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football

Clemson @ Auburn

ESPN’s Gameday is here. Lee Corso picked Auburn. That’s usually not a good sign.

The sun was also here. It was a hundred thousand and three degrees. Yes, 100,003 degrees. I spell it out for dramatic effect. In an uncrowded restroom at Jordan-Hare Stadium a lone voice spoke out “I think I’m dehydrated.”

But we saw friends. We tailgated. I walked inside Comer Hall, the building where I studied during undergrad, for the first time in a decade. I’ll have a few pictures tomorrow.

We walked into the stadium as soon as they opened the gates and sat with our newest friends. We are in the student section and found a few very nice graduate students to hang out with. Today they brought us fans, The Yankee brought them a water.

Clemson came out and marched down the field in a simple offensive scheme. And then they punched Auburn in the mouth while on defense. Before you knew it the score was 0-17. Auburn rallied to kick a field goal at the half and the orange and blue Tigers were lucky to be down only two scores.

Clemson’s band marched. Auburn’s band marched better.

Auburn marched down the field in the opening drive of the second half. Cam Newton threw an interception at the goal line. But Auburn’s defense looked as ferocious as it ever has, shutting down Cousin Clem in the third quarter. And then Auburn’s offense came alive, scoring 21 unanswered points to take a 24-17 lead. Clemson rallied to tie the game. Auburn sat on the ball at the very end of regulation to set up overtime.

Clemson won the toss, made Auburn drive first and they could do nothing with the ball. Wes Byrum coolly kicked a field goal to set up a 27-24 lead. When Clemson had the ball they were carving into an exhausted Auburn defense. And no wonder: the game was more than four hours old and it was still in the very humid 80s after 10 p.m. Clemson got close to the goal line, but Auburn’s defense rallied again, which seemed impossible.

So Clemson lined up to kick a field goal. It was good. The score is tied 27-27. But there was a flag. At first the referee signaled a penalty on Auburn, which would have given Clemson a first down at the goal. But the referee consulted with his friends (who were not running a good game, at all). Turns out the penalty was on Clemson. Back ’em up, make ’em kick again.

The Clemson placekicker marked off his steps, and then did it again. And then he pushed his kick right. Auburn won. It was an improbable and ecstatic atmosphere. A mysterious Clemson team played out of their minds in what looked like as physical a game you’ll ever see. Those Tigers gave our Tigers their best shot. Auburn came out cold and found a way to storm back into the game. What happened at the end was luck and intangible and delirious. It can never happen again. Thousands of fans’ hearts can’t take it.

Someone has already uploaded the overtime highlights:

I took 134 photographs on the day. The good ones will be uploaded next week sometime. The nine that best illustrate the day are here.

Nova flew right over us in his pre-game flight.

The sun setting over Jordan-Hare Stadium.

It’s a sellout.

Darvin Adams gets his toes down for a huge touchdown to get Auburn back in the game.

Adams could not haul in this one, which should have been the game-winner.

Speaking of shoulda-beens, if the receiver hauled in this pass in overtime Clemson would have gone home the winner.

This is the slogan du jour and the post-game celebration.

A relieved rolling of Toomer’s Corner.

Saw that on the way back to the car. Seemed appropriate. I don’t know if they put that on the marquee before the game after it was finally finished.

Alabama / Auburn / football / photo / Samford / weekend — Comments Off
13
Sep 10

Catching up

We have two weeks of pictures to work through here. The world simply needs to see these without further delay.

This is certainly an brightly painted building for being 170 miles or so inland. It is a bike shop. Very nice people.

This is in the comm building at the University of Alabama. Because there are comm scholars there I’m convinced that everything is a potential experiment. If there is a scrap of paper on the ground I don’t pick it up. Someone is watching. Unless they don’t want me to pick it up. So I kick it. Or stomp on it. Or pick it up and move it over six inches. Anything that might keep me from being a part of the experiment.

If you meet enough field study types you can become paranoid. It hasn’t gotten to me. Unless they want to think it has gotten to me …

Anyway. I’m waiting on the elevator and I see these two selections and think This must be another experiment.

Same brand, same filling. One is a cookie and one is a cracker. Different shapes. But 30 cents different?

(Not everything is an experiment. Though this might be one.)

Aubie is helping this cute little girl with her shoe. This is at the Florida State-Auburn soccer game. Aubie got it into the action later, as you’ll see.

The Yankee at the Auburn soccer game.

