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Auburn wide receiver Darvin Adams (89) frequently abused defensive backs! (AP Photo/ Butch Dill)

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     War Eagle, everybody. The post-season All-SEC teams are out now, and there aren't too many surprises. It looks like some reporters and sports information directors simply copied their preseason list over again. I guess they DID pay enough attention that Jevan Snead didn't get any votes.

     I'd say the biggest surprise of the All-SEC voting was the complete absence of Auburn wide receiver Darvin Adams in the voting. The media voters select 5 wide receivers. Statistically, Darvin Adams was 5^th in receptions, 4^th in receiving yards per game, 3^rd in receiving yards, 2^nd in yards per catch, and tied for the lead in receiving touchdowns. In fact, there's not a single statistical category that Adams WASN'T in the top five. Somehow, Joe Adams of Arkansas made it in ahead of Adams, despite catching TWENTY fewer balls! Adams also finished behind Florida's Riley Cooper, despite having more catches, more yards per catch, and more touchdowns. A similar argument could be made against LSU's Brandon LaFell: fewer yards, and fewer yards per catch. Even compared to the starting All-SEC unit, Darvin Adams had a better yards per catch stat and more touchdowns than Shay Hodge of Ole Miss. When comparing Adams to Georgia's A. J. Green, Adams had more yards, more catches, a better yards per catch average, and more touchdowns. HOW does Adams not get AT LEAST honorable mention notice?

     On the season, Darvin Adams finished with 48 catches for 855 yards and 10 touchdowns. War Eagle, Darvin Adams!

     In another predictable but irritating snub, kicker Wes Byrum was left out of the all-star balloting. Byrum hit on 14 of 15 field goal attempts, and made all 49 of his extra point attempts. Byrum connected on 93.3 percent of his field goals. The selected All-SEC starter Leigh Tiffin was only good on 87.9 percent of his field goals, and missed THREE extra points. Second-team selection Blair Walsh only hit 90.5 percent of his field goals. What makes Byrum's snub easier to take is that he essentially lost because Auburn was scoring touchdowns in the red zone, rather than settling for 3. The Tigers converted 76% of their red-zone appearances into touchdowns, and got points 94% of the time overall.

     There isn't an official offensive lineman stat page on the SEC website. But I'd take Auburn's Lee Ziemba over most of the 2^nd team offensive linemen, and a couple of the starters. Ziemba finished in the "honorable mention" category, surely a result of false starts. The sad fact is that Ziemba earned his reputation for jumping off in previous years. This year, he's actually been penalized less than you think! On false starts, Lee had 1 against La Tech, 1 against WVa, 1 against Furman, 1 against Georgia, and one against Alabama. That's a total of 5 false starts in a 12 game season, which is not many for a starting left tackle. Ziemba had no holding calls against him, all year. And the only other penalty was on his ineligible catch in the Georgia game. How many sacks did Ziemba give up? I don't remember but one, and it was when Ziemba was trying to get over on a corner blitz that was probably not even his responsibility. All in all, Lee Ziemba was the best lineman on a pretty tough Auburn unit.

     Let's hear it for the left-out Tigers that led our team! War Eagle!

Other Musings from Championship Week, after the jump.

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     War Eagle, everybody. The postseason of 2009 is on us, and the regular season is over. This time last season, I think most folks were glad it was over. Of course, December 2008 would turn out to be a terribly tumultuous month! We ran a head coach and staff off, at a cost of a cool $5 million. We hired a 5-19 replacement as the new head coach. The program was quite frankly in disarray! We were the laughing stock of the SEC, hands down.

     A year later, how'd that work out for us? Against long odds, Auburn's football team won more than they lost, and they won the hearts of the fans. I don't think ANY of us are ready for the season to be over! In just one season, Auburn has vaulted to a New Year's Day bowl, and a winning record. A tremendous recruiting class seems to be in the making. There are 5 other 7-5 SEC teams, and I don't think they are laughing now!

     This season, the SEC will send a record ten teams to bowl games. There are some tough challenges facing the SEC. I think most of the nation would love to see the SEC fall off its high-horse and lose big this bowl season. Texas will be a tough test for the SEC Champion, and the loser of the SEC title game will have to lick their wounds and get ready for another rough test. The Sugar Bowl is likely to match unbeaten Cincinnati against the SEC runner up, and if Cincy loses, then undefeated TCU. Penn State will be an extremely tough test for offensively-challenged LSU in the Capital One Bowl. Auburn's sometimes leaky defense will be tested by Northwestern in the Outback Bowl. Might be a record for points scored in that bowl! The Cotton will be a dangerous bowl, as both Ole Miss and Oklahoma State had hoped for much bigger things, this season. Likely bowl opponents in the second tier are Virginia Tech, North Carolina, U Conn, Texas A&M, and the Houston Cougars. SEC teams need to be on their games to match the success of the past three seasons. The SEC has won 19 of its last 26 bowl games.

The net yards per pass prizes, and ruminations on the SEC Championship Game, after the jump!

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Mud Bowl!

A messy finish to the season might put Auburn in the Pizza Bowl.

     Has the SEC bowl picture ever been murkier? The league should secure two BCS bowl bids, and has two teams that didn't qualify. The remaining eight are within a game of one another. Let's sort it out by division, first.

     In the East, Florida wins, 8-0 in the league. Tied behind FLorida are four 7-5 teams. Tennessee and Georgia are 4-4 in the league, while Kentucky and South Carolina are 3-5. Tennessee beat Georgia head to head, and South Carolina beat Kentucky. Thus, the SEC East finish order looks something like this:

     As to the West, Alabama wins with an 8-0 league mark. LSU finished 9-3, 5-3 in the SEC, and clinches 2nd place. Ole Miss is third, with a 8-4, 4-4 mark. Auburn and Arkansas each have 7-5, 3-5 records, and Arkansas won the head to head matchup. Mississippi State muddies the waters further, with a 5-7, 3-5 mark. Since the Bulldogs lost to both Auburn and Arkansas, they fall to the bottom of the division. The West finish looks like this:

     The bowl picture requires some comparisons between teams in different divisions. My guesses are based on the idea that the bowls will pick teams by how they finished, but we have certainly seen teams with lesser records moved ahead of teams with more deserving records in the past. An example of this would be from the 2001 season, when the Independence Bowl passed up a 7-4 Ole Miss team for a 6-5 Bama squad that Ole Miss beat head to head. The bowls will likely look at who travels well, in making their selections.

     Obviously, the SEC Champion will go to the BCS title game in Pasadena. The runner up will likely end up in the Sugar Bowl. The Capital One Bowl has the number three team, and that would be LSU. The Cotton Bowl gets first pick of the remaining teams in the West, and the Outback gets first pick in the east. That scenario would put Ole Miss in the Cotton, and Tennessee in the Outback. The Peach would get the 6^th place team. On paper, that's Georgia. Pick number 7 would be the Music City Bowl. The Music City would get the best of the 4 teams that finished bowl-eligible at 3-5 in the SEC. Arkansas and Kentucky didn't play, but the Razorbacks own every tie-breaker against Auburn and South Carolina. That would seem to put the Razorbacks in Nashville. The Liberty Bowl picks 8^th. South Carolina beat Kentucky, and Kentucky beat Auburn. That puts South Carolina in Memphis. The Independence Bowl would then get to pick between Auburn and Kentucky. Kentucky won head to head. That leaves the Wildcats in Shreveport, and Auburn in the Papa John's Bowl in Birmingham. Do Tigers eat Pizza? The Pizza Bowl is on Saturday, January 2, at 2:00 PM. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out, a week from now!

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     War Eagle, everybody. It's time now for the Acid Reign Report on the 2009 Iron Bowl. I'm of two minds about this game. Honestly, I think we should have won this game, but a few mistakes held us back. However, there is no questioning that Auburn put forth a superhuman effort. If Coach Gene Chizik and his staff can summon forth that sort energy in future Iron Bowls, we will do well!

     In my keys to victory post 10 days ago, I said that the Tigers needed to chiefly do three things: run the ball, stop the run, and play turnover-free. There was a little bit of success running. Auburn stopped the run emphatically. Turnovers were costly. Both Chris Todd turnovers, a fumble and an interception, set up Bama field goal attempts. Leigh Tiffin honked one of those wide right, but the other was good, pulling Alabama within 1 point. Had we not had those turnovers, Wes Byrum might have been attempting a 54 yard field goal at the end to send it to overtime. I like Byrum's chances a lot better than a Hail Mary! Auburn also gave up avoiding kicking to Javier Arenas, and that cost Auburn. A 56 yard punt return set Alabama up at the Auburn 33, which resulted in another field goal. We'd have been better off punting it out of bounds for no gain, on that one!

     The Tigers came out with a wide-open offensive game plan, utilizing all sorts of misdirection plays, reverses, double passes, and swinging gates. The scheme really slowed down the Alabama pursuit, and forced them to attack more than they wanted. When Alabama started crowding the line, that opened up the Auburn passing game. Unfortunately, the Tigers did not do a good job of taking advantage. Tommy Trott was doing such a good job blocking on the corner that Tide defenders were avoiding being in the same zip code with Trott. We tried several slant passes to Trott, and missed them all. We had a number of opportunities to get running backs loose on screens, but didn't pull the trigger till 3^rd down, when Bama was sitting back in zone coverage. We managed to burn Alabama's corner blitz package with an out and up for a 72 yard touchdown, but never tried it again. Alabama secondary members totaled 5.5 tackles for loss. There was opportunity to throw over them, but we could not do it.

     Special teams had a few good plays, but were not very good, overall. There were multiple kickoffs out of bounds, multiple fumbled punts, short punts, and line drive punts. We let Javier Arenas get 3 returns, and he burned us for 102 yards on those. The few bright spots were a successful onside kick, 2 punts killed inside the 20 by Clinton Durst, and 99 kick return yards on 4 kickoffs.

     For the first time all season, Auburn utilized a run-blitz package, and it paid dividends! Bama was forced to operate from the shotgun and try mostly short passes. When you've held Alabama to 73 rushing yards, with a first year linebacker and two first year safeties, you've done really well! With good pressure, Greg McElroy avoided the costly turnover, but he was forced into drive-killing bad throws. I'd say defensive coordinator Ted Roof called a brilliant defensive game plan, except for one play. On third and nine from the Auburn 33 in the second quarter, we went with a safety blitz and left a linebacker in man coverage with Colin Peek. That decision resulted in an easy Alabama TD pass. You just don't call safety blitzes on 3^rd and long! ESPECIALLY if you're going to hand an all-SEC tight end off to a linebacker to cover!

Unit Grades, after the jump.

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     War Eagle, everybody! It's a fine fall morning, with finally a little bit of frost on the ground! It's time to get fired up, and to cheer our beloved Tigers on to victory over arch-rival Alabama! It's been 20 years since Alabama was forced to make their first trip to Jordan Hare Stadium, and Auburn will be trying to hand them their 8th loss on the green grass of Pat Dye Field!

    In addition to beating Bama, Auburn has a number of records within reach. Senior defensive end Antonio Coleman has 22 career sacks, just 4 sacks shy of the record 26, set by Quentin Groves and Gerald Robinson. Ben Tate has 3168 career rushing yards, and needs just 200 in the last two games to surpass Joe Cribbs for 4th place on the all-time rushing list. Tate's 1209 rushing yards this season ranks 9th in school history. If Tate racks up 200 total in the last two games, he'll move into 3rd place, behind only Bo Jackson and Rudi Johnson. Chris Todd's 19 touchdown passes are just one short of the school single-season record. Pat Sullivan and Jason Campbell each had 20. Darvin Adams trails only Terry Beasley in single-season receiving touchdowns. Adams currently has 9, and needs 3 to tie Beasley's best season.

     Here's hoping for a great Iron Bowl! We'll be here all day, cheering on the Tigers! As always, feel free to chime in and tell us what you think!

     War Eagle, everybody! Iron Bowl week hums merrily along, and everyone's getting fired up for the big game! Auburn faces a well-documented uphill battle in this year's game, but that's nothing new for first year Auburn coaches. Today, we'll take a look back at another Iron Bowl at Jordan Hare Stadium featuring a first year coach. In 1993, Auburn faced the defending consensus national champion Alabama Crimson Tide with an undefeated season on the line. The game was not on television due to Auburn's probation. Alabama had erected a giant closed-circuit TV screen in Bryant Denny Stadium, and had filled the stands. This would be the only game in state history that had sold out TWO stadiums!

     Prior to the start of the 1993 season, you'd have been hard-pressed to find many people who thought Auburn had a shot at a winning record. There were too many holes, not enough depth, and no proven play makers. Somehow, Auburn had won 'em all coming into this Iron Bowl. Even as late as a week prior, the experts did not believe in this team. Oddsmakers had made Auburn an underdog going to Athens to play a 4-5 Georgia team. Auburn had powered to a 42-28 win over the Bulldogs. Few folks thought that Auburn would score at will on Alabama. The Tide defense was studded with all-stars, including Antonio Langham and Lemanski Hall. Bama was second in the league in total defense, and 4^th nationally.

     The Auburn defense would face a tall order, too. Bama had proven quarterback Jay Barker, elusive running backs Sherman Williams and Chris Anderson, a speedy wide receiver in Kevin Lee, and all purpose offensive dynamo David Palmer. Bama had suffered an injury-marred season, but everyone who could tape up and run was playing in this Iron Bowl for the Crimson Tide!

Game recap, after the jump!

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     After some well deserved rest, it's time to gear up for a visit by the Alabama Crimson Tide. Many Auburn folks I've talked to this week are already conceding a Tide win. I say that it doesn't have to be that way! Auburn can play with anyone, when they are executing well. The Tigers can beat Bama, if they run the ball, stop the run, and don't turn the ball over. The Iron Bowl last year was a tight game, till Auburn handed Alabama the ball 3 straight possessions in the 3^rd quarter. We can't do that, this year at home!

Keys to Auburn victory, after the jump!

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Another one slips away from the Tigers.

     War Eagle, everybody. It's time for an abbreviated Acid Reign report on Auburn's 31-24 loss to Georgia. For one quarter, Auburn dominated the Bulldogs. For the remainder of the game, it was an uphill battle. One thing is evident. No matter how overmatched, this team never quits! Prior to the start of this season, I worried about the strength of Georgia's lines. That worry proved to be on the money. When Georgia settled down, they dominated up front on both sides of the ball. Auburn continued to find a way to stay in the game till the end, but the game was tough to watch, for this Tiger.

     Auburn continues to run the ball well, but a lack of an explosive downfield passing game hurt. Darvin Adams is a good one, and with continued development, both he and Terrell Zachary might be great. Still, it took a horrible defensive bust to get a touchdown pass to Zachary. The running game continues to confuse, but never really picked up consistent yardage. On Auburn's three scores, the first was a sandlot play that happened when Georgia rushed themselves out of contain. Todd found Burns on that one. Then there was the awful bust. Auburn's third score was on a kickoff return. We've known all along that Chris Todd does not have a gun for an arm. The most disappointing aspect in this one was the offensive line getting whipped. Not even LSU was able to massacre us with a four man rush like Georgia did. All I can figure is that 11 straight weeks have taken a toll.

     Past a few first quarter stops, the defensive line looked tired. There were a couple of hold the ball sacks of Joe Cox, but Auburn had to blitz to get pressure, and linemen were left chasing Georgia backs downfield, especially in the second half. Walter McFadden continues to play well, but receivers on other Dbacks get open at will. When the other team loads up jumbo, and runs over you for 169 yards per game, there's not much you can say. We were not man enough up front to handle the veteran Bulldog line. Georgia's 4.4 yard per carry average is exactly what Auburn has been giving up on the year.

     In the midst of this disappointing loss, Auburn posted the best special teams effort of the season. Yes, Demond Washington fumbled a punt. We do that every game, I suppose. Nothing new. Auburn did get it back. At least Washington went forward when he got the chance! All four of Auburn's punts were downed inside the Georgia 20, including another Chris Todd pooch job that was killed on the 3. Clinton Durst was consistent, hitting for 44 yards per punt. Kickoffs were again weak, but Georgia was contained pretty well on the return. Auburn's kick returns were the best of the season, including a desperately needed 99 yard touchdown by Demond Washington. The biggest negative was on the 20 yard Mario Fannin return. Georgia had totally blown their coverage, lost their lanes, and there was nothing but green grass on the left side of the field, with a couple of loose Auburn blockers. Fannin seemed headed that way, but for some bizarre reason, he cut back into traffic to the right, and ran right into the first man and fell down. When the offense couldn't block, we NEEDED another touchdown, there!

Unit Grades, after the jump.

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When Georgia was a Pup!

     War Eagle, everybody! Tonight, the Auburn Tigers try to roll it up on the Georgia Bulldogs! There's a lot riding on this game, for the Tigers. With a win, the Tigers would almost certainly be in a New Year's Day bowl, likely the Cotton. (Anyone else interested in seeing the new Jerryland stadium?) An Auburn loss might pave the way to Shreveport. Should Auburn lose, it would be the first time to lose 4 in a row to the Bulldogs since World War Two.

     The key to this game will be how well the Auburn offense runs. The line needs to have a great game, and we need to take care of the ball. If we can get the ball moving, I think Georgia will make enough mistakes to fall behind. Auburn cannot drop the ball on the ground, or put together strings of three 'n' outs.

     Once again, I'm going to have to spend at least some of this game on earbuds with Stan and Rod, rather than in front of the TV. I am hoping to be home by halftime, and right here on this thread! This has been a ridiculous fall with obligations during Auburn football games. Next year, I'm turning everyone down during football Saturdays. And I can tell you this: NOTHING will get me out from in front of the TV, on Black Friday, this year! (Except free tickets..)

     As always, feel free to chime in and cheer on the Tigers! This game may be one for the ages! War Eagle! Glory to Auburn!

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