This sort of thing cracks me up: Rivals has some news about "one of Auburn's top signees in the 2009 recruiting class" who "could compete immediately for playing time at the quarterback position" and just happens to look exactly like Tyrik Rollison ... but to find out who that signee is, you're really going to have to go behind the paywall, sorry. Honestly, they should have just gone all the way and referred to him as "this signee, whose name rhymes with Blyrik Blollison."
As for the actual news, well, until there's some official, public word from the NCAA Clearinghouse (or Rollison's Facebook page ... no update yet, jrs?) I'm holding off on the kazoos. But obviously Rollison's qualification has never looked more likely, that much we can say.
Immediate reax: whether you buy Rollison's substantial recruiting hype or not, whether you think any true freshman quarterback is capable of coming in and contributing immediately, whatever you think of Burns, Caudle, and Chris Todd 2: Son of Todd, the fact is that Auburn cannot have a successful 2009 season without lining up someone competent at quarterback. Having Rollison on campus puts one more bullet in the chamber, one more shot at having that someone emerge from the scrum and taking this team by the reins. Maybe that person will be Rollison; more likely--he is a freshman after all--it won't be. But that extra bullet could also make all the difference, and I'm damn, damn glad it's there.
All right, come on, you've got to laugh at Holly's headline for this post over at DocSat's place:
Terry Bowden figures, if Terry Bowden can do it, how hard can it be?
Funny as that is, get past the crack at Bowden's ego (and, to some extent, Chizik's current Bowden-esque national stature) and you can kind of realize ... hey, he's kind of got a point. When Bowden tells Kevin Scarbinsky "Auburn's bigger than any of us coaches" and that anyone offering a blanket dismissal of the Chiznick's chances should probably be a little more rational about it .. well, he's right.
Of course, Bowden also couldn't just say "Chizik could turn out to be a successful coach"; he has to say "Chizik could turn out to be me!", because he is Terry Bowden speaking to the media, after all. And of course there's no mention of whether it'll be worth having a Terry Bowden 2.0 when 1.0 was mostly a patch on preexisting bugs that never solved (and in fact, enhanced) the program's larger structural problems.
But for all of that, there's no reason here to do anything more than chuckle at Bowden's foibles and wish him luck at UNA. As I've said before, despite the chaos of his departure and the various embarrassments of his media career, he's still the guy who gave us 1993. A lot of coaches at a lot of schools never gave his team's fans anything like that, and it's worth remembering, even if we'd rather forget almost everything that came afterwards.
Other assorted reaction to the Bowden pieces and the reaction elsewhere:
--Reading Scarbinsky's profile of Bowden at UNA, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he wins and wins big there. Whatever you think of the job Bowden did at Auburn and Jeff did at Florida St., they've got a ton of experience and Terry's always been a sharp X's and O's man. They'll cobble together something that works schematically. I don't doubt that Terry's work ethic is almost as intense as K-Scar describes it as being--he's been chomping at the bit for a coaching job for so long, I imagine he's going to do everything he can to make the most out of it. And lastly, name-recognition on the Bowden scale isn't easy to come by at the D-II level, as new Lions QB Harrison Beck (a one-time stud recruit and former starter for a decent N.C. State squad) will no doubt tell you.
--Sorry, Terry, but I disagree that you were any more out-of-left-field than Chizik. I don't have crystal-clear memories of that coaching search, but at the time Bowden was (as Acid Reign says) a "bright-up-and-comer" from just up the road with unimpeachable coaching bloodlines who was taking over what appeared to be a smoldering NCAA crater opposite the closest thing 'Bama had had to the Bear since that one dude stuck a plaid hat on a real bear. Chizik, on the other hand, was a coach on a 10-game losing streak taking over a clean program that had wrapped up a 34-5 three-year span just two weeks previous. I realize that in 1992 no one was going to show up at airports to boo David Housel unless he hired the hat-wearing bear, but seriously, from here Bowden's hire seems far, far more justifiable than Chizik's.
--If you're Tommy Bowden and you read this ...
"I couldn't see him not going back (to coaching)," Jeff said. "I always thought he was the best coach in the family."
The whole family?
"Let me say this -- of the sons."
... what on earth do you think? I think I think "Two-hand touch my ass, Jeff's getting laid out at the backyard game this Thanksgiving."
--Give Terry some credit: not too many would have the guts to detail exactly how brutal and swift their own fall was:
That's going from being national coach of the year in 1993 to being one play away in the fourth quarter from beating Tennessee in the SEC Championship Game in 1997 to less than 12 months away from being without a job at 42 years old.
He refers to that as "monumental failure," and well, again, points for honesty.
--Jay Coulter sums up the difficulty in assessing Bowden's tenure from the Auburn fan perspective in two easy sentences:
Because he didn't even last six seasons, Bowden can never be viewed as anything more than a transitional coach. Yet he guided Auburn to one of only three undefeated seasons in school history.
And again, in his conclusion:
Time has allowed him to get his due for what he accomplished in his early years. Unfortunately for him, the decision to quit on his team halfway through the season will be his lasting legacy among Auburn fans.
Personally, I've never held much of a grudge against Bowden for his midseason flight--I'm not sure I'd have played out the string for a bunch of Lowderites that had decided to fire me after seven bad games if I'd been in his situation. But that's not to say the program wasn't a shambles by then, and that's why the Bowden tenure is so tricky--in a span not even lasting full six seasons, we got both the high of a 20-game win streak and the low of the Gabe Gross Era. What do we do with that?
--That said, Terry would earn a few more points with me if he quit keeping a bust of Bear Bryant on his desk. Recruiting tool or not, man, shouldn't an Auburn coach keep it in a drawer or closet or something?
Auburn grabbed its eighth commitment for 2010 when Decatur, Ga., cornerback Jonathan Mincy announced his intention to play for the Tigers late Monday night ...
The 5-foot-10, 175-pound cornerback from Southwest Dekalb High is ranked as a three-star recruit by both Rivals and Scout. Rivals has him as the 25th ranked cornerback nationally. Scout ranks him 40th.
Mincy follows in the footsteps of virtually all of Auburn's other commitments: yeah, he's a three-star, but he's a three-star well on the high end of the three-star scale. Both Rivals and Scout report offers from LSU, Miami, and North Carolina, and Rivals adds on Michigan and Georgia Tech offers as well. However seriously you think these various teams might have been pursuing Mincy, you don't get that kind of attention by, well, not being good at the sport of football.
ESPN gives Mincy a better-than-average-but-not-stupendous 78, which I guess could be better. But the main thing is this: six of Auburn's eight commitments have gotten a 78 or better (with one of the two others one of the nation's best kickers). Whatever you think of ESPN's evaluative skills, this is a much, much better ratio than last year's dead-even 50 percent at 78 or better. In short: the talk about this staff improving Auburn's recruiting hasn't just been hype, and Mincy's just the latest example.
Highlights!
Hooray! Elsewhere, the news hasn't been quite as good, but nothing earth-shatteringly bad, either.
