A classic post gets the business

Congrats to patdyeswildturkey for this opus, which deserves its own blog post.

AUBURN VS. TENNESSEE

I wanted to comment on the game between Auburn vs. Tennessee game. First off as I have watched all these games in person I am beginning to believe I need a refund for my costs of tickets. If any of you watched the game you realized that if the Mississippi State game gave you stomach ulcers then watching the Tennessee game was like passing a kidney stone. Here are a few points.

1. All Blue – I don’t know if any of you noticed but because Tennessee wears neon orange, Auburn decided to send out a memo late Thursday that we (every person attending) had to wear blue. Now lets not even get to the fact that the memo went out to like 3 people a day before the game. But I think in today’s world its getting kind of ridiculous that the school tells you how you should dress for the game. I foresee a day when we all get a memo to wear various Indian, cop and construction uniforms so the whole stadium can do the YMCA during commercial breaks. You laugh, but tell me you haven’t obeyed the previous memos and worn orange when the school told you to. Having already received the memo from the school and my wife, I decided to rebel and I stuck with my original orange shirt. I guess I didn’t want to spend $40 on a blue shirt for one game all because of a memo. I think it all peaked for me when standing at the urinal an unknown man asked me if I got the memo; he was referring to my shirt. I politely asked him did he get the memo about asking me questions while standing at the urinal. So get ready for the next home game and be on the lookout for directions on what to wear.

2. Lee Ziemba – Bless his heart if he doesn’t average a penalty a game its just not right. The kid went from All-SEC Freshman to the albatross around the offensive lines neck. He has killed more drives than anyone on the team. If there was a category for most killed drives he would be front and center. I have heard the linemen are not in sync, well there not the backstreet boys either, let me tell you. There have been all kinds of excuses, we miss Chaz Ramsey and the linemen aren’t used to the spread. Whatever it is it needs to be fixed. I say from now on just ask Lee Ziemba to let us know when he feels like getting us a penalty so we can all be prepared.

3. Spencer Pybus – This is a kid you should all root for. He is a freshman linebacker from Dothan, Alabama. The kid had no scholarship offers on signing day. Then at the last minute Auburn called him with an offer. Already he has seen significant playing time and plays a lot bigger than his size. He may be undersized but he plays with a motor, he is a modern day “Rudy”. Well except he is not as fat as Sean Aston in Rudy and he has gotten to play more than one down so far.

4. Tony Franklin – Well children might read this so I just erased a half a paragraph of curse words. What can I say, if he comes back Monday morning and says I watched the tape and we didn’t look that bad I am going to run in front of traffic. I don’t know what games he has been watching but its getting ridiculous. Every week he has to tell us how he made a stupid call. I don’t know if he is just trying to beat us to the punch or what. I haven’t cringed so much at the word spread since I last went to the proctologist. Lets be honest, we are at the 6 game mark and we have not seen any improvement. We are all tired of the clichés. Someone also please give the man a razor. He makes half a million dollars a year and somehow he looks like Tom Hanks in Castaway. I keep hearing well it took a year to get going at Troy or it worked at Troy. Hellooooooooo….this not Troy. This is the SEC, if you don’t produce you get fired, plain and simple. Tuberville knows this and this is why I know he has his hand on the wheel so to speak. Our schedule does not get any easier. Our offensive is virtually last in every statistical category. Franklin please shave and please for the love of god get a first down, that’s all I ask.

5. Defense – Again, what else can you say. They saved our asses. They should get second helpings at the dinner table, valet parking and the offense should carry their books to class. That’s the least they can do. I truly believe if we had anything that resembled an offense we would have held opposing offenses to a lot less points. No matter how good they are they cant stay on the field all day after our spread offense is off the field in less than 60 seconds. Here is a scary thought imagine next year when Antonio Coleman and Sen’Derrick Marks decide to go pro after their juniors years, whew, trouble. Of course they could decide to stay and see if the spread comes around? ……hahahaha, yea, they are gone.

6. Booing – I heard a lot of booing Saturday during the 2nd half. I know some people were booing the play calling. A caller on the radio show said players can’t separate who the boos are directed at. I agree booing isn’t an answer, but we as Auburn fans are very frustrated. If we could call the Attorney General and have Tony Franklin arrested for fraud we would. Hey, instead of booing we could send dog poo to Tony Franklins door step, let me know if you know the address. If the administration and some Harri Krishna fans don’t want people to boo then please help us turn the offense around or give us an outlet for our frustration. You can’t tell me Lowder and the boys are happy. At this point they are plotting something, maybe a voodoo high priestess, drinking goats blood, who knows, what ever helps I am all for it.

7. Ben Tate hand off – If I see another Ben Tate hand off to the outside….well…I guess I’ll do nothing, because in less than 25 seconds I will see another one and then another one and then we punt. We have a big, all-SEC back and he is running outside taking pitches and hand offs. Ben Tate has to be depressed playing in this offense. Tate doesn’t have the most alarming speed first off, but he is a great north and south runner, which he hasn’t been called to do all year. Well if I lose my sight tomorrow, I should be fine not watching the Tigers play again because I should be able to see in my head the next 100 handoffs to Ben Tate.

8. Tommy Trott – Well I will be the first one to say I was in the love triangle with Tommy Trott. I said here that Chris Todd overlooked him on every play. I think Chris Todd heard my complaint because now he passes it to Trott in triple coverage. However, lately Trott has dropped two balls that would have been first downs. He can not seem to hang out to the ball. Students I have spoken with have said Trott never drops 12 ounces, but the pigskin is a different story. Maybe we should paint the football like a beer, see what happens.

9. Wes Byrum – He is hanging with Lee Ziemba too much I assume. This kid was a freshman all-SEC kicker and this year has missed four straight field goals. What has happened to him this year. Has he been watching Scott Norwood instructional kicking videos (reference Super Bowl 25 ). I don’t know if the picture of him beating Florida last year is still in his head or what. He needs to remember people have very little patience with kickers. Its not like he cant be replaced. We replaced last years all-SEC punter with a kid who was punting balls from K-mart on the intramural fields. If I was Byrum I would get my act together and I would keep an eye on the sporting goods section at K-Mart.

10. Tuberville – The man knows how to spin. But I trust him. We have to remember that as much as I loved Pat Dye, Tubbs is a few wins shy of passing Pat Dye for all time wins at Auburn. The one thing we know about Tubbs is he handles business. He knows the offense stinks and we cant keep winning with this kind of production. I’m sure he has had many long talks with Franklin. Hell maybe he even handed him a few business cards from a moving company. I guess that’s less dramatic than a horses head in his bed. Hopefully Tuberville will turn the heat up and mix in some old school running with the new spread. Old Tubby isn’t the riverboat gambler as before. I’ve seen more gambling risks at Sunnydale retirement homes bingo night. He needs to get his mojo back and fast.

Look Ahead: This week is Vanderbilt. It’s on TV, I am not sure why, seems people would rather watch Antiques Road show re-runs than watch this match up. But this isn’t the same old Vandy. This is the first time Vanderbilt has been ranked in over 20 years. Normally their chess team is ranked higher than their football team. Hopefully our defense will keep us in the ball game. Maybe we will see Kodi Burns some more and hopefully we will run the ball for over a 100 yards this game. Either way I expect to curse way more than my grandmother would like and I will probably go through a whole bottle of Maalox.

Prediction: Auburn 21 Vanderbilt 10