long-term survival rate and success of the two subspecies--are irreconcilable with them sharing a unified classification.

In short: there's no way to discuss the "Auburn Tigers" without either selling the Auburn defense's accomplishments short or failing to fully address how broken the Auburn offense appears to be. So I'm not going to try. There are two teams here who happen to be joined by one uniform, one sideline, one school, one nickname and one scoreboard: thus there are two posts here, joined in a single URL.

1. Names

As per the official box score, these are the men who played defense for Auburn against Mississippi St.:

52-Antonio Coleman, 93-Mike Blanc, 94-Sen'Derrick Marks, 49-Michael Goggans, 46-Craig Stevens, 10-Tray Blackmon, 59-Chris Evans, 26-Mike McNeil, 4-Zac Etheridge, 8-Jerraud Powers, 6-Walter McFadden, 11-Mike Slade, 15-Neiko Thorpe, 17-Josh Bynes, 25-D'Antoine Hood, 31-Adam Herring, 33-Christian Thompson, 39-Spencer Pybus, 45-Antoine Carter, 55-Merrill Johnson, 56-Courtney Harden, 83-Gabe McKenzie, 91-Jake Ricks, 98-Zach Clayton, 99-Tez Doolittle.

This is what they accomplished: 6 first downs allowed. 38 rushing yards allowed. 79 passing yards allowed. 116 total yards allowed. 1.3 yards a rush, 3.1 yards a passing attempt, 2.1 yards a play allowed. 0 third-down conversions in 14 attempts. 15 possessions faced, 0 points allowed. 1 game won, single-handedly. On the road. Against an SEC team.

So I list their names because they deserve to be listed. They deserved to be named. (It's possible a couple of them only played special teams, I'm not sure: whatever, Pegues never got loose.) Part of me thinks it's too soon, too over-the-top to say whatever hope we Auburn fans have of this season living up to our, well, hopes lies with them--I'd have said the same after the South Florida game last year, only to see Good Brandon ride in and save the day against the Gators. But most of me thinks that's where we are. Whatever hope we Auburn fans have of this season living up to our hopes lies with them.

That's almost OK, because it's a hell of a hope. Walt McFadden was supposed to be something of a question mark: he only made, particularly given the timing, one of the best interceptions I can ever remember by an Auburn player. Sen'Derrick Marks has shouldered the burden of being a potential first-round draft pick and the best player on one of the country's best defenses, the one that seemed to haunt Q. Groves all season long last year: instead he's been even better than expected, the wrecking ball around which everything else our opponents have attempted has crumbled. Blackmon finally looked liked Blackmon. Tez Doolittle, back from the football dead. Powers. Stevens, Johnson, and Evans. Gabe friggin' McKenzie.

Can they beat the likes of LSU by themselves? Could they beat Georgia? The Tide? I don't know. But after what they did in Starkville, I don't think it's only my burnt-orange-and-navy-blue glasses that makes me think they might. They're that good. They offered us all a lifeline last night, and I'm going to cling to it this week--and probably longer--like a football-crazed man drowning in his worry.

2. Mirage?

Remember how optimistic we all were after the Clemson game? Remember?

As false a prophet as Tony Franklin appeared to be last night, I swear he gave us more than ample reason to believe last New Year's Eve. We'd asked all season for someone to get more of our talented running backs on the field: he did that. We asked all season for someone to find a way to use the unique and unquestionably valuable talents of Kodi Burns: he did that. We'd asked for someone to construct an Auburn offense that felt like it could do something more than grind out four yards a carry and then pray that Brandon Cox would throw to someone wearing the proper color of jersey, an offense that felt like it attacked rather than hung on by its fingernails as--let's be honest--Borges's had for two seasons: Franklin did that in that Clemson game, and he did it in only nine practices.

So why in the bloody hell is that Clemson game still the sharpest Tony Franklin's offense has looked at Auburn, with:

1. an entire spring and fall camps' worth of practice and three more games in which to continuing develop said offense

2. every player of significance who took the field on offense against Clemson, save Brandon Cox, back this season

3. even more versatility available at running back (with Davis's health) and wide receiver (via recruiting, health, etc.).