C'est la vie.Last time on "Krootin'," I wrote that if--if! if! if!--Michael Dyer didn't take any more visits (as one report had quoted him as saying), it would be a safe bet to expect him to come to the Plains. Not surprisingly in the least for a player of his caliber, either he changed his mind or he never said it or something along those lines, because since he's been talking about taking visits to LSU and Notre Dame and how the Irish (and Oklahoma) are apparently in the mix. From where I sit: hey, that's fine. (And totally expected: a smart kid like Dyer knows there's not really any reason for him to make a decision right away, a fact I should have emphasized more last time out.) Asking for anything more than a solid lead--which Auburn still holds with Dyer, even according to the Notre Dame ESPN affiliate--with a player like Dyer (especially at a program that's struggled as much of late as Auburn has) is getting greedy. Greedy is fun while the waiting is the hardest part, and all that, but that's how it goes. The news here will need to be much worse before the glass gets half-empty.
“It has impacted me a lot,” he said. “I like playing with both of them.”
Fortunately, it hasn't impacted Mack so much that Auburn's not still right there, as this quote from the same article demonstrates:
“I’ve liked every school that I have visited so far,” Mack said. “All have their own little different way. At South Carolina, I like coach Wolford. At Auburn, I feel like I’m at home. (Clemson) Coach (Chris) Rumph is from down here and he can relate to what I’m going through. At Georgia Tech, I like the atmosphere. So, right now, I’m (in St. Matthews) and that is basically it.”
Your guess is as good as mine whether "home" is more or less important than the factors he mentions elsewhere, but I also think it's fair to assume that Auburn doesn't have a lead here and that there's still a lot more work left to do--both with Mack and on the offensive line in general.
Yeah, you can give that up now. So much for the idea that Rivals is the pro-Tide service and Scout the more Auburn-friendly gurus: Scout's preliminary Alabama top 50 rates Jawara White and Auburn's best in-state commitment to-date at No. 10. The top eight consists entirely of Tide and Florida commits and/or leans, with LaDarius Owens at No. 9 the only other likely Auburn commitment in the top 10. Rivals' list should be a little kinder--they're much higher on Jeremy Richardson, as we know, and supposedly Owens is going to make a big move with them. Nonetheless it remains a little bit aggravating to see Auburn shut out of the state's best consensus talents again. No, it won't matter much if Auburn can keep pulling solid out-of-state talents like Mincy, and certainly Rome wasn't built in a day--nabbing Richardson, White, and (fingers crossed) Owens would make it a big improvement on last year. But there's still some obvious room for improvement.
Etc. As mentioned briefly yesterday, Scout has seen fit to rank Cody Parkey the No. 2 kicker in the nation and give him a fourth star, making him Auburn's only four-star commitment-to-date at that service ... four-star Auburn wideout target Antonio Goodwin will play in the ESPN All-American game. He apparently named Auburn his leader not too long ago and ESPN guru J.C. Shurbutt says "the Tigers are in good shape at the moment" ... at that same Insider link, Marcus Lattimore discussed trips to Clemson and Georgia without saying anything overly complimentary of either one. Nothing really new here: Auburn's in his top eight, and he says he'll cut it down by the end of July.
So this morning I'm looking over the spring Auburn depth chart to try and gauge exactly how likely it is Harris Gaston sees the field this year--50/50 at least, I'd say, with some combination of two-star redshirt Da'Shaun Barnes, safety transplant Marcus Jemison, and Adam Herring (whose two tackles in his redshirt freshman season tied him with Tommy "Not a Tackling Tight End" Trott) the only thing standing between Gaston and a spot on the two-deep--and it occurs to me there are several under-the-radar players on that depth chart that are poised to either cement themselves as key building blocks for the first few seasons of the Gene Chizik era ... or as the kinds of players that are going to be overtaken and overlooked as the new staff brings in fresh recruits and moves towards the future. It might not be fair to call 2009 a "make-or-break" season for them; as Tez Doolittle would tell you, sometimes it's never too late to "make." But they'll definitely make a move one way or the other, either coming closer to the top of the depth chart heap or leave themselves with an even more difficult climb. There won't be any running in place for them, that much seems assured. Here's five of them:
1. Eric Smith, RB, Soph. No doubt he'd tell you he couldn't care less, but I for one would forgive Smith for following the recruitment of Marcus Lattimore more closely than most. With Ben Tate set to graduate, Auburn's power-back role (as opposed to the speed-back role currently occupied by Onterrio McCalebb) could be up-for-grabs if Mario Fannin becomes entrenched in the H-back position. Smith flashed enough potential in the season opener against UL-Monroe that he might be able to seize that spot by the throat if he can earn--and capitalize on--Tate's leftover power-back carries this fall. He didn't earn that "Little Rudi" nickname in last year's fall camp for nothin'.
But that's easier said than done, since Dontae Aycock seems likely to have something to say about it and Fannin could just as easily handle them himself. And if Smith doesn't make his move now, he might never get a chance to make it, since Aycock should only improve and--not to get too far ahead of ourselves, of course--Lattimore's talent would hypothetically demand plenty of carries from the moment he stepped on campus. And all of that is just examining things from the power-back angle--if McCalebb or Demond Washington prove too explosive to ignore in favor of the bruisers, that's even fewer carries to go around. Smith only received 12 carries the remainder of the year after picking up 9 in the 2008 opener. If that happens again this fall, we might see him draw even fewer in 2010. 2. Zach Clayton, DE/DT, Jr. Oh Lord, have mercy on the 'tweeners of the world. You would think that a team's second-leading pass rusher and second-leading returning tackler-for-loss wouldn't have a problem finding a starting spot on a defensive line that just lost two starters ... but there we are, with Clayton once again expected to be second-string behind Jake Ricks and Mike Blanc at tackle and Antonio Coleman and Michael Goggans at end. It's a hard, unfair life being slightly smaller than the coaches would like at tackle and slightly slower than the coaches would like at end.
Of course, Clayton should still see plenty of time--you wouldn't think any player who was as productive as Clayton was in fairly limited snaps last year would just ride pine. At the very least, he should be the first tackle off the bench on passing downs, and with both Coleman and Ricks set to move on a starting role as a senior seems in the offering. Then again: everyone loves Nick Fairley, and Blanc and Ricks were getting raves in the spring. And at end, with Cam Henderson emerging in the spring and Antoine Carter (surely) due for a healthier season than in 2008, snaps in which Clayton could prove himself could be scarcer than last season. If Clayton's ever going to prove himself more than a pass-rush specialist, now's the time. 3. Wes Byrum, K, Jr. Assuming Cody Parkey's as solid a commitment as we all believe him to be, in 2010 Auburn will be bringing in that rarest of breeds, a four-star kicker. (Like scientists and their coelocanths, I'm frankly surprised such things even exist.) It's pretty simple for Byrum, really: prove he's back to his cold-blooded 2008 form, or expect Auburn's coaches to go with the devil they don't know over the erratic one they do.
4. Darvin Adams, WR, So. If I'd been Googling recruits back in 2008, I'd have made note of a weird disconnect in Adams' rankings--to Rivals he was a solid prospect, a top-50 WR just a shade under the four-star cutoff. To Scout and ESPN he was nothing of the sort, the No. 116 and 90 WR, respectively.
