War Eagle Hey!

I'm so excited for the team and coaches!!!! They got a well earned VICTORY!!!!! War Eagle

I have to admit, I have been down on Brandon Cox, and I questioned the coaching. Tuberville made me proud to be a Tiger when he threw his tirade late in the game. I have a new found respect for him. I must admit we can win with Cox. I always knew he had it in him, but where's he been? Anywho, the guy who wrote that doesn't  have a clue what a great coach is.

War Eagle!
Lets get ready for Vandy

what an offensive line that can block and establish a running game between the tackles will do for a passing attack and a QB's mojo......especially when 90% of the passes are play-action.  I hope the fans who booed Cox and called for his head have learned a lesson and realized that behavior is beneath the AU nation. Fantastic win for our program and with bammer looking at best inept against the semiholes order has been restored in the state of alabama. I can't wait to listen to Finebaum and the Bammer callers describe what crow taste like. War Damn Eagle!

.....is the one who must eat crow! Did you hear his ridiculous statement in the pregame show?

.....The biggest hanging chad, though, in the Florida loss was the play-calling on the last Gator possession. Florida had basically whipped our defensive line, who were playing on fumes at that point. Rather than run their hoss QB up the middle some more, they tried to go outside against an aggressive secondary that had tackled well all night, and lost big yardage on first down. That, folks, is getting out-coached!

.....WDE, It's Great to Be an Auburn Tiger, and Kick 'Em in the Butt, Big Blue! War Eagle!

If you think that was bad, you should have read the one he penned the week before.  Read:

I can’t harp on it any more, Auburn is not an elite college football program.  Tuberville was a mediocre coach before the miracle year of 2004 and somehow he gets far more love from the press than he deserves because he was "cheated" from a chance at a national title.  The 2004 Auburn team was a mirage.  The only thing those Tigers were cheated from is a blowout loss in a Title game matchup.  Instead they were able to (barely) beat an inferior Virginia Tech team and at least claim they were undefeated.  I doubt Auburn could have beaten Oklahoma let alone Matt Leinhart and Reggie Bush’s USC squad.  That would have just ended up being an embarrassment to the league.

Let us put Auburn in perspective.  Alabama is a state with a high football passion and produces a fair share of quality athletes.  Tuberville’s heyday was helped considerably by the flagship program of the state, the University of Alabama, being on probation and in turmoil during Tuberville’s rise.  It was during this time that Auburn was able to lure talented players like Jason Campbell, Carnell Williams and Ronnie Brown (not to mention Giants running back Brandon Jacobs who transferred to Southern Illinois for playing time).  Let’s not forget that although the Tigers were indeed 13-0 in 2004 Tuberville was only able to squeeze 8 wins out of those same great players the year before.

During Auburn’s pathetic offensive display on Saturday night we heard how Auburn has more wins over the past three seasons than LSU, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.  Well la dee freakin da people.  Were you overly impressed with Auburn’s 11-2 record last season?  The Tigers were an opportunistic team that had the ability to beat better teams (LSU, Florida, Nebraska) by capitalizing on mistakes or poor coaching decisions but could also get easily run off the field if an opposing team played well (Georgia, Arkansas).

The SEC was a much different place in 2004 than it is today.  There were no great teams in 2004 - LSU, Georgia and Tennessee were good but not great teams, Florida and Alabama were down and South Carolina was a patsy.  Auburn didn’t have competitive non-conference games on the schedule back then.  Games against South Florida and Kansas State were instead played against teams like Louisiana Tech and the Citadel.  All the pieces fell into place for an Auburn team that was experienced and stacked with NFL talent (yet still not a dominant team despite all the future NFL draft picks).

Last year Auburn signed one of its best recruiting classes ever.  Yet just over 6 months later the class has been decimated by academic casualties.  Almost one third of the class, 9 recruits, were unable to qualify into school for Coach Tuberville.  So much for what some pundits were calling the "best recruiting class in Tuberville’s coaching career".  Two other recruits Nick Fairley and Chris Slaughter are still awaiting word from the NCAA clearinghouse and thus are unable to practice with the team.

Anyone who watched Auburn’s season opener also knows that we are probably a Kansas State fumble away from talking about the Tigers 0-2 start and an SEC power losing to both the Big East AND Big 12 conferences early into the season.  Kansas State outplayed Auburn for most of the game; although against that inept Auburn offense such a display is hardly surprising.  Auburn doesn’t look like a typical SEC team.  They are a smallish team on both sides of the ball but are better than middle of the pack in terms of speed.  There isn’t a player on Auburn’s squad that scares SEC coaches (and I’m guessing that the Big 12 and Big East coaches aren’t all that intimidated either).  They just don’t have the horses on the line to dominate their opponent nor the playmakers at the skill positions to create a sudden change of momentum.

Most of the Tigers talent is on the defensive side of the ball which causes the type of talent imbalance that the folks in Tallahassee are currently dealing with.  While the recruiting errors aren’t as great as we see Tally (where the Noles will sign 5 High School All American linebackers and 2 average offensive linemen in a class and declare it "loaded" to their fans) they suggest a team that will be forced to play conservative on offense and hope the defense carries them.  This leads to the type of conservative games that Auburn has played the past few years and also leads to the types of blowouts that occur if Auburn gets down early.

This takes nothing away from South Florida who is clearly as talented as Auburn and has better playmakers but this isn’t as much a win for the Bulls as a loss for the Tigers.  It was just a matter of time before we saw the cracks in the foundation at Auburn.  The Tigers can still finish the year with 7-9 wins and a lower tier bowl game.  But this isn’t a rebuilding year.  This is the current and future state of Auburn football. Tiger fans better start getting used to their annual trips to the Peach and Liberty Bowls in the coming years.  At least until Auburn decides to make a change at the top and land a coach capable of competing against the Sabans, Spurriers, Meyers, Miles and Richts of the world.

by Keltic Gator on 09.10.07 @ 9:34 pm

Now, Todd'92 and I have gone over to Orange and Blue Hue and left comments for Keltic Gator.  All of you are welcome to do the same.  Keep in mind that most of the guys over there are okay, but this Keltic Gator really needs to be reminded that he can't look down on us like that and get away with it.  Give him some hell!

I didn't know that Ryan Ferguson, one of the contributors to the Fanhouse on AOL, is Gatorpilot, one of the contributors on Orange and Blue Hue.  He occasionally posts on fanblogs.com, where I assume the role of chief Auburn defender of the faith. Regardless, I thanked him and Bammer Pete Holiday for editing the Auburn section so objectively this season...

On fanblogs, most of the consistent Gator posters also go on OBH, and most of those guys are pretty level headed and fair.  When fanblogs ran a whole thread based on the scathing article from Keltic Gator, most of the Gator guys went on record saying that they thought it was over the top.

I hate it when one fan tries to bring his personal biases into it and attempt to make a rivalry nasty when it's not.