It defies logical sense. Why was Fannin worthy of touching the ball eight times against Clemson and all of twice last night? The running backs--still, without question, the most talented unit on the offense--caught 11 balls against Clemson; they caught five last night. Against Clemson, after nine practices in the new system, Auburn's quarterbacks completed 60 percent of their passes; after bringing in a QB who we all know KNOWS THE SYSTEM and giving the line, receivers, etc. all the time necessary to find their grooves in the offense, that completion percentage has increased to ... 53.8 percent. Nine practices yielded three offensive penalties; an entire year's worth of work yielded nine. How?

The relative strength of State's defense compared to Clemson's obviously changes the numbers around a bit, but it doesn't change the fact that all the creativity, the attitude of surprise, the damn spark that Franklin brought to Auburn last December seems utterly leached away. There was no better symbol of this than ESPN's repeated shots of an interested-but-hardly-engaged Kodi Burns on the sideline, re-reduced to hoping (or least I'm hoping he was hoping) he'd get a snap or two here or there but otherwise consigned to spectating ... even as the Auburn offense could not cry out more loudly--particularly inside the red zone--for the kind of unpredictable explosiveness he could bring to the field. Burns's inclusion in the Clemson gameplan was the single biggest sign, we thought, that Franklin had committed to finding a way to use every weapon Auburn could offer him; seeing Chris Todd take every snap of last night's game was likewise the single biggest sign that Franklin has apparently forgotten that commitment or never genuinely made it.

From Burns's absence to the avalanche of penalties to Todd's inabililty to hit a crossing pattern to the continuing, maddening fumbling issues--Auburn has handed the ball to four different tailbacks the past two games and all four of them have fumbled at least once--there's no point in soft-selling the fact that Auburn's offense was poorly prepared for last night's game. They were poorly coached. After Auburn has gone four of the six halves they've played without scoring an offensive touchdown, it's neither unfair nor sensationalist to say than as the offensive coordinator Tony Franklin has done a poor job to date.

But I'm not ready to say Franklin is a poor coach, not ready to leap off the cliff and declare his offense incapable of functioning at an SEC level. The Clemson game continues to stand as a testament to what he can do when he's willing to be creative. When Franklin is willing to put the ball in the hands of his best playmakers via the system rather than stubbornly letting the system (or god knows what other demands) dictate where the ball ends up, he should be smart enough to make this work. He coached the Clemson game as if he was proving he deserved the job; this Saturday he'd best coach the LSU game as if to prove he deserves to keep it. Or past whatever New Year's Eve game Auburn lands in this year, he may not.

Three Stars

Tray Blackmon. Team lead in tackles, several pounding hits, the critical 4th-and-1 stop in the fourth. Maybe there was something to that bit about Blackmon regaining his old Little Ball of Hate form once he faced a team that, say, had use for a fullback?

Clinton Durst. As in (mostly justifiable) awe as Davis and Davie and an awful lot of Auburn fans were of State punter Blake McAdam, his net punting average was 35.9. Durst's--facing a returner of equal ability with Pegues as McAdam faced with Dunn--was 35.1. In a game in which Auburn couldn't afford to give up field position via an exchange of punts--obviously--Durst made sure they didn't.

Walt McFadden. Honestly, there's not a guy on the defense that wouldn't fit in this spot, but we'll go with the guy who made the most spectacular defensive play of the season so far.

Three Opportunities for Improvement

Wait ... just three?

Red zone scoring. As Will pointed out, after wheezing across the goal line vs. USM and then looking as abjectly hopeless inside the 10 as they did against State, it's time for Auburn's offense to either abandon the spread entirely whilst in scoring position or maybe, I dunno, bring in the quarterback whose proven time and again he can get the ball in the endzone without having to throw it amidst an inevitable thicket of defenders.

Byrum. Auburn: your home for placekickers capable of stone-cold brilliance and mind-melting chokery within the same calendar year since 1999! (See: Duval, Damon, and V****n, J**n.)