I mention that because a year and a spring later, we're still not really any closer to finding out which of those two viewpoints was more accurate. On the one hand, Adams landed on a team starved for any kind of production at wide receiver and finished with all of three catches on the season, or one fewer than fellow true frosh (and even less guru-approved) Derek Winter. On the other, Adams was supposed to be a raw prospect, a lanky former high school quarterback who needed some time to best learn how to put his 6-3, 185-pound frame to use. If the potential Rivals saw in Adams is there--and his performance in the spring game was certainly a positive omen--maybe he'll finally become the recruiting hit the final years of the Tubby regime swung and whiffed on so many times. If Adams winds up buried again behind the likes of Winter, raging disappointment Terrell Zachery, fellow toothpick Quindarius Carr, to say nothing of converted corner Harry Adams or the incoming freshmen ... well, it might be time to chalk it up as yet another miss.
5. Bart Eddins, OL, Jr. Does anyone here think the Auburn starting offensive line is going to play the entire season ... every game, every start, every important snap? Anyone? You guys, there in the back, you? ... Didn't think so.
Which means someone's going to have to come off the bench and not trip over their own feet taking the field. As Eddins has actually, you know, been an offensive lineman last season (as opposed to Vance Smith or A.J. Greene) and actually played, however briefly, in most of Auburn's games (11 of 12, unlike Jared Cooper or Rudy Odom or Darrell Roseman) you have to think that person would be Eddins. It helps that Eddins has some physical ability, in theory at least--he had some surprisingly major recruitinghype as a defensive tackle prospect in the class of 2006. It's possible that between that potential first-guy-off-the-bench role and a starting gig next year (or this year) when Andrew McCain moves on (or can't hack it), he could still live up to all of that despite the injuries and slow start.
But on a team this wretchedly thin, if PLEASE NO PLEASE KNOCK ON A THOUSAND PIECES OF WOOD someone goes down--particularly one of the guards or centers--and someone besides Eddins wedges his way into the line, the handwriting on the wall won't be able to get too much clearer.
Because someone needs to do the work of plugging in a given Auburn signee's name into Google and synthesizing the tidbits of information that trickle out. Previous entries in this series here.
Eltoro "The Toro" Freeman has gotten the lion's share of hype out of Auburn's incoming linebacker class, and not without reason. But he's not the only quality linebacking prospect arriving on the Plains--or I should say, who's arrived--since Harris Gaston could very easily give Auburn a pair of starters out of this class.
Harris Gaston LB, 6-3, 210 Bessemer, AL (Bessemer Academy)
HIGH SCHOOL: Had 114 tackles as a senior and returned two fumbles for touchdowns ... On offense during his senior season, caught 43 passes for 860 yards and 17 touchdowns ... As a junior, made 112 tackles, including 11 sacks, and had five interceptions and a defensive touchdown ... Named the AISA Back of the Year and to the All-State team by the Alabama Sports Writers Association as a senior ... Ranked No. 10 on the Birmingham News' Super Seniors list ... Listed as the No. 13 player from Alabama by SuperPrep ... Named to PrepStar's All-Southeast Region team.
So, yeah, "6-3, 210" ... doesn't get much more "prototypically strongside linebacker-sized" than that. Also worth noting: Gaston is carrying a 3.8 GPA--good sign, that--and a listed 4.6 40 time that, well, I hope that our 6-3, 210-pound linebacker runs. Hope.
One last thing: 43 receptions and two fumble returns for TDs his senior year, five picks his junior year? Sounds like we're talking about some pretty solid hands here, the kind of hands that might come in handy in pass coverage.
Recruitnik hoo-ha: A lot of Auburn's 2009 signees might have been labeled "3.5 stars" due to one of the two major services (though rarely both) offering a fourth star. So far, Auburn's 2010 commitments also might fairly get that "3.5 star" tag, but for a different reason--they may be 3-stars at both Rivals and Scout, but they still tend to hew pretty closely to the top-end of the wide, wide range of 3-stars at both. (For an example, see the difference in one-time 3-stars Neiko Thorpe and Drew Cole.)
Gaston is another 3.5-star, but despite signing last February, he's more of the 2010 variety--all three services land him squarely between No. 20 and No. 45 in their outside linebacker rankings, all three seeing him as a 3-star but much closer to four-stardom than not. Rivals is highest on Gaston, giving him a 5.7 grade and ranking him the No. 23 OLB; Scout's just behind at No. 31; and ESPN ranks him the No. 42 OLB, though with a "better-than-average" grade of 78 and this to say:
This kid really has some eye popping upside when he finally settles down at one position in college. Gaston is a highly productive and disruptive hybrid OLB/DE and MLB at the high school level but projects best as a strong side 'backer at the next level. He possesses a tall, well-built, rangy frame that is just going to explode with good bulk when he enters a fulltime college weight-training program. ... Plays fast, physical and with great energy. Chases backside with a relentless motor and flashes great sideline-to-sideline range ... Runs through ball carriers when he tackles and shows that rare explosiveness in space you can't coach. Good blitzer with his first step quickness and acceleration; can run through or by an RB on the pickup. Hips and quickness in coverage to pattern match and possesses good ball skills ... Plays high at the point-of-attack and tends to lose his ground; does not utilize any power from his hips or lower-body. Plays a bit high in space as well and could have trouble breaking down and mirroring quicker Division I skill players ... All the physical tools needed to mold into a good linebacker.
One important caveat to the "3.5-star" idea: Gaston didn't have a top-end offer list, with both Scout and Rivals listing his only other offers coming from Kentucky and Mississippi St. (Gaston was one of Auburn's earliest commitments, so maaaaaaaybe this dissuaded other potential suitors? Probably wishful thinking.)
Links of potential interest: No free highlights out there, unfortunately, but you can see Gaston forego the hat dance in memorable fashion here:
Man, that tie-and-vest combo is downright dapper. Here's a kid who won't have any troubles with the dress code, huh?
Gaston was Auburn's fourth commitment in a class with a ton of early commitments. At that link he personally backs up the "I was committee to Auburn, so no one else offered me" hypothesis, although after Tubby left he was still open enough to take a trip to Miss. St. and kind of worry us all a bit headed up to Signing Day.
You may recall from the info sheet that Gaston was a member of the B'ham News Super Senior list; his No. 10 ranking there made him the highest-ranked Auburn commitment on that list. Yay. Unfortunately the T-Town News's Andrew Bone wasn't as impressed: Gaston ranked No. 20 to him, though with this blurb:
Gaston will probably need a year to get settle in at the next level, but he has tremendous upside.
This pick could be a bit of a stretch, but Auburn has a few players to replace at linebacker. (My initial thought was to give this spot to Florida’s Jelani Jenkins. He’s a better player than Gaston, but I’m not sure where the early playing time is for him in Gainesville.) Auburn’s starting positions are taken by Craig Stevens, Josh Bynes and newcomer Eltoro Freeman, who arrives from junior college. After that, Gaston should have an opportunity help in a reserve role. Gaston (6-4, 225) appears to be in good shape to play as a freshman, and Gaston’s combination of speed and physical strength should help him adjust quickly to the college level. Some analysts have suggested Gaston, from Bessemer (Alabama) Academy, could play a hybrid role of an outside linebacker/pass rushing defensive end. New head coach Gene Chizik would love to see Gaston be a player who can get to the quarterback. He is one of only two freshman linebackers, joining Jonathan Evans from Mobile. Evans has good upside, but he might be too undersized (5-11, 202) to help right away. If Gaston doesn’t shy away from the physical SEC, which I don’t expect him to do, he’ll help Auburn this year.
Given the depth chart, he almost has to.
