Auburn


30
Oct 10

Football Saturday

Straight from Twitter. Watched the Auburn game with friends, and three delightfully distracting little girls who managed to turn the television off at one point. At least they were all short enough to walk under the screen and not get in the way of the shot. On the other hand we learned about chocolate chip cookie brownies, so the trade off might have been worth it.

Stick around for the video at the end:

Florida and Georgia look like two emo kids trying to out emo each other.

Maybe Georgia is the most emo. They are wearing the black trim. Hunker down and play Radiohead, unironically, Bulldogs.

Ok, I’m at the football party. Let’s play ball. What do you mean it is already 7-7? Cam Newton the receiver? That’s just on-field Heisman marketing.

TOUCHDOWN AUBURN! There is no scheme for Onterio McCalebb on that misdirection.

Masoli to Summers for the score. The Auburn defense will get off the bus shortly. 14-14.

@tzac81au is no fan of Faulkner. Though he does run rather like Sound and Fury.

Cover this guy, cover that guy, there’s always Emory Blake. I love this. They haven’t had to show it, so the pre-season narrative has been diminished and then forgotten, but there are weapons and talent and the ability to produce all over the offensive side of the ball.

We didn’t see that. Best not to see it. As I, and now others, have said: the only team stopping Auburn’s offense is Auburn’s offense. Fumbles will do it. This at a point where they’d produced a defensive stop and could have gone ahead by two scores and start the tidy business of putting this game away. Instead Ole Miss gets a reprieve.

Demond Washinton with the goal line pick. So the drive in which we create separation continues again. I’m starting to warm up to this defense.

I’d like to see Kodi Burns catch one in space, just to see him run again like his freshman year’s enthusiasm. Do you remember that? He’d dance around, gather a few yards, get tackled and then hop up like a kid so flush with energy he couldn’t vent it or express it all at once. It was beautiful. He should get a few more moments like that.

Now this is offensive balance. Fill the box, Auburn will just throw it around the yard. Defensive coordinators are waking up in cold sweats now.

Darvin dropped a pass. Does not compute.

TOUCHDOWN AUBURN! Cameron Newton to Darvin Adams, showing a complete offense to the RebelBears.

TOUCHDOWN AUBURN! Demond Washington! 95 yards! 31-17. Kickoff returns for touchdowns make one think we might get something resembling the illusive complete game. But Washington has been due a big return for weeks and Ole Miss is not very good at this. Stands to reason it would happen here.

Ole Miss comes up short because Josh Bynes shows off his super powers. Now let’s see another score, just to rip out their hearts. The scoring defense isn’t there, but they show up when it matters and that is enough given everywhere else Auburn can produce.

A touchdown would have been nice, but I’ll take a 17-point lead going into the half of a trap game. There is no Admiral Akbar. I just never saw the trap in this game. My sense of peace with it is now validated. And this is only halftime.

Hey Ole Miss? Look away, look away, look away: Tigers are in town. One of the best songs a band plays. About four years ago, after Ole Miss lost at Jordan-Hare the two bands struck up a song simultaneously. Auburn’s band stopped playing while the Rebel band finished this tune. It was late, dark, a little ethereal out. I’ve always liked that memory.

His next update is “This is too easy.” RT @cameronnewton Cameron Newton can tweet during halftime. That’s a spoof Twitter account — I don’t write it, don’t know who does — and it is worth following.

If you can hold a team to a four-yard gain, and feel good about it, you might be playing Auburn. And you’re in trouble. Because, really, you’ve limited Mike Dyer to half his average yards per carry. This guy just gets more impressive with each game.

@wesbyrum stretches the Auburn lead to 20. 37-17.

When ESPN calls your game and gets things wrong about your school you wonder how much they get wrong about other placed too. And, no, I don’t mean just Bob Davie.

TOUCHDOWN AUBURN! Mike Dyer for 30 yards down the sideline. 44-17. He, too, is about to break a not insignificant Bo Jackson record.

Eli Manning is looking to beat traffic put of Vaught Henmingway!