Oh geez, I don't know, the multiple unforced fumbles in the final dying minutes of a one-point game in which our defense has already been on the field for way too damn long? Maybe that could be improved? Sorry ... maybe taking this “knee-jerk” thing too far. On the other hand … seriously, what the hell?

Numbers of importance

11. Auburn’s yards-per-completion. Peculiarly, after getting basically nothing going down the field through the first two games, the Tigers’ only semi-successful ploy on offense last night (well, aside from the occasional rushing opening) was to air it out. Some gentle kudos to Billings for his efforts in this, uh, effort, and considering that Todd was asked to stretch the field a bit more, it’s worth noting that …

0 is the number of interceptions Todd threw. So he’s got that going for him. Then again, when the best thing you can say about a quarterback is that he didn’t completely screw things up, perhaps it’s an indication he could have accomplished a bit more, no?

3-for-46. The combined success on third-down conversions of Auburn’s three opponents to date. Yep, 3-for-46. I’ll live with that.

Your bottom line

As stated, Auburn’s defense sure seems like the last hope of our Tigers surviving LSU’s visit. It’s hope enough: win that one 3-2—or 7-3 or 10-9, neither of the latter completely out of the question—and we’ll all be dancing down Gay Street regardless of whether Tate holds on to the ball or Todd runs a fully-committed option this go-round.

But as a wise man once said when told there was a single hope: No. There is another. And that’s this, the other silver lining in the black cloud the Auburn offense created in Starkville: no one will expect Tommy Tuberville to win the game he’s coaching this Saturday. No one, save for a handful of Auburn diehards that, deep down, can never bear to think otherwise anyway.

After nearly 10 years of watching Tubby walk the Auburn sideline, I doubt I have to explain why no one expecting Tommy Tuberville to win a football game is reason to think he just might win it anyway. The question is whether the offensive coordinator he hired is going to give him enough support to pull it off regardless of what upset-minded rabbits he pulls out of his hat this time.

Belated knee-jerk: Kodi Burns and the Trousers of Time

Happier times.

Caution: extreme geekery ahead.

As in: consider the sci-fi/fantasy staple where due to some kind of quantum philosophical hoo-doo, we discover that every time an event happens, the event actually happens in all kinds of different crazy ways in all kinds of different crazy alternate realities. Brit fantasy god Terry Pratchett* refers to this convention as the "Trousers of Time": something occurs, Character X slides down one trouser leg (for better, usually), and the audience understands that alternate Character X is sliding down the other (for worse, usually) with nothing but blind luck to separate the two of them.

Here is our something that occurs: Kodi Burns is on the run in the third quarter of Auburn's season opener against Louisiana-Monroe. He picks up the first down and heads towards the right sideline, where a Warhawk defender dives at his legs headfirst in an attempt to make the tackle. Burns leaps towards the sideline in an effort to dodge, and ...

... in the trouser leg we know, a screw in the helmet of the ULM defender opens up a severe laceration in Burns's leg. Burns immediately leaves the game and does not return. He is unable to practice on Monday and is limited on Tuesday. Tommy Tuberville, still reeling from his passing game's abysmal showing the Saturday before and anxious to give his offense a flag to rally around, names Chris Todd the starter for the Southern Miss game after Tuesday's practice; how can he announce Burns as the starter when he may not even play? (Though Tubby does call the move a predetermined plan; in the JCCW's mind, this is so that Burns is at least saved the indignity of being demoted due to injury.) Todd indeed gets the start and efficiently guides the Auburn offense into the Southern Miss red zone on four of their first five possessions, eventually leading the Tigers to an all-but-insurmountable 24-0 lead. Burns is given the first series of the second half; Auburn goes nowhere, and when he reenters the game two possessions later, his desperation to make an impression leads him to an off-balance and ill-advised interception. He finishes the day 0-3 with a pick and a rushing TD that eerily echoes his almost-insulting "running back lining up at QB"-style cameos under Al Borges. Todd is named the team's starting quarterback before the final whistle has even blown and Burns is left to keep his dignity and pride intact as best he can in the face of demotion and what is, without question, a crushingly unfair situation. (More on this in a sec.)

or ...