What conclusions we can draw, if any: One big reason to think Gaston will be a capital-P Player: he was a Tubby commitment--and an early one, at that--at linebacker. If there as one position where Tubby (and James Willis Bad Lando) could consistently find hidden lower-rated gems, it was there. And Gaston was a guy the two of them decided they wanted early on and pressed hard enough on to get. A Tubby recommendation goes a long way.
Add in the consistent scouting reports that say "upside, upside, upside," and it's not too tough to see Gaston as a fixture in the Auburn two-deep (if not starting lineup) possibly starting as soon as this season. While the lack of offers makes me think Gaston will be better off playing understudy to Craig Stevens this season, that little bit of polish on Gaston's frame should pay real dividends down the road--especially on a team as currently linebacker-starved as this one.
This is how to start one's weekend. Bring it, Stevie. And you, Kid Dancing on the Balcony.
Circlin' the wagons. Seriously, if you're going to pay off some I-AA Glass Joe to come into Jordan-Hare for their ritualized 67-second knockout, why not make it a team that's gonna keep the ca$h in-state, huh? I'd rather not play the likes of Jax St. or Samford at all, but I'd rather play the likes of Jax St. or Samford than Furman or those uniform thieves at UT-Martin.
Happy as I am about this sort of news, I'll be even happier if I get to read a story sometime soon about how the athletic department funneled a chunk of these revenues back to the university
Auburn athletics department plans to endow professorships, scholarships.
You can see why this is amusing, right? That the trustees happened to meet this week was a beautiful coincidence. But true to my word: I am very happy, and give Fail Jay Jacobs full credit for approaching the University with proposals for how to spend some of their money on academics. Much, much preferred to the school going begging for it, and a sign that Jacobs does, at the very least, have his priorities straight. I can sure as hell give him that much.
Beisbol. So there's been a good handful of newsbits related to the Auburn baseball team the last few days, and I was all ready to hit you with them in a quick bunch ... and then Plainsman Parking Lot just went and did the same thing. So you can just go there and read them. The best news: Auburn just stole a twice-drafted JUCO pitcher out from underneath Arkansas's nose, apparently.
Coachspeak. Rather awesome story here from Jay Tate and the Advertiser. The Trooper-Luper tag-team combo went to an area high school and went through a "mock interview" exercise with students ... in which they answered a series of questions that basically didn't differ at all from a real interview. And since we're talking about Taylor and Luper, some of the responses were candor-rific, particularly Taylor sort-of-paradoxically saying that "I've got to mow my own grass" and then saying he'd try to have his players learn from the Tide's mistakes. (I think his point is that he's not worried about the Tide's punishment, but he's not above using it as a counterexample on his end) and this from Luper:
"We are developing the culture of our football team -- from A to Z. What are they like when they walk across the campus? What are they like when they walk in the building? Will they take their hats off? Will they say 'Yes, sir' and 'Yes ma'am'? Do they take their earrings off? Will they pull their pants up? Everything. To develop that culture adequately takes a couple years."
Man, I have to say, that does make the dress-cod-eand-neat-locker policy go down a little smoother. Particularly since it's about a thousand times nicer to read than a local columnist trying to explain two dozen arrests by saying "You've got to have thugs to win football games." Ugh.
Also: Grimes meets with Woodbery and Roof has a Q&A at the official site. Not too much of interest, though you do have to wonder if Grimes' plan to limit contact in fall practice might lead to a less physical approach come gametime. (Not that I think Grimes has a choice. Auburn just can't afford offensive line injuries. Not one.) Oh, we also learned that Ted Roof's first album was a Hall and Oates record (!) he won from a radio station.
Holly Rowe - Some things in life you just can't explain. Holly Rowe fits in that category. How she continues to get the top games as sideline reporter on ESPN ahead of Erin Andrews and Bonnie Bernstein is one of the great mysteries of television. It's a question that many drunken men have asked themselves on Saturday nights in the fall.
I'm going to out reveal myself as a member of a very, very slim minority amongst college football fans here, but I don't give a crap about Erin Andrews. Not one tiny, tiny crap. Yeah, she's hot. But I have 250 channels on my digital cable and 8 gazillion websites on my digital Internet. And at least half of them have hot women on them right now. I'm not saying you can have too many hot women, I guess, but it's not like I have to make some great effort when I'm interested in looking at one. And when I'm watching college football, I'm a lot more worried about, you know, the college football rather than hot women. So I'd rather have the sideline reporter who tells me the most about college football and gets the college football coaches to say the most insightful things about college football.
Holly Rowe is way, way better at doing those things than Erin Andrews. I get the "football and hotness: two great tastes that taste great together!" angle, but I don't need to taste anything else. I want to taste as much football as I can, so, yeah, I'll have Holly as my side dish, thanks.
Are you an Auburn fan who has five-to-10 minutes or so? Great. Spend it reading this fabulous breakdown of the Gus Malzahn running game from Chris Brown's essential Smart Football. Spending it doing anything else--eating poached chicken cutlets, light jogging on the treadmill, watching Herman's Head reruns, picking out an Edible Arrangement to send to Dad as a failed ironic Father's Day gift--is a mistake. The correct way to spend those five-to-10 minutes is reading Chris's post.
Now, if you've got extra time after that, I've got some responses/additional conclusions/what-have-you in handy list form: 1. Mario Fannin is going to need to be The Man. You'll notice Chris refer repeatedly to the importance of H-back in Malzahn's preferred running plays--the lead blocker in the counter, the crease-opener (on the defensive end!) in the power, man in motion for the various backfield action ... if Fannin does take over that spot, he's going to have a ton of responsibility, and not all of it is going to be carrying the ball or catching it. (Though, as we all recall, the guy filling that spot in Tulsa did see plenty of touches.) Fannin didn't seem to really take to his receiver's role last year, and though part of that was the injury and general Franklinian incompetence, he's still going to have to embrace his new position here with a lot more gusto if these plays are going to work the way they should. Or, alternatively, he's going to find himself on the bench behind John Douglas. (There's also the better-case possibility he just winds up tailback to supplant/help Tate. But the way the coaches have gushed about Tate and as explosive as McCalebb proved himself to be, I'm expecting those two to split most of the carries.) 2. Burns's running will give him a leg up. I mentioned just yesterday--just as I'd mentioned for much of last year--that a great big giant problem with Franklin's sputtering attempts to establish a running game were that the plays he was relying on required a running threat from the QB. Now, the counter and power plays that Chris describes don't seem to, but that zone read with the bubble screen? That option reverse/end-around to Zachery at the end? Those plays do benefit, and benefit immensely, from having a guy who can move taking the snaps. That's not to say I think Burns is a lock or anything, but Caudle or Todd is going to have to be not just better but decisively better throwing the ball to make up for Burns's advantage here. 3. Malzahn isn't some dumb huckster. This won't be news to anyone with a functioning brain stem, but every now and then you'll see Malzahn derisively referred to as "a high school coach" using "high school plays" or some such. This isn't really a viewpoint worth responding to, but I do think it's worth noting that the plays and ideas Malzahn's using here are similar to, or indirectly borrowed from, the likes of Urban Meyer and Rich Rodriguez--not to put too terribly fine a point on it, but probably the two most innovative and successful running-game coordinators in the country. That Malzahn has been able to adjust and adapt from his pass-wacky days at Springdale indicates to me that's he's going to keep right on adjusting and adapting until it makes this thing work.