A fence. I was being artistic. You’re welcome.

Aubie takes a header.

Samford Hall on game day on the Auburn campus.

We hadn’t met this character before. I’m guessing he’s new? He says Aubie is just a mascot, and not idolatry.

Here’s the thing. It was very, very warm. But she was in the shade. Suddenly that eagle head wear doesn’t seem so silly, does it? OK, it does. But she was a very nice, enthusiastic lady. Next time I’m going to ask her how she came about this idea.

The normal membership at a Sam’s Club only gets you in after 10 a.m. Unless you have the premium membership you have to wait outside with the rest of us. It only costs you $60 more a year to avoid the masses.

I just waited the 20 extra minutes.

My view from inside the Davis Library at Samford University.

The fountain on Ben Brown Plaza at Samford University. This particular day was an organization day. All the groups set up tables to recruit curious students. This was just after they began tearing down the displays.

This joke still works. I only took the picture because I heard a girl get fooled by it.

football / weekend — Comments Off
11
Sep 10

Football Saturday in the South

Just sweet, sweet football. We had the living room television and one laptop playing games.

Because ESPN can now send four feeds down the line simultaneously we watched five games at once without even trying. Imagine what we’ll be able to do when Brian comes back for a watch party and we really geek out.

The Badgers smacked around San Jose State. Wisconsin is back!

South Carolina surprised everyone. In beating Georgia they might have proved themselves to be an actual team this year.

I wanted to give Florida the benefit of the doubt last week, but that is one troubled team. They might be more of an LSU, winning on the margins, than even LSU is right now.

Meanwhile Miami looked ungood against Ohio State. The Buckeyes weren’t especially impressive in the early going, but they managed to put together a solid win.

James Madison?

And Georgia Tech lost to Kansas, which lost to a team no one had ever heard of prior to last week. It looks like it is going to be one of those wacky years. (Meaning Boise State has no chance making the BCS game.)

Iowa throttled Iowa State.

Michigan might be good, or Notre Dame is just really bad. We’ll just go ahead and say Michigan is back.

Tennessee looked frisky for the better part of the first half, but Oregon is a talented team. So the story goes ranked Pac-10 team comes east, beats a bad Tennessee team digging themselves out of as difficult an institutional crisis possible and, thus, they’re for real.

Penn State at Alabama? I was hoping for a different outcome, but Bryant-Denny Stadium looked like a great setting for that game. Also Penn State was over-matched. Alabama might be good again.

After two weeks, I’m first and tied for first in two pick ’em leagues. Somehow I’m ninth in a third one.

And that, friends, is my Saturday. Not bad, eh?

Auburn / football / Twitter / video — Comments Off
9
Sep 10

From the Tweet Seats, the Mississippi State game

All I do is win win win …

(There’s been a very involved discussion at The War Eagle Reader and elsewhere of the merits of this song. And it is terrible, but it works in the stadium.)

But I digress. To Starkville, via my cable signal. What follows is a simple copy and paste of my Twitter observations from the game. Just in case, you know, the Library of Congress neglects to archive these particular impressions. Hashtag: War Eagle.

I gotta fever and the only cure is Less cowbells.

That kid at the break is the only cute child in Starkville. #kiddingkidding

Over/under on the number of times Jesse Palmer says “put his foot in the ground”?

You block, you score. Great job @tzacau81!

I’m holding a giant D. @Ren_ is holding a section of picket fence.

Second time this week the University of Alabama has robodialed me. And now during the #Auburn game. University of FAIL.

Boo boos? No wonder Adam James couldn’t get playing time with Mike Leach.

It is amazing that Little Train didn’t make that graphic.

Diaz’s goal is to line up correctly? Surely not. If so Auburn wins by 45.

State should develop a cowbell-vuvuzela hybrid. I smell government grant. #stimulus

Nick Fairley for SGA! #allIdoissacksacksack

Glad to see the replay official could put his cowbell down long enough to review that play.

Look, if you aren’t going to sing the (Hail State) song, State, why make it the commercial?

Demond Washington, he fast. He real fast.

Nick “shoulder separator” Fairley is going to be a great Halloween costume in the SEC this year. #MVP

I’m not saying Tracy Rocker wears Nick Fairley pajamas, but Rocker’s PJs do have the number 90 on them.

Hide ya kids. Hide ya State defense.

Touchdown Auburn! Newton to Adams! I was going to make an “I hear cowbells” joke, but cowbells will now get quiet.

Give Fairley a raise, Cuz.

Cam Newton likes Golden Flake … and bad State defenses.

Cam Newton likes scooters … and bowling over disbelieving defensive backs.

I liked it when plays at the half were called with a smidge more aggression.

Coach, how do you stop Cameron Newton? “Just wrap him up. And take more HGH at halftime.”

“Bring the ring”? Swell the bell would be better.

It isn’t Nick Fairley’s fault that when he lets someone go, gravity reasserts itself and corkscrews that person into the ground.

Field goal at the half looks better now, doesn’t it?

Dan Mullen, you are no longer at Florida. Relf is not Tebow.

State uses one of Auburn’s onside kicks against them. That’s gimmick infringement, man. That ain’t right.

Cam Newton likes puppies … and your laughable attempts at arm tackles.

Cam Newton likes Rocky Road … and facepalming you back into the film room.

@Supurmario27 can’t catch a break tonight.

The umpire couldn’t throw his flag because his name is Bruce Dickensen and he needs more cowbell, baby.

ESPN: No one is kicking, but we’ll get our sponsors on the screen somehow!

I love watching D linemen getting de-cleated.

Yeah, I would have gone for it.

Nick Fairley must have been traumatized by a bulldog as a child. What a savage.

Funny that wasn’t a penalty against State. Meanwhile Bynes gets his machismo on.

Hey, Chizik? Roof? People are picking on Neiko.

Congrats to State, much improved and good atmosphere. Is it too early to start worrying about them for next year?

I believe in Auburn and it has nothing to do with football.

Alabama / Auburn / football / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
9
Sep 10

Instantly better … because it’s game night

I sat down next to the professor, who is a brilliant and talented man. He is also internationally renowned, our new dean and on my committee. I did pretty well in that choice. I opened that freshly packed binder and he said “Is all of that for this class?”

Those 100 pages of reading, it turns out, wasn’t even the entire assignment. Seems we were missing one chapter, which we discussed at length in my media effects class this morning.

I like that class. We talk about a great many interesting things and I usually feel as if I almost have it all figured out. I don’t, of course, but it is nice to dream.

Spent the rest of the day on the phone, fielding calls for next week’s high school journalism workshop. That’s not entirely true. When I wasn’t on the phone I was writing Emails about the workshop.

It never ceases to amaze me how much time goes into that workshop each year. it takes up about the first three weeks of the term for me, and I don’t even have all the heavy lifting assignments in bringing all of the parts together. We’ll have about 200 students, though, for the all day event. And they always enjoy themselves and learn a great deal.

Check out Google Instant yet? I wrote on Twitter yesterday that this is a search engine that has no time for your fingers, but rather searches your brain.

As “this changes everything” developments go, this on the surface seems to be a subtle one. Everyone’s web is now different. And now better. This only makes Search Engine Optimization even more important, because it is going to change SEO techniques. And that’s where the change here is anything but subtle.

Since you’ll see results now as you type — eliminating that tedious task of hitting “Enter” — you’ll react to the options in front of you. That stimulus is a feedback that will change your search. So SEO will necessarily have to improve, too, if there’s an analytics package on the back end of Instant that shows key strokes and improvements. Google will note what you are searching but, more importantly, what you are refining. That’s going into the great big Google brain and will impact the next person that searches along those same lines. Keystrokes are now key. When users adjust to that the organic experience will probably mutate out of control. Maybe this is how Skynet gets started …

Remember, too, Google also has a social circle feature in their traditional searches on that first page of returns. You can see what your friends and colleagues are saying about the topic you’re presently searching. When that gets tied into Instant you’ll really have something immensely powerful to enhance your personal experience.

Now, if only Google would dabble in providing cell phone signals. I’m driving through the middle of nowhere, trying to speak with a friend who is driving through a place called “50 miles out of Hattiesburg” which is the sort of place with which Nowhere is unfamiliar. Why we bothered, I’m not sure. Every three sentences there is a disconnection.

One day someone in the middle of nowhere might not drop calls. The next day that will become routine and taken for granted. The day after that people will think of us, today, as Lewis and Clark.

Big game tonight. Here’s a little Auburn to get us ready. What is important about The Auburn Creed is what it aspires to be, and what it inspires others to be.

Or, at least, that’s what I thought until I saw this version. When they get to the section on country and home, from Afghanistan, it holds an altogether more important meaning:

War Eagle, beat State. I’ll post the Twitter feed for posterity later.