Well, that was historic. On a sunny day that turned into a cloudy afternoon you could feel the cold front move in, acutely aware each time the mercury fell on every third breeze. Auburn welcomed Texas A&M in their first meeting as conference rivals. It was the Aggies first trip to Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Auburn allowed more points than they have since 1917. (1917! The Kaiser was running things in Germany. Woodrow Wilson was still in his first administration in the White House. This historic campus photograph was still six months in the future.) They also allowed 671 yards, the most by Auburn since records began being kept in 1967. The previous mark was Florida’s 625 in 1996. That stat could have been worse. The Aggies rolled up 464 yards by the half.
The final score was 63-21, and take it from someone who stayed until the bitted end, it wasn’t even that close.
The players were doing their best, but the coaching has become more than questionable in a short period of time.
People were heading for the exits before the first quarter was over. The student body found better things to do by halftime and was a ghost town to start the fourth quarter. Even the media relations crew gave up. The official release is just six paragraphs.
Really, for anyone that cared, it felt like this:
Also, Texas A&M is pretty good. Glad they’re in the SEC. Nice people, good athletics program, great university, and a terrific and enthusiastic fanbase. They fit in immediately.
Here’s the pregame flyover of four F-16 jets. One was piloted by Auburn graduate Drew “Snapper” Lehman and Texas A&M graduate Mike “Midnight” Rose. The pilots and their ground crew are based at McEntire Joint National Guard Base in South Carolina in the 15th Fighter Squadron.
And the U.S. Special Operations Command Parachute Demonstration Team, the Para-Commandos, jumping from 12,500 feet:
I spent a few moments loading up a queue with posts for my Samford blog. Here are two I wrote today, a morning tweet, which I think might become a new feature. There’s also a little post about reverse publishing.
Here are a few more things I wrote, last week, that I neglected to cross-post here:
Also, I noticed that the particular them I’m using there allows for rotating banners. (Apparently I like them, no?) So I’m loading up on campus shots, which is probably the best part of that blog.
Spent some time in the library today. Spent some time writing letters.
I visited city hall. I learned that while there is the old saying “You can’t fight city hall” you can write a check there.
I had to visit the City Revenue Office, which looks more like a hospital’s information desk. There was a nice lady there who took my check. I needed little tags that would signal the garbage crew to pick up my dead appliances. Stick them on, roll the old washer and dryer out to the curb and, come morning, they’ll all be gone.
That doesn’t even give you time to be sentimental about it. “I had you, washer and dryer, for about 10 years, four homes and countless loads of laundry. Just think of all the dates you helped me get! I’m going to … I promised myself I wouldn’t … sniff … ” So it is good that the system moves so fast; that would just be silly.
So while I’m working on a small project for a guy this evening The Yankee says “Someone is taking our stuff.”
I walk outside and meet Mr. Lauderdale, one of our elderly neighbors who talks fast and thinks big. He’s a retired engineer, worked for AT&T for more than three decades and about half as many corporate names. One of his friendly spies in the neighborhood saw the old appliances and gave him a call. He drove his pickup down the road and there he was, trying to get this stuff in the bed by himself.
So I helped him. Turns out his son is an attorney, his daughter-in-law is a professor of some sort. I told him I was a professor too. And he said “You are pretty strong … for a professor.”
I was moving things one-handed, bad shoulder and all that.
Nice guy. He gave me tips for how to fix some things. Told me precisely what it would cost. Told me how much a telephone pole costs. Gave me a brief history of a river in northwest Alabama. Let me go back inside just in time for dinner.
And now I’ll copyedit a journal article into the early morning hours. Living the dream.
As in, unfortunately bad. And they are not just bad, but also unfortunately bad. This morning was the fourth 11 a.m. kickoff of the year, which is a good measuring stick for your team’s play.
We watched the game on television, because it was in Oxford. I tweeted things, as many of us do these days. In my mind, this is all about the coaching. The players are giving it their all, but they aren’t being put in, or finding a lot of places to be successful right now. Tough to watch, but worse for them, I’m sure.
Two of the things I wrote:
“Third and 13, stay on this side of the orange sticks, y’all.” That’s good coordinating.