4. I think it's OK to daydream about how scary this offense can be with a full complement of weapons. However bright Malzahn may be, it's not going to do him that much good if he can't find a reliable QB and his receivers aren't up to snuff. Think Meyer's first couple of years at Florida. (I know that second year ended in a national title, but it belonged mostly to the defense, luck, and Tebow's deadly efficiency in the red zone more than any kind of all-encompassing offensive brilliance.)
But I think it's also fair to fantasize think about what Meyer was able to accomplish once he got the kinds of players he wanted. No, Auburn's not going to find another Tebow Child, but it's maybe not so far-fetched to find someone who can do a decent Harvin impression, some quality receivers, and a quarterback who can make the thing operate. Even if Auburn's version of "quality receivers" or functional quarterback won't be as talented as Florida's, mix them with Malzahn's ludicrous speed tempo and the Meyer-esque bag of tricks Chris details in this post, and who knows?
Obviously this is the best-best-case scenario ... but yeah, screw it, I'm an Auburn fan, so I think it's in play.
The series that tries to look forward to what could go right by looking back at what went wrong.
What we expected: The 3-2 game had let nearly all the air out of the Tony Franklin balloon, but the overall bunch of orange-and-blue balloons was still mostly aloft. Wouldn't be accurate, I don't think, to call Auburn fans "confident" entering a game against the then No. 6-ranked Bayou Bengals, but I wouldn't say there was much outright pessimism, either. Our defense had allowed just 3-out-of-46 third-down conversions and was laying waste on all sides. Clinton Durst had become an outright weapon. Auburn was at home in a series dominated by the home team. And perhaps most persuasively, Auburn was going into the game as a home underdog a situation of which Tommy Tuberville had always been the Kung Fu Master. (And maybe he'd been sandbagging. It could have been happening.) Expectation? Maybe not. Hope? Plenty of it.
What happened: LSU 26, Auburn 21. In retrospect, this was probably Auburn's best performance of the season. Yes, it was a five-point home loss in which Auburn was outgained by 78 yards and had the benefit of a pick-six ... so no, we're not talking about an especially fine best performance of the season. Still, there was also 320 total yards (Wow!), 16 first downs (Sweet!), and most of all, not one but two long touchdown drives, the second of which came late in the fourth quarter to retake the lead. It would never get this good again for the Auburn offense. (Of course, that LSU's defense was later proved to be their most porous unit in memory probably had a little bit to do with that success).
Even here, though, the alarm bells were ringing: our supposedly impregnable defense gave up 293 yards in the second half and nearly six yards a play. The special teams, led by a disastrous performance by Ryan Shoemaker (filling in for a flu-stricken Dusrt), was a train wreck. After a couple of weeks of safety-first protection of the ball, Chris Todd threw two backbreaking interceptions (and proved to yours truly, seeing him in first person for the first and only time, that his arm was either shot already or would be soon). And perhaps most damningly, the rushing stats looked like this: LSU 38 carries for 178 yards, 4.7 per attempt; Auburn 36 carries for 70 yards, 1.9 yards per attempt. Yikes. When Franklin told the press later the answer to Auburn's troubles was to just pass more rather than figure out how to run the ball efficiently, I knew ... well, you couldn't have watched the Miss. St. game and not know Auburn's offense was in trouble, but this was another nail in the coffin.
Oh, one other development: Kodi Burns sat out the entire game again.
(A)gainst 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.
Actually ... if that had been even remotely true, that would have been nothing but great news. Stupid LSU, simultaneously refusing to live up to expectations and confusing us all.
Anyway, coming off of the offense's best performance of the young season and assuming the defense would mostly hold up against teams that didn't have LSU's beef up front, the general consensus was "all's not lost just yet." (We'd have to wait one more week for full panic.) The JCCW, looking prescient for once: From my Friday preview:
Ever since Georgia left the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry's "Road team always wins!" meme in tiny, white-jerseyed tatters last fall, I've felt apprehensive about ascribing too much weight to the Auburn-LSU win "Home team always wins!" meme. When we're talking about a series that's been as razor-thin as this one has been over the past four years, I'm not sure it's home-field advantage as much as it is just good ol'-fashioned luck. Move V****n's kick six inches inside the upright, make Campell's fourth-down pass to Taylor a fraction of a second later, have Matt Flynn throw that last-second ball a foot behind where he did, and maybe we're talking about why the home team always loses this game rather than vice versa.
All of which makes me think: at some point the other shoe is going to drop. At some point the home team isn't going to catch the break they need. And as supremely likely as this game is to come down to that one single break (yet again) and with the specter of Georgia rearranging the momentum of that rivalry still hanging over us, it worries me like hell.
I read this and think of that play early in the game, when Trindon Holliday fielded a punt inside his own 10, muffed it, and an Auburn player--I forget who--dove squarely on the ball. Somehow it squirmed out from underneath him and LSU recovered. Pure, unadulterated bad luck on Auburn's part ... and if that one play goes our way, who knows.
The JCCW, looking as foolish as usual:
From that same review post: 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 ... 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.
Hey, it sounded good at the time.
What we learned about 2008: That we had to have Durst healthy. That the Spread Eagle's running game wasn't ever going to get going against decent teams, at least not so long as Todd was out there pretending he might keep the ball on the zone read. That we very probably weren't winning the SEC West. That the defense could be breached, and that the old complaint about Tubby's undersized D's--that you could run straight at them--had some fact behind it in '08.
Other than that, well, I would say thanks to our vastly overinflated opinion of LSU, we didn't learn as much as we should have.
What we learned about 2009: The principal lesson here is in regards to the running game. If Malzahn wants to fiddle with the zone read, that's cool, but he'd be better off just ignoring it if he settles on Caudle as his quarterback. It just doesn't do any good to have a quarterback who can't run "occupy" a defender with a fake when that fake is only going to be flatly ignored and creates a mismatch in terms of blockers vs. defenders.
Also: stop screwing around on special teams against LSU, for the love of God. In 2007, LSU's winning touchdown was set up by a botched pooch kick. In 2008, LSU's winning touchdown was set up by a botched attempt to "punt away" from the LSU punt returner ... who happened to be the backup punt returner. Man up and kick away unless we're at the very end of the game, please.
From the fan perspective, well, if the Spread Eagle 2.0 is struggling, the lesson is not to get all that excited by one good performance. It's going to take more than one week to solve the problems of "3-2," and if it looks likes there's been substantial improvement ... maybe the D on the other side isn't as good as we think.
OK: yes, this is a lengthy personal essay partly--maybe even mostly--about soccer. And even though it badly needs editing, it's going up now because I have to go watch the U.S. play Brazil right this second. But damn it, I've wanted to write it for a week, and there is football content buried therein, and it's summer. Indulge me.
UPDATE: Damn it to HELL, I published this this morning and screwed up the date on it. Sorry for the lateness.
Eight years ago, two friends of mine and I met up in Auburn at around 6 p.m., piled into a Toyota Camry, and drove all night towards Washington D.C. We were on our way to the U.S. vs. Honduras World Cup qualification match, to be held at RFK Stadium the next day, and it wasn't the easiest journey: there were liters and liters of Mountain Dew consumed, my friends arguing over politics in the front while I tried failed to catch some Z's in the back, a brief detour into what appeared to be the worst part of Richmond in the dead middle of the night.