Ole Miss scores, but this is all garbage time. 44-24. About the waning moments of the game, I feel for Mario Fannin having to fill that role, but I agree with the coaches that they’re going to need him to win. Fumble troubles notwithstanding, he’s a weapon receiving the ball out of the backfield. I hope he gets his chance to redeem himself before his career is done.

Houston Nutt just showed up, Ole Miss recovers a surprise onside kick.

@Lucas_au asked why Eli Manning would leave early, since Vaught-Hemmingway only seats 1,500 people. I replied: It takes a while. He can only drive his daddy.

TOUCHDOWN AUBURN! @tzac81au with the score.

If you were wondering, that’s hanging 51 points on an SEC team on the road. Fifty-one points! No matter if you say three-point road wins are good wins or that Auburn still has something to prove, you have to be impressed by this effort. The easy, obvious, natural comparison people try to make for this Auburn team is the 2004 vintage. I’ve asserted that you can be more confident about the general scoring power of the 2010 team on any given drive in any given game. Just for comparison, the 2004 Tigers, who could beat anyone like a drum by then, won 35-14 in Oxford.

How about that offensive line? They need a award, too. There’s no doubt these guys, Mike Berry, Byron Isom, Ryan Pugh, Lee Ziemba, Brandon Mosley (and A.J. Green, before his injury) are the reason why.

Nine and oh! War Eagle!

In a year where Auburn sheds the ghost of 2004 we find ourselves cheering for USC. Weird. Thanks, Trojans.

And, now, driving by Toomer’s Corner:

Undefeated, top of the charts and War Eagle!


26
Oct 10

Stormy weather

Davis

Beautiful, isn’t it? That’s the library on the Samford campus. Spent a fair amount of time in there this evening. I shot that picture on my iPhone, running it through something called the MoreLomo app. I didn’t know what Lomo was, but I look through the app store every so often for the next big, free thing.

Lomo, or lomography, is a photographic subculture based on a poor quality Russian camera. Just think of them as film and slide hipsters. The finished product, legitimate in the film version or manufactured in the digital, is intriguing. You can get one of the camera’s here.

I appreciate the classic essence of what they’re doing. I miss the smell of the darkroom, as most old school print people do. (There’s one just down the hall from my office. Sometimes I linger, hoping to catch the chemistry in the air. But I’ve been shooting digital for a decade and I could never go back. Especially when my phone will try to give me random interpretations of a poor, but interesting, processing technique. I’ll take a few more, I’m sure. But I’ll also have to take pictures in the traditional style, because I’m a realist.

Now I’m looking for a good time lapse app. Let me know if you find one.

Taught my class, rushed through all those slides so they could have some time to work on a story they have due next week.

Spent time reading and writing. The student-journalists at the Crimson are putting their paper together tonight. We got a look at the soon-to-rollout new version of the Crimson site. That’s going to look nice.

Storms rolled through. Started with high winds this morning and seemed to storm all day thereafter. It isn’t just your neighborhood. This was part of a huge mid-latitude cyclone, probably one of the largest, stronger storms we have on record in the U.S. This graphic will have changed by the time you look at it, but just imagine the southeast lit up with lighting strikes.

I cause trouble again. The al.com roundtable is back:

Auburn question 2: Ole Miss has certainly improved since losing to Jacksonville State, but is still last in the SEC West. Any chance Auburn suffers a letdown after three tough games in a row?

The most heartening thing about Auburn, when it comes to questions like this, are the attitudes on the sideline. People watching on television saw it better than those in Jordan-Hare Stadium, Saturday, but Gene Chizik looked at ease at the half. Chizik and offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn were chatting late in a one score game like it was a 30 point blowout. There’s a calm demeanor in the leadership that bodes well for potential trap games. Of course that could have just been an appearance of peace opposite the Les Miles Psycho Road Show going on across the field.

Fifty-five incendiary comments and I didn’t even say anything controversial. Sports fans are entertaining. I suppose the Alabama side of that will be up tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be busy. I should start now.


24
Oct 10

Auburn moves to the top of the BCS

BCS

Auburn takes over BCS’ top spot

Auburn is the right one

Auburn is No. 1 team in Bowl Championship Series rankings

AU ranked 1st in BCS

Update: Auburn on top of the BCS standings


23
Oct 10

Eight and oh!

CamNewton

Strike a pose, Cameron Newton. 24-17 and Auburn is the lone SEC team still undefeated.

This is the Twitter feed during the LSU-Auburn game. Because Twitter will drop these comments eventually, and brilliant play and wry observations should be remembered forever. Pictures are included, as are after-the-fact thoughts included in bold.

One tailgating party has a musician playing the Van Helsing song from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It is really good.

At the RBD library they are playing Brickhouse. If you walk up those steps on the side of the parking deck and just as you reach the landing you here the baseline kick in you may count yourself as having a good day. You might then knock over a Direct TV dish, as I did. And then apologize to the people who’s tailgate you’ve just disturbed. They were nice people.

Blimp

Another day, another blimp. I also counted a light wing plane, a helicopter, two small hawks and a yellow butterfly. And also Nova, who flew right overhead. I’ve got great pictures in the photo gallery.

I smell corndog people!

Flyover

Fighter planes overhead, a tank under center. Let’s play!

No better place than Jordan-Hare Stadium today!

@Z_Etheridge4‘s third down interception return to midfield sets the tone.

@cameronnewton laughs at your idea of broken plays.

Cameron Newton

Let’s review: Terrell Zachery, Mike Dyer, Cam Newton. TOUCHDOWN AUBURN 7-0.

What do Cam Newton and Heisman trophy winner Pat Sullivan have in common? They’ve scored the same amount of TDs in one season. And of course Newton would have that bit of poetry later in the game, and still four more games. Sullivan’s record stood for four decades. How old will we be when someone breaks Newton’s eventual number?

Lucky there wasn’t an unfair decapitation of the quarterback penalty there. How did he get up from that? Lucky, too, there was no roughing the quarterback penalty on that deadball dead lift and body slam. I suppose you could argue no one heard the whistle, but everyone else on the field stopped and I heard the referee blow it dead from the stands. Dodged a bullet there.

RT @wennybrown: Announcer: “Clock. Management. Problems. Where have we heard that before??”

Auburn’s defense holds, LSU settles for a figgie. 7-3.

Just so you know, there are a couple of Superman shirts in the north end zone, to which Auburn is now driving.

Wes Byrum

@wesbyrum boots a field goal. He is now Auburn’s all time leading scorer. 10-7.

Or 10-3. Accurate and it sounds better. Pardon me, we’re in the section of the stadium that goes delirious for field goals.

Finally get a kickoff out of the back of the end zone … and have to re-kick. Penalties still must be a concern, this just being one more example of something that a championship caliber team needs to cure. This resulted in a net of 16-yard gain for the Bengal Tigers. They’d drive to midfield and then punt, starting that sequence of drives Auburn began at the goalline. A competent offense takes advantage of this 16 yard gift.

Sack

Nick Fairley does not like Cajun food. He does like bayou quarterbacks.

@CameronNewton would run for class president, but he is too busy running through LSU.

@supurmario27 also makes it look easy.

Auburn, from their own 1, slices through a generous LSU defense, but the field goal try is missed left.

Do not make Nick Fairley mad. He will only haunt your daydreams, too.

“Hi. There’s no one within 10 yards of me, I don’t need this football.” How many of these gifts will the Auburn team (generally) and the secondary (specifically) get this year? How deep does this karma cache go?

The Miles Quatum Singularity: four minute drives last three days, and refs stop the game clock for reasons they can’t explain.

10-10 at the half. This game should be SO much different. Corollary: it will be in the second half.

Mike Dyer is a cannonball. Darvin Adams is, in fact, smooth.

@cameronnewton is coming to Baton Rouge to walk old ladies across the street. He will score many touchdowns in the process.