You can’t figure out what Scot Loeffler is doing? Don’t worry. The players don’t understand it either. I blame the coordinator.
I feel for the seniors who are on that side of the ball. They deserve better than this. They all do, really. The coordinator, Loeffler, is in over his head. Gene Chizik apologized to fans last week. Who knows what he’ll say about a 41-20 loss to Ole Miss which allowed the Rebels to break a 16-game conference losing streak.
Auburn, meanwhile, is 4-8 in the SEC since the national championship. They’ve lost six in a row to conference opponents — four of them highly ranked — by a combined score of 192-68. So it hasn’t even been particularly close.
If you look at a head-to-head comparison of the three worst seasons of Auburn football this century, the data points aren’t close there either. This, from Justin Lee, says it all.
You decide:
or:
For something more fun than this, I’ve gotten caught up on the photo galleries. I had to catch up from almost the exact moment I ruined summer. Anyway. Here’s July. There’s August. And here’s September.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a dinner date. The Smiths are joining the Willis (Willisi?) this evening.
Auburn / football / photo / weekend — Comments Off on Arkansas at Auburn (who is not very good) 6 Oct 12
It was a beautiful day to be outside. And a lovely afternoon to watch two struggling teams see who could struggle the least and overcome the most. It was a beautiful day to be outside.
Arkansas’ Tyler Wilson drove his team down the field on their opening drive and set up a field goal try. The Hogs missed.
Nova flew. I have a huge panaroma of it I’ll show off later this week.
Tre Mason carried the ball six times for 32 yards. This was Auburn’s second-leading rusher.
Onterio McCalebb had seven carries for just 24 yards. He remains 11th on the all time school rushing list. He’s now fifth all time in kickoff yards and sixth all time in all purpose yards. This is a rough way to experience a senior season:
Kiehl Frazier rushed five times. In the college game sack yardage is subtracted from rushing totals. He was sacked four times, so he had -25 yards rushing on the day.
Aubie throws pigs in a blanket to kids. Razorbacks, Hogs, pigs in a blanket. Get it?
Kiehl Frazier was nine of 14 for 118 yards with one interception. It was, in some respects, perhaps his most manageable performance of the season. Still not convinced Scot Loeffler, the new offensive coordinator, is setting him up to succeed. They pulled the sophomore at halftime.
Angelo Blackson is a beast, but Tyler Wilson found Dennis Johnson. The running back caught four passes for 15 yards.
Aubie just wants to bang on his drum all day.
I just like this one because it shows how close blocked kicks can be. Zach Hooker was one of three for the day.
Trey Flowers (86) of Huntsville, Ala., had a great day. He had three-and-a-half sacks totaling 39 yards. Think he was inspired to play in his home state?
And now, a series of fan shots:
That is a bedazzled phone:
Old school hat. I bet he’s a graduate of API.
We’re all sad at halftime. Auburn is not playing well.
It is almost like the offense is handcuffed. I blame the offensive coordinator.
The fans are wondering what is going on out there?
But, hey! Look who’s on the field!
Clint Mosely, much as he did last year, was called into action to start the second half of a game where the offense was underperforming. It felt that he was a bit more in command of things, where the younger Frazier still looks a bit hesitant.
And the defense has been growing up recently. Jake Holland puts pressure on the quarterback:
But Tyler Wilson kept finding open receivers. Here’s Dennis Johnson again.
Aubie got his roll on, even as it became clear that the Tigers were going to lose:
Though it was hardly all roses for Clint Moseley he went 13 of 21 with two interceptions and was sacked four times for a loss of 41(!) yards he did produce the one score of the day, play-faking and then looking to the corner of the field:
And Moseley found Emory Blake, who made the catch, turned and dived inside the pylon. That score moved Blake into a tie for fifth all-time in receiving touchdowns. He finished the day tied for 10th all-time in receiving yards.
I don’t why this guy put this on. It was 85 degrees:
Say Tigers!
Auburn lost 24-7, falling to 1-4 on the year. So we’ll fall back on the old saying “War Eagle anyway.”
Still number one in the hearts of fans, though.