But it would be worth it: this was going to be my first World Cup qualifier (or "WCQ" or "qualie" on the soccer board I was frequenting at the time), and though I'd seen a couple of the U.S.'s Olympic matches in '96--including the opener in Birmingham, where Claudio Reyna's first-minute goal set off a roar in Legion Field just about as loud as any I've heard in person, at any stadium, for any sport--this one would be bigger than any of them. We pulled into my aunt and uncle's place in the suburbs at around 5 a.m., crashed for three hours, and got up in time to take the train into the city. At every stop, more and more fans got on, some in the U.S.'s red shirts, many more in the blue and white of Honduras. By the time we got the RFK stop, the train was packed, and it was obvious U.S. fans were going to be outnumbered. I saw an American father with a couple of kids in tow stop by a souvenir table on the way in and purchase a pair of kid-sized "souvenir" Honduras jerseys for them, which they dutifully pulled on as they entered the stadium; wherever he is, I hope his voting privileges have been revoked, the pusbag Communist.
So excited as I was, I had a bad feeling about the game entering the stadium, and it only got worse when we settled in our seats and realized the entire upper deck--not to mention a good chunk of the lower bowl--was packed with Hondurans. Screaming, chanting, drum-beating, horn-blowing blankity-blank Hondurans. Our boys deserved better, and I'm not sure how much cheering myself hoarse by the end of the national anthem helped, but that's what I did anyway. Finally, the match kicked off, and though things got off to a bright start--Earnie Stewart slotted home the rebound of a Jeff Agoos shot only seven minutes in--Honduras equalized not too long afterwards. Then Stewart missed a penalty. Then, after halftime, the Hondurans got a penalty of their own (worthless Agoos screwing around, as usual) and converted. They were too fast--their forwards must have broken away clean a half a dozen times, and only some miraculous saves by Brad Friedel in goal kept the U.S. in the match. Finally, though, with not much more than 10 minutes left, a five-foot-nothing Honduran named Tyson Nunez beat Friedel to seal it. The stadium rocked. Nunez and two other Hondurans formed a line and danced across the field. Some jackass dashed down and back the aisle between our pro-U.S. sections, waving a Honduran flag and singing. Aside from listening to the Tide fans sing Rammer Jammer after the 2001 Iron Bowl (and maybe a handful of other crushing Auburn defeats), I've never felt more miserable at a live sporting event. Never have I felt more let down by a team I cared about.
If there's a happy ending to that horrible story, it's that it didn't repeat itself. We were lucky enough be in the stadium for what was not only the first U.S. World Cup qualifying loss at home since 1985, but what's proven to be the only U.S. World Cup qualifying loss at home since 1985. Entering the U.S.'s home qualifier two Saturdays ago against--you guessed it--Honduras, the Yanks had gone 16-0-1 in qualifiers on U.S. soil.
I spent a lot of the week leading into that match worrying about that streak, for several reasons. First of all, I was going to be at that home qualifier. Against Honduras. And I was going with friends--three instead of two, and different ones, but still. And though the drive from Ann Arbor to Chicago is much shorter than from Auburn to D.C., and though we left ass-early in the morning instead of driving all night, it was still a road trip. And the closer we got to the stadium, the more and more Hondurans we saw. And when we got inside and took a look at the upper deck ... blue and white. Tons of it. Maybe not in the blanket coverage we endured at RFK, but enough, especially since the lower bowl had more of the it than the 2001 meeting*.
That was too many parallels by half for me not to be on edge. The match kicked off (I saved some of my voice this time), and not 120 seconds into it, before my nerves had even had a chance to settle, this happened:
For all the similarities between the 2001 game and the 2009 game (including, after the goal, an ear-splitting Honduran celebration and a Honduran lead--there was one big difference. After the 2001 match, the U.S. still just needed to hold serve at home and they'd be in good shape for qualification. But not this go-round. With just one home match in their next four, the U.S. had to get maximum points from the Honduras meeting to remain a favorite to qualify ... and two minutes in, they're down 1-0 to a team that thrives on taking a lead and burying you on the counterattack. Just like in 2001.
It's hard to explain to non-soccer fans how big a disaster not qualifying for a World Cup would be. The closest Auburn football analogy I can come up with is this: First of all, there's only one college football season every four years. Then we have a 7-1 team we think can at least reach Atlanta. But we have to beat, say, Ole Miss, or the season's over and we won't even get to play Georgia and Alabama. Then, the Rebels open up a 14-0 first-quarter lead. That's the severity of the doom that seemed to be hovering over us after the goal, those four achingly disappointing years opening up before us like the proverbial chasm. I kept cheering, kept screaming, kept chanting as the half progressed, but as much out of a need to not think about what was happening as a desire to support my team.
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The post that brought this post on was this brilliant post by Orson. For years, my stock answer for why I like the sports I do is that I watch football for the spectacle and my emotional attachments, soccer for the aesthetics and its improvisational creativity, and basketball for bringing those two poles somewhere together in the middle. But I know that's a gross oversimplification--like the U.S. soccer matches I've attended haven't been soaked in spectacle and emotion--and Orson's post cuts right the heart of why there is an aesthetic value to football, particularly the college version. True, there's no beauty in his accurate summation of the bureaucratic, overbearing, even stifling rule of Rules in football:
You must line up in this fashion; you must not do the following things in the art of blocking someone; a fumble is only a fumble if the prior conditions are met; an alignment may be declared illegal if proper motion is not shown and rules are not followed; defenses may defend using the following techniques and not these listed techniques; a pass must be executed in this manner; snap counts may not be mimicked; kickers must not be touched; certain players are in fact non-contact or regulated-contact targets only for the defense; certain defenses and offenses are illegal; uniform and equipment must conform with league standard; so many people may be on the sideline; behavior by players on the field is regulated, and must conform with league standard even in celebration, as dancing is not allowed.
But as Orson goes on to say: "Its stricture gives it its drama; its limits force creativity." As ugly as that paragraph is, it's where the beauty of college football lies, too, because even with so rigid a framework to build upon, the game has squirmed and bucked and tossed up a thousand different variations on itself. Like a child given a starter Lego kit that turns two dozen blocks into an airplane, a castle, a spider, his father, so the same melange of bungee cords and rubber bands that make up the NCAA football rulebook has still given us Hal Mumme and Paul Johnson, the Fun-'N-Gun and the veer, Kevin Wilson's light-speed Oklahoma mishmash and the Boise St. trick-play gumbo that so narrowly edged it out three years ago. Every World Cup, soccer comes in for a tongue-bathing for its diversity of styles, but I don't see any greater disparity between, say, Brazilian flair and German industriousness than I do between Navy and Hawaii.
If college football is made great by the glimmers of genius brought out of the crushing restraint of order, so soccer is made great by the glimmers of order that appear in the crushing formlessness of chaos. There are only 17 rules in soccer, "less than 50 pages of a 5.5" by 8.5" pamphlet." Same number of players as in football, but all 22 of them can go anywhere they like at any time. The ball can kicked, headed, chested, volleyed on the knee, even thrown if it's gone out of bounds or is handled by a goalie. As Orson noted, the field has to be rectangular, but even at the sport's highest levels its actual size and surface can change dramatically. The time is kept by the referee and the referee alone, who is allowed to make adjustments and allowances at his discretion--meaning that if we measure how long a soccer game "lasts" by the amount of time the ball is in play, any two soccer games you choose will have lasted dramatically different amounts of time. And in the middle of all this, the goal is for one team of 11 players to force the ball into a goal defended by 11 other players, one of which can use his hands, which measures only 8 yards across by 8 feet high. Soccer matches sometimes seem like a convoluted visual proof of the law of entropy, a sport where imposing even the slightest big of organization on such open-ended anarchy seems like an impossible task. Unless one team is clearly better than the other, it's rare that I ever feel like a goal wouldn't be some kind of lesser miracle, that scoring won't take some gentle intervention on the part of the divine.