... in the other trouser leg, Burns's leg is positioned a half-inch to the right as the ULM defender collides with him. It stings, but Burns walks it off on his way back to the huddle and by the time he drops back three plays later and hits Rod Smith for a 12-yard touchdown, he's forgotten it completely.

Buoyed with confidence after his strong second-half showing, Burns shines in practice Monday and is named the Southern Miss starter Tuesday. He leads the freshly focused Auburn offense smartly down the field and caps the drive himself with a seven-yard scamper for six. He finishes the day 15-27 for 199 yards and a TD, along with 7 rushes for 66 yards and another score. Auburn wins 27-13 after Todd comes in and once again struggles in the relief role. Burns is named the starter before the final whistle blows. Charles Goldberg puts up a tape of Todd saying all the right things, though behind his eyes you can see he wonders: If just one thing had gone differently ...

--------------

There's no doubt any longer: this Auburn season is going to be defined by the quarterback position. It was always likely, of course, ever since spring camp broke without Burns cementing the job for himself. And though there are certainly exceptions--Florida's 2008, for instance will be defined by whether that bailing-wire D stands up to the SEC as well as it did to the 'Canes--you could probably make the same statement about most teams.

Nonetheless, after seeing what the rest of this team is capable of over the past two Saturdays, we're more-or-less just waiting to find out what happens at quarterback. We know the Auburn defense will sow chaos and reap jellylegged fear against every opponent they play; the Southern Miss offense was laden with more All-SEC-caliber talent than Miss. St., Vandy, and Kentucky combined and they went nowhere for a half. We know the Auburn offensive line is going to give the quarterback some semblance of time and the running backs some semblance of space in which to fumble operate; there's too much experience, talent, etc. for them not to. We don't know if they're going to hold on to the ball, but we do at least know the Auburn running backs are going to run hard and run fast whenever they do.

Now, we don't know if the receivers are going to ever become a strength and we don't know if the offensive coaching staff will be as innovative and as game-sharp as we'd like, but even if they're not, they can likely be overcome by the rest of Auburn's advantages--provided the Auburn quarterback doesn't work to actively undo them. The burden of difference between Auburn being a good team and Auburn being a great team lies squarely on the shoulders of the gentleman lining up under center.

And the identity of that gentleman may lie squarely in the pinpoint positioning of a random screw holding a random Warhawk helmet together that randomly met with Kodi Burns's shin. The kingdom was lost, the nursey rhyme goes, and all for the want of a horseshoe nail. Something very akin to a horseshoe nail has handed Chris Todd the keys to Auburn's kingdom. And while the early returns are encouraging, it remains to be seen if the season has indeed been won or lost.

Three Stars

Robert Dunn. Dyuuuh. I feel fairly certain that I've seen teams kick away from Auburn punt returners before--specifically Cadillac when he was fooling around back there--but certainly never with the 25-yards-a-pop cowardice USM put on display. If the Theory of Tristan Davis becomes finally realized and proven at kickoff returner--giving the Tigers Dunn at PR, Davis at KR, Saturn V Durst at punter and Byrum at PK--is there a team anywhere on Auburn's schedule that could match the Tigers on special teams? I'm going to go ahead and say "No," just for the hell of it.

Jerraud Powers. I wish the stat guys tracked "Yards-After-Catch for Receivers Covered by Secondary Member X," because I'm pretty sure Powers' total for the game would have been somewhere in the -6 to -17 range. Too bad: we'll just have to go with the stats we have, which show a team-leading eight tackles and the single tremendous interception.

Chris Todd. Did exactly what we he was called on to do. Could have taken a couple more shots downfield, I guess--Jay G. Tate thinks so, anyway--but things went as smoothly as they could in the first half and the second half of a game the Auburn defense is in complete control of probably isn't the time to start winging the ball over the place, either. As you could probably guess from the above, I have an intense amount of sympathy for Burns at the moment, but Todd laid claim to the job with every bit the conviction he was supposed to.