Auburn / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Charter Cable provides a poor service 4 Oct 12
We’ve lived here for 26 months. Lovely neighborhood. And most of it, when the appliances aren’t breaking — as the washing machine did again last night — has been a joy.
Except for the television, because Charter is really bad. Specifically Charter in Auburn, Alabama is just useless.
The punchline is that Knology, which is here, is equally droll. We called them last night for a quote because, 26 months y’all, and the guy on the phone couldn’t tell us the local channel listing.
But I now know what I can get in Augusta, Ga. I’m not kidding. The guy reads off the Augusta offerings, as if he’s going to roll a cable the 250 miles from there to here. Also, it would be $10 more a month. And when they came to town they managed to cut the cable, the actual physical cable, from Charter. So they’re competent. Direct TV, then. Mostly because Charter Cable in Auburn, Ala. is terrible.
Why is Charter in Auburn, Ala. bad? This system hasn’t worked right for more than two consecutive weeks without some obvious and widespread disruption.
They came along not too long after we moved in, one of the many feeble attempts Charter offered at fixing the problem and added another component to our living room. Because the previously existing tech wasn’t doing enough to stump them. This device, a tuning adapter, was designed to act in such a way so that they wouldn’t lose all of their ones and zeroes. This is like cable on demand. If I don’t dial up the channel, they clinch up the water hose. One presumes, then, when I finally cruise back over to HBO that there will be a gigantic WOOSH as hours or days of shows all flow through the now unrestricted cable directly into my television.
But this device is just part of the problem.
Part of the problem? Why, yes, the cable from Charter Cable of Auburn, Ala. is widespread. The technicians, no fewer than two dozen, but I stopped counting late last year, have all come in, bad mouthed the company, their colleagues and this new device. They’ve also replaced everything between the television and the hub — they even dug up the yard last year — and usually wondered aloud why the last guy didn’t do that.
That’s a standard company line at Charter Cable of Auburn, Ala. Pass the buck. Blame the other guy. Don’t fix it, not today.
So we had two guys in the house not two weeks ago. He replaced the last thing that hasn’t been replaced. “I’m surprised no one else has changed that connector.” Apparently it was showing its age and this piece would fix everything. Like every other person they plugged up their diagnostic machines, tested the signal and pronounced it great. They made a phone call, no doubt leaving a string of numbers and letters on the office voicemail because, really, they aren’t talking to anyone.
The cable worked for about 10 days, which may or may not be a record.
Earlier this week we had, and I counted 32 HD channels that couldn’t be reached. I stopped there because that was a string of 32 of 35 stations that I pay a premium price for. We called the the Charter Cable technician that left us his personal number on that last visit. He would, he said, be out on Wednesday.
He stood us up. You see? The technician works just as well as the cable of Charter Cable of Auburn!
We called and complained — and this was the phone call where I learned that I’ll never fight with my beautiful, lovely wife, because after an hour on the phone with that he’d earned the most impressive scolding you could imagine.
But we learned this: the billing department does not have a boss. Yet this is the only thing Charter Cable can get sent to the house.
So they sent out an engineer today. An engineer, which means another, different and taller technician. He doesn’t even work for Charter Cable of Auburn, but for a company with whom they contract.
He glances at the tuning adapter. The yellow light was blinking. And blinking, he said, was bad.
We looked at one another. For the two years or so since we’ve had the thing, we couldn’t recall it not blinking.
He returned to the office and gets new cable cards and new tuning adapters. He spent hours trying various combinations of cards and adapters. Finally he decided that the problem wasn’t the equipment. He too plugged up his diagnostic equipment and pronounced the signal within the accepted parameters. The problem, he said was beyond him.
So the engineer was stymied. His boss is coming out tomorrow.
The first question I’m going to ask him is how no one that works with Charter Cable of Auburn seems to know that blinking yellow lights are bad.
It is all quite laughable, or it would be without the bill and the poor service from Charter Cable. None of this is new to anyone who’s had this miserable experience. I’m just adding a bit to the Google returns. Informed consumers and all that.
And now, to cheer us all up, Mr. Rogers Goes to Congress:
