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15
Sep 13

Catching up

This week’s place holding post of extra photos is thin, but look at all of the pictures that made their way here yesterday. Also I’ve been alternately busy and too uncomfortable this week to seek out a lot of pictures. It all works out is what I’m saying.

Here’s Nova, who had the pre-game flight yesterday. We tried the spot just underneath his release point this time. It gives an interesting perspective.

An Auburn field goal early in the game. See the ball?

Even sitting in the stands hurts. For the next game I may go to an empty section and just stretch out.

Auburn / football / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
14
Sep 13

Mississippi State at Auburn

Auburn started the day at 2-0 and was set to welcome conference foe Mississippi State in their SEC opener. It was to be a dramatic game. Before we get to that, here are some of the fans, which is what you’re really here for:

Freshman Elijah Daniel almost gets home to shut down Dak Prescott who was pretty much having his way all over the field. He threw for 213 yards and ran for 134, including a long of 47. Also he registered two touchdowns. The guy was pretty good.

Robenson Therezie, 27, had three tackles and three assists.

But after all that, it got tense.

Auburn was down 17-20. Their defensive back turned QB lead Auburn out to start their last drive at their own 12 yard line with 1:50 on the clock. Marshall had already had a day. He turned a dropped snap into a 77-yard touchdown pass and later caught a deflected pass himself and turned that into a 37-yard reception.

Nick Marshall kept the ball on the first snap and then without a care in the world threw three straight passes to Marcus Davis to get out to the 47 yard line. Jaylon Denson caught a pass to move things down to State’s 37 and that got the crowd thinking about the possibility of a field goal.

The next four plays were two rushes by Marshall and two incomplete passes. No one was thinking about field goals when Tre Mason carried from the 14 to the 11. Auburn took a timeout with :15 on the clock.

And then Marshall called for the snap and looked to his right, where C.J. Uzomah worked a double move toward the corner. It all looked like this:

Those last few aren’t perfectly crisp. I was 75 yards away and in the upper deck. But the Tigers win 24-20 to start their season perfect before going on the road next week to LSU.

Here’s the video:

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8
Sep 13

Catching up

The weekly post that pretends to be a post by sharing extra photographs that you haven’t seen anywhere yet! Brilliant!

This little girl was at the race yesterday. She was waiting for her father to get out of the water and move on to his bike ride. Unfortunately, he couldn’t swim fast enough to keep her attention. When he finally did stride out of the water, though, she was excited. Once she figured out that was dad. Those swim caps are not cool.

Riders coming back in from the bike course. This time I didn’t take pictures of random bikes in the transition area. Instead, just a few people riding:

The moon over Auburn, Ala.

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7
Sep 13

Arkansas State at Auburn

After the race, driving home, having lunch, cleaning up and then going to the tailgate we were already exhausted.

We tailgate with some lovely people, the kind of folks you’d like to be around, friendly, open and engaging, from all over, all walks of life and all in different industries. The ages range over probably 15 years, but everyone gets along famously and it looks like something out of central casting. If the script called for extravagantly good food in a small tent outside a big stadium.

And today I almost fell asleep in that tent watching a football game on the flat screen. Life is good to you like that, sometimes. We looked at each other and decided we had to say bye to our friends and go inside or they’d all pose for tacky Christmas cards while we had sleeping, unknowing expressions on slack, exhausted faces.

So inside the stadium we went. The eagle flew. The band marched. The speakers blared. Two teams came out and only one would emerge undefeated. Arkansas State, as you might have heard, lost their coach to Auburn last year, so there was an instant storyline. Plus the need for Auburn to see more from their brand new quarterback who had been on campus for about four weeks total and looked a bit nervous in his first game.

Also, people really wanted to see a big play. That was one of those things missing from last weekend’s win. There were some “So close!” moments, but this isn’t horseshoes.

So here’s the big play:

Nick Marshall flicks the ball with ease — because the guy might still be working on synching up with his receivers, but he can throw the ball to Georgia.

Fifty yards down field Sammie Coates runs right under the sailing ball and right away from this hapless defender. Twenty yards of sprinting led to six points.

Auburn controlled the game throughout. The Wolves amassed over 400 yards of offense, but couldn’t score a touchdown. As they say, there were positives and negatives, but the home team won. And here are there fans:

adventures / cycling / photo / weekend — Comments Off
7
Sep 13

The John Tanner Park aquabike

Early morning. Bad night of sleep. Comfortable hotel bed, but I’m lately struggling. Shoulder, other shoulder, neck, old age, perhaps. It’ll get better. But that doesn’t keep me from being tired today. But what a day!

This is at the largest sand beach in Georgia (non-ocean category), at John Tanner Park. We were here for a race earlier in the year, and this time The Yankee was out to show an even better time than she did on this same course in the late spring.

Here she is starting the 600 meter swim. She’s one of the pink dots. If this were video you’d know her from the almost perfect stroke. A lot of people are flailing around in these things.

You can just see some canoes and jet skis out there for the just-in-cases-of life. I only saw them fish out one person today. Everyone else did well, including this girl, who came out of the water third in her division:

And then off through the transition with an incredible time and then out to the 14 mile bike course. I rode this course the last time we were here. It has some hills. And they are different hills than we have at home. (You can have different kinds of hills.) These hills require you to keep working over the top of them, which is sometimes easier said than done. And yet, her she was, blowing away her previous time, sneaking inside the goal that she had set up.

And at the end of it all, there was great success. She finished second, and fairly close to the winner, time-wise. There will be a great rivalry at these events when they start up again next season.

Today the sky was bright and the sun was mild through the morning and everyone had a lovely time. I saw a man and a woman each lay down their bike right by the transition area. An older gentleman wrecked his bike coming back into the park. There is a speed bump and he tried to go over it, instead he twisted his ankle and scrapped up his shoulder and put his bicycle in every condition except the one he liked.

I saw him after the race. He was moving a little gingerly, but in good spirits.

And so now we have more race bling at home.