Newton

@cameronnewton runs 50 yards for a score, runs upstairs to review the play and back to the field to call it a touchdown. Should have sent a poet.

Little known ref fact: side judges are Bama fans. Not a conspiracy theory, but fact. He waved and we saw the colors peep through his uniform.

Mario Fannin

Best not to talk about the fumble. The only team that can beat Auburn’s offense is Auburn’s offense.

Fear the LSU kick team. Everything else appears manageable.

Aubie had a Trojan horse contraption. Mike the Tiger tore the head off. Ahh, the pageantry of football.

Worst spot of the game. The ref’s stripes are purple and gold. This being the Kodi Burns forward progress abomination. The fair reaction: this is the an unintended consequence of better camera angles and, ultimately, the huge network deals the SEC has signed. Everyone sees the officiating. Officiating has always been hit or miss, of course, but it isn’t improving as the game gets faster. There have always been calls made and others missed. Now every play can be closely scrutinized, even as unfair as that criticism of officials may (or may not) be. The unfair reaction: is that guy from Louisiana?

The fans are wishing the officials a booooootiful Halloween.

Someone text the Auburn coaches and tell them Lee can’t throw on the run.

Crowd

A hasty tilt-shift shot of the crowd at Jordan-Hare.

What is this? Every year of SEC football before Gus Malzahn showed up? #fieldpositionfootball

@cameronnewton is not an Ent, but he did inspire Tolkien.

Mike Dyer also plays rugby.

And we start the fourth quarter feeling in control, but Les Miles is eating chlorox pellets. There is no control.

Auburn has 364 total yards through three quarters. 278 of them on the ground. LSU has 192 total yards.

Les Miles strikes with his first bout of successful irrationality. Let us hope it is not diarrheal. 17-17.

Third and long? Run a draw!

This game now enters Bizzaroland, population: the SEC. Les Miles, mayor.

@wisematize, a Texas Tech man, asks “When did you re-hire Tuberville?”

@wisematize In a moment I’ll tell you we were just doing what we do. Whatever that is this week.

Nick Fairley dislikes the color yellow. He thinks you look stupid in purple, too.

TOUCHDOWN AUBURN! Onterio McCalebb! 70 yards! 24-17!

Auburn over 500 yards of offense tonight so far, the fourth SEC game in a row the Tigers have done that. Never before. Savor it, because it can’t last forever. A few more years isn’t too much to ask, is it Gus?

6:10 left on the clock. Just to counteract Les Miles Auburn needs a 6:35 drive.

This place is the thunder dome.

This is a fourth quarter defense, designed to wear you down early and tear out your heart late.

If @cameronnewton doesn’t win the Heisman the Eufaula Tribune will give him the inaugural Camsman Trophy.

Eight and OH! Auburn sits all alone atop the SEC the Tigers get ready for Ole Miss. 24-17.

On to vict’ry! I believe in Auburn (and it has nothing to do with football).

Gene Chizik just leaped the rail to get to the student body. And the Heisman chants are echoing to the Downtown Athletic Club.

It is remarkable how many people are lingering in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

This post-game video on @AUHD is great.

Blimp

Like that.


22
Oct 10

A little news

The best part of the day was a wildfire. So we’ll just start and end there. I “committed journalism” via cell phone.

The video made it on the front page of al.com and on their new Montgomery section’s front page. I’m told it beat local television, which was useful considering the seven or eight miles of traffic that backed up behind the smoke and emergency trucks. Remember what we say: we’re all reporters now. Links are here and here.

If I knew they’d want the video I would have narrated the scene. (Note to self …) Anyway, it seems, though, that a truck hauling a trailer threw some sparks into the crisp and tender grass (we’re in a significant drought) and started a couple of blazes. It took more than three hours to get it all under control, which appeared to be just happening as we passed through.

The Yankee and I are going to a home run derby tonight. Present and former Auburn baseball stars are swinging for the fences for charity. We’ll hear the wonderful ping of college ball and then come home for dinner and pie at home. That will be a delightful evening.

I hope your weekend is just as grand. But without the fire.