And yet it happens. A player will see a pass that we would have thought only God--there he is again--would have seen, a player will make a mistake we never would have believed an athlete of his caliber capable of making, a player will kick at a ball and have it fly into the exact 12"x12" spot he picked out even though he's standing 40 yards away. This is why there really isn't anything else in sports like a soccer goal--there's that one brief, mind-blowingly beautiful moment where the thing we felt like would never, ever happen happens.
This is why it doesn't surprise me that Americans who grew up with football don't often take to soccer, or why the rest of the world doesn't see what the big deal is with football after a lifetime of soccer. When held up against the free-flowing looseness of soccer, football seems hopelessly rigorous and robotic; when held up against the rigor and structure of football, soccer seems hopelessly anarchic and formless. But the same way both the North and South poles are ass-cold, football and soccer have a common ground--and a common greatness--in their extremity.
Forgive the English geek in me, but it's like poetry. Football is a sonnet, where the joy comes from seeing how an author can twist and manipulate the same old rigid, familiar formula into something fresh and thrilling. Soccer is free verse, where despite the dangers of casualness in the hands of amateurs, anything can happen and the authors turns-of-phrase and insights arrive like thunderbolts. I've nothing against anyone who prefers one over the other, but it takes a pretty closed-minded reader of poetry to claim that you can't write a great poem either way.
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Just before halftime, a lifeline: a Honduras defender sticks out his arm in his own penalty area and handles the ball with Landon Donovan lurking just behind it. Donovan dispatches the penalty with ease. 1-1! High-fives all around. The doom lifts a bit. We need the win, but coming out of halftime, it doesn't seem like quite so steep a hill to climb. And in 2001, the U.S. never did equalize after they'd fallen behind.
Still: as always, a goal--any goal--is a lightning strike, an act of God. Then this happens**:
I didn't see a moment of the celebration on the field. I was screaming my lungs out, hugging everyone I could get my hands on (sorry, guy in front of me in the Columbus Crew jersey), high-fiving my hands raw, and generally making an ass of out of myself in every possible way short of weeping. (That, I'm saving for the Cup itself). 1-0 down had become 2-1 up. It didn't seem real. It never does in soccer.
So I miss football. But as far as distractions to tide me over, this one's not bad. And when I think about how strange things can happen all the time in soccer, I can't help but think about Auburn. If I can see the U.S. smash the weight of parallels and history--that was their first comeback qualifying win in 24 years--why can't Malzahn smash the memory of Franklin? Why can't Auburn become the latest proof of how strange things can be in a sport that tries to force "normality" as much as possible?
It's a silly analogy to make. But not so silly as football and soccer might make it seem.
*I said at the time that at least two-thirds of the fans in attendance were rooting for Honduras; most estimates I've read after the fact have the Americans outnumbered 4-1. The next time the USSF schedules a game as important as this one against a Honduras or El Salvador or Guatemala in a major Latino metro area, I'm going to set something on fire. That the U.S. has to play in a de facto road setting in their own country in a match that could decide whether they go to the World Cup or not--just so the USSF can sell more tickets--is an absolute disgrace.
**Not us, for the record. We're on the far side of the stadium.
I'm sure these (oh-so-Photoshopped) designs are complete rip-offs of some famous Canadian NHL team I'm not recognizing, and I could probably do with numbers instead of the logo on the sleeves of the white jersey ... but still, damn, would I pay a substantial amount of money for an Auburn hockey jersey that looked like either one of these. (Colors adjusted to the proper hue on the second, of course.) We should find a way to get the team started, just so we could buy the jerseys.
On the beat. It's not a particularly quick news day around Auburnland, but there's a couple of worthwhile pieces from the beat writers. One comes from Jay G. Tate, who works through a brief overview of Auburn's recruiting in light of Chizik's "targeting guys to fill those needs" quote. A key point: despite Mario Fannin's bursts of explosiveness, Onterio McCalebb's speed and excellent spring, and the potential of Aycock, Washington, etc., there's no guaranteed workhorse on the roster set to replace Tate. It's not exactly a position of "need," but Auburn's not at the point where they've got a Ronnie ready to take over for a Cadillac or anything.
Also: Andy Bitter wrote this Ledger-Enquirer story on Scott Fountain, Chizik's former tight ends coach at ISU turned "coordinator of football operations" at Auburn. What's interesting is the obvious tension in the story and in Bitter's outtakes at his blog between Fountain's desire to come home to Alabama and help Chizik vs. doing the job he actually wants to do, i.e. coach football.
Shucks. Hey, remember back when Jordan-Hare (and three-quarters of the stadiums in the SEC) was on that extremely preliminary list of possible venues for a 2018 World Cup bid? They haven't survived this week's cut down to the final 37 stadia involved in the bid. In fact, only two SEC venues are still alive: Neyland and--WTF?--Donald W. Reynolds Razorbacks Stadium. The former makes sense, since it's always impressive to have another stadium whose capacity is listed in six digits on the list. But Arkansas's joint? Fayetteville? Over Athens or Gainesville or Baton Rouge? You got me.
Yep, that's stupid. Mike Bolton wrote a column in which he argues, basically, that Auburn and Alabama fans care too much about football. Like most finger-wagging columns like it intended to elicit a response first and advance an argument second, it's not so good. My favorite bit is when Bolton argues that college football fandom is causing people to become politically uninvolved ... which, of course, was the exact opposite conclusion of that study done in Auburn last year.
See, that's mistake One. Don't use "al.com" as a barometer to measure AU/UA fans. The internet is for jack-asses. Plain and simple ... Lumping in all AU/UA fans into one group and assumption based on internet chatter? That's akin to saying all teenage males who post on the internet love anime and poop jokes based on some perusals of 4Chan.
Also responding is the Good Doctor, who rebuts Bolton's claim that everybody should hold hands and bake cookies together with their other, free hands, but also issues a call for fans to "Get out of the niche every now and then." Which, speaking as someone who's read the words "Bammer" and Barner" enough to last me several lifetimes, I heartily cosign.
Speaking of the Doctor ... like any rational human being, he calls Auburn's 2004 team the SEC's best this decade and the fourth-best college football team this decade, period. It's only logic.
(F)or all intents and purposes, Mal Moore really isn't AD anymore. At this point, Mal is really just a figurehead. Oh sure he may be the one releasing official statements and doing press conferences, but in reality Mal is essentially just a glorified fundraiser at this point. He works with Ronny Robertson, Associate AD for Development, on fundraising initiatives, but that is about it, aside from having a few general oversight responsibilities.
In reality, official titles notwithstanding, the real AD now is Dave Hart. We officially turned over the keys to him this past February, the day after National Signing Day, and Hart is now in charge of day-to-day operations. Now, all members of the executive staff, including compliance, report directly to Hart. To be sure, Hart is technically still underneath Mal in the chain of command, but again Mal is just there for general fundraising and a little oversight, he's not really actively involved in anything other than trying to get people to write checks out to "The University of Alabama." People can call for Mal's head all they want, but again he is not the man in charge any longer. You may as well be begging George W. Bush for a presidential pardon.