Three Opportunities for Improvement

Fumblin'. Honey, I don't wanna watch this movie, 'cause I've seen it before and I know how it ends. (Note also that it's not just the running backs: Todd's fumble occurred with him carrying the thing one-handed and so far away from his body the ball decided it wasn't really worth it to write home anymore. STOP THAT RIGHT NOW, please and thank you.)

Tray Blackmon. Come on, buddy. I know you can do better than that, I just know you can. ("That" = three tackles, an anonymous two-yard sack, and if not zero impact, like, .7 impact.)

Coverage o' the tight end. Shawn Nelson ended up being precisely the beastly beast we were warned about, but 12 catches for 112 yards and 2 TDs nonetheless means some sort of adjustment needed to be made, either by whoever was supposed to be covering Nelson or by the coaches who may have not have asked anyone to cover him in the first place (or so sez a befuddled Acid Reign).

Numbers of Importance

24.6. Southern Miss's net yards-per-punt, one of the lowest numbers I can remember seeing against Auburn; consider that it means that if the Eagles punted from their own 25, on average, Auburn would still start on the USM side of midfield. (For comparison Auburn was at 38.6, though that was hurt by a 16-yard net when Durst punted from the 36 into the end zone.)

15, 5. Auburn's number of first downs gained by pass and gained by run, a complete inverse of the ULM game, where the same ratio would have read 3 to 16. Along with the mediocre 3.2 YPC, it indicates that Auburn's offensive line didn't quite dominate the Eagles' inexperienced front on the ground the way I said they would. Oh well.

11. The number of different Auburn receivers who caught a pass. We at Auburn University are happy to welcome the future with open arms! See that building over there: it's powered by wind and solar panels! Next stop: Fizzy Lifting Drinks!

Your bottom line

First, about the "unfair" comment above: that refers to the situation, and not the actions/decisions taken by Auburn's coaching staff, who I seriously worry have as of this weekend been forced to declare the second-best guy their quarterback without even really having a choice in the matter.

To wit: if Burns and Todd are virtual equals in practice, then it's fairer to let them battle it out during game action, isn't it? And wasn't the every-other-series rotation the fairest way of doing that? And when that failed so miserably, didn't they have to declare a starter as soon as possible to give their offense a sense of direction during their preparation for the Golden Eagles? And didn't they have to declare the healthy guy that starter? And there's definitely no choice now, with Todd has grabbing the job by the horns and Burns comprehensively whiffing on his few opportunities, is there? Perhaps Auburn's coaches could have swallowed hard and named Burns the starter before ULM; perhaps they could have waited until later in this last practice week to name a starter, for maximum fairness. But the former "perhaps" is hindsight talking and the latter actively flies in the face of the team's success Saturday. Calling it "fate" seems like a cop-out, but is there any step of this process at which you can argue with Tubby's logic? It's not even remotely fair that Todd got the chance to prove himself without alternating series, a chance, it appears, that Burns may never get--but then football's unfortunately never been any fairer than life.

So now where do we go? For the purposes of both explosiveness and the defusing of what we all know could become a powder keg of divisiveness in the locker room, the JCCW's personal preference for Miss. St. is for Franklin to go back to his Clemson game tapes and find a way to keep 1B Burns on the field as often as possible while maintaining some continuity for 1A Todd. But as Todd isn't Brandon Cox just yet (for both better and worse), that continuity may not be possible. At this point, I think we fans have to simply place our faith in Tubby and Co. to keep the train on the tracks--as I said before, the defense, special teams, and running game can likely handle some wobbles as long as the quarterback situation doesn't derail the whole damn thing. The wager here is that Tubby's not going to let it.

*If you have any stomach at all for novels involving, say, dwarves, you really must read Pratchett. He's fantasy's version of Douglas Adams, if Adams was twice as funny and 1,000 times more capable of pathos.