Auburn Welcomes Pat Sullivan to Jordan-Hare Stadium in 2011

by Jay Coulter on Aug 21, 2008 4:00 AM CDT in Football Comment 8 comments

Auburn will face Samford on the Plains in 2011

While there's still no word from Auburn, it appears the University has reached an agreement with Samford to play at Jordan-Hare Stadium in 2011. Speaking to a group in Birmingham today, Samford Head Coach Pat Sullivan said his team will travel to the Plains for the first time since 1993.

The former Auburn Heisman Trophy winner also announced games with Central Florida in 2009 and Florida State during the 2010 season. It's also rumored the Bulldogs will travel to Tuscaloosa in 2012 to face Alabama.

"First, I want to thank these schools for giving us the opportunity to play," Sullivan said. "It's very special to our team and to our Samford family to be able to go to those places, and it's also exciting for our players to go to those venues. This will help us in recruiting, and for us to build our program to where we want it to be, this is what we need to do."

Samford will likely travel to Auburn during the first week of November and serve as its homecoming opponent. Believe it or not, the two schools have played 26 times. As you would expect, Auburn holds a 25-0-1 advantage over the Bulldogs.

Sullivan starts his second season in Birmingham on August 28^th when he welcomes West Georgia. Last year, he posted a 4-7 record. Scheduling these big name schools makes you wonder if Samford is not trying to go the route of Troy and move up to Division I-A at some point.

We can all agree there are some big idiots who cover college football. But I think I've found the biggest. His name is Taylor Zarzour and he's host of a radio program called The Big Tailgate Show on WPTF-AM in Raleigh, N.C.

It seems that somehow Zarzour was granted a vote in this year's AP College Football Poll. When he turned in his preseason ballot, Auburn was not in his top 25.

Why?

Paul Gattis of The Huntsville Times wanted to know the same thing. So he did some research and found Zarzour's bio on the show's website. In it, Mr. Zarzour describes himself as "An avid Alabama fan" and says his greatest sports moment was Alabama's win over Miami in the 1992 Sugar Bowl.

But the plot thickens. After Gattis reported this, the station removed the Alabama references from Zarzour's bio. For the record, he ranks Alabama 23^rd to start the season.

I don't blame Zarzour for this incident. He's a complete moron and obviously shouldn't be taken seriously by the media if he has crap like that written in his bio. I blame the Associated Press. How far down do you have to reach to find someone of this caliber to vote in your poll? Thank God it no longer factors in the BCS.

The AP should do the right thing and pull this bozo from its panel. Better yet, the poll should go the way of newspapers and just call it a day. What a joke.

0 recs | Comment 8 comments |

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

You’re right about the AP Poll needing to be disbanded. It’s a shame to say, but he’s not the only person like that in the poll. For the most part I’d say the voters are as unbiased as they can be. There will always be some bias due to geography, not able to see every game played by the top teams, etc. But, as long as you have humans voting in a poll(which is the only way to do it), it will never be free of bias such as this.

by AU Student on Aug 21, 2008 7:25 AM CDT reply actions

For all the crap...

that the AP poll gets, it’s way better than the coaches poll. Sure the coaches SHOULD be a better judge of where a team is, but let’s face it, what college football coach has time to watch 25 games a week that his team isn’t involved in?

Incidents like this in the AP poll are much fewer than in the coaches poll. At least the media is supposed to be held to a higher standard. Coaches have way too much invested to be allowed to vote, it’s a conflict of interest.

by LSU Jonno on Aug 21, 2008 8:01 AM CDT reply actions

Right on LSU Jonno!

Also did you see Wire Road & Shug’s e-mail back-and-forth with Zarzour?

by J.M. on Aug 21, 2008 12:29 PM CDT reply actions

This guy needs to lose his vote. Period.

While his reasoning for not voting AU in the top 25 is arguably correct, you can make those same type of theories for EVERYONE IN THE TOP 25!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please!
I’m not advocating blindly ranking teams based on history, tradition, and the like, but come on. There is literally not one single reason to vote Bama ahead of Auburn or Tennessee (who I think is getting overlooked, big time).

by LSU Jonno on Aug 22, 2008 7:56 AM CDT up reply actions

Gotta agree with Jonno

The coaches poll should be more accurate, but there is no way in hell these guys have seen enough games to have a solid opinion of ANY team except their own. Week to week how mant actual football games do you think a college football coach gets to see? I would bet less than five. As for the AP poll I think we can all agree that the vast majority of sports writers have their heads so far up their asses that it is a small miracle that they can even fill out the poll.

Good for Samford. I hope they can get a boost in their program from all of this. Kudos to the teams willing to give them a shot even though it means we’ll have to read all of the genius sportswriters’ articles about how Auburn and the other teams are just trying to schedule a new cupcake game. You just can’t with those guys.

by GumptownTiger on Aug 21, 2008 1:46 PM CDT reply actions