As an Auburn fan, frankly, I'm disappointed to hear that Mal Moore doesn't have as strong a hand as possible in the Tide's decision-making process.
More rebuttals. For those of you who enjoy a good dissection of a member of the mainstream media every now and then, Braves and Birds gears up for Mandel Season with a takedown of Andy Staples, and for you Atlantans out there, here's Mark Bradley advice for the Hawks getting pwned by Hoopinion and Jeff Schultz'a advice for the Braves having the same done by, hey, Braves and Birds again.
Etc. It's kind of rare to see the usually inoffensive types at local TV engage in such a naked, flagrant piece of Tide-baiting, but here you go (HT: the Wiz.) ... Jessel Curry says "Coach Roof is going to be like my Dad," which is cool as long as we're talking about leadership and life lessons and all that and no, you know, taking him on expensive fishing trips to Colorado or something.
Because someone needs to do the work of plugging in a given Auburn signee's name into Google and synthesizing the tidbits of information that trickle out. Previous entries in this series here.
We're not sure that Aairon Savage will miss the season, but what we are sure of is that Savage was already recovering from a horrific knee injury with tears to two different ligaments and has now suffered some second, new, additional injury to recover from on top of that. In short: a 100 percent Aairon Savage looks less likely than ever.
Meaning that immediate help in the secondary would be, um, helpful, particularly if the likes of T'Sharvan Bell and D'Antoine Hood aren't ready for the increased responsibilities. Meaning that with Demond Washington supposedly ticketed for the offense, Reggie Taylor a non-qualifier, and players like Daren Bates and Izauea Lanier likely to need need a year of seasoning (and land at safety anyway), late-committing JUCO corner Taikwon Paige is suddenly an important member of Auburn's 2009 class.
JUNIOR COLLEGE: Had over 40 tackles and six interceptions during his freshman season ... Had 20 tackles during his sophomore campaign ... Ranked 25th among junior college prospects by Rivals.com ... Ranked as the nation's No. 36 junior college prospect by SuperPrep. HIGH SCHOOL: Selected to play in the 2006 Shrine Bowl ... One of 25 players named 2006 Palmetto Champions All-Stars by the South Carolina Football Coaches Association ... Was named all-region and all-state in both his junior and senior years ... Was the track team's most valuable player his junior year ... Placed seventh in the 100-meter dash and sixth in the 200-meter dash at the 2007 state qualifier before suffering an injury at the state finals.
So, things to note:
1. Paige is not big: when you're listed at 5-10, 175, you're going to be facing some size deficits against SEC wideouts (not that those can't be overcome, of course). 2. Paige is fast: track background, listed 4.4. 3. Paige earned a reputation: the drop in picks from six to (I'm assuming) zero in his second year at Georgia Military College (Character Above All!) is a little surprising, I guess, but the drop in tackles is actually a positive sign--most likely, it means opponents quit throwing to Paige's side of the field his sophomore season.
Paige's size and speed probably helps explain why Washington is ticketed for offensive duties--if you've got one mighty-mite track-star JUCO corner you feel confident in, what's the point of having two?
One other note: unlike fellow JUCOs Nick Fairley or "The Toro" Freeman, Paige has used two years of eligibility and will have three years to play two at Auburn--though with Savage out, I'll be surprised if he redshirts this season.
Recruitnik hoo-ha: Another similarity to Washington: before heading off to GMC (Duty, Honor, Country), Paige was a complete non-entity to the gurus. Nobody bothered to rank or rate him at all coming out of Aiken (though he was at least in the Rivals database), and since ESPN doesn't rate JUCO prospects, they don't have any opinion to offer on him.
Paige's offer sheet doesn't offer a whole lot of a clue as to who's right: Paige committed to Minnesota at the request of Ted Roof over offers from Oklahoma State, Kentucky, East Carolina, and a whole bunch of lesser schools. So four BCS-level schools were interested, but only two that weren't involved solely due to the approval of Ted Roof, and neither of those are exactly recruiting powers. So it could be worse, but it could be better, too. And even with Roof around, Auburn waited until the last possible moment to extend Paige an offer. Only Josh Jackson was offered any later.
Links of potential interest: Watch your ears:
As you can see, Paige plays cornerback and can catch balls that hit him in the hands. Not sure there's really too many other conclusions to be drawn from that film. (To be fair, Paige did make a couple of nice-looking plays on the ball.) Still, if you'd like the extended version, GMC ("an environment conducive to the holistic development of the intellect and character of its students") where they was nice enough to post a lengthy clip of Paige highlights here.
If you'd like some of the tidbits from the Auburn Signing Day info sheet--track injury, selection to the South Carolina-North Carolina Shrine Bowl, etc.--presented in article form, click here. Worth noting that Paige made a couple of those South Carolina All-Star-type selections. And speaking of track, here's some numbers for you; a 10.84 personal-best in the 100 meters isn't too shabby.
Also mentioned in the above article and recapped in more detail here was Paige's performance for Aiken in a matchup against then-No. 1 Georgia team Camden County. His totals: four receptions, 94 yards, a touchdown, and three interceptions in a 20-19 win. Not a bad night's work.
There's a Q&A with Minnesota site GopherHole available here. There's not really any great insights into Paige available there, but there's some confirmation of how Roof's defense operates:
GH: What do you think about the Minnesota defense and how you can fit in?
TP: I really feel that I can come in and help them at the defensive back position. I like the way they put the corners on the island, and try to lock things down.
Of course, putting those corners on those islands has a lot to do with why Roof's run defenses have always been much stronger than his pass defenses, but I can see why it would appeal to the corners themselves. (And why Paigem entions it repeatedly.)
When Auburn plays against La. Tech to open the season, Paige will be on the opposite sideline from his cousin Olajuwan, a Tech cornerback. Expect to hear more about this in the "Notes" section of the Alabama press as the game approaches.
What conclusions we can draw, if any: Well ... I dunno. Scout's seemed to do a better job of scouting JUCOs than Rivals has (witness their takes on both The Toro Freeman, poised to take over Auburn's starting weakside LB spot after not even making Rivals' top 100 JUCOs list, and Scout's much more enthusiastic review of Terrence Cody, famously a three-star to Rivals), so that's one strike against Paige. The relative lack of interest from BCS-caliber schools--who you would think could use an experienced, fully ready-to-play corner--seems to me like another. Put them together, and I think there's ample reason for skepticism.
Then again, Ted Roof obviously sees something worthwhile in Paige or he hardly would have gone to the effort of first giving him an early offer at Minnesota an then re-recruiting him at Auburn. If Roof--who knows as well as we do his system needs quality corners--feels that strongly about him, it stands to reason Paige can play. And hey, Rivals or no, a four-star rating from a major service is still miles better than no four-star rating from a major service.
So the guess here is that Paige isn't going to set the world on fire--he'd have more offers if he had that kind of potential. But that with his experience and Roof's seal of approval, it's also easy to see him filling in that third corner/fourth corner nickel/dime role alongside the likes of Bell and Hood and holding his own. And after Savage's injury, that kind of player is all the more welcome.
