ESPN.com is reporting that Auburn defensive lineman Sen'derrick Marks will forego his senior season and enter the NFL draft. The article also mentions that Antonio Coleman could be following him as well, and a press conference at Coleman's high school could be held later this week.

Obviously, these would be big losses to not only our defense, but our team. These guys were solid players, but also solid leaders. They will be tough to replace. I know I speak for myself when I wish Marks and maybe Coleman the best of luck in the NFL next season, and I hope I speak for all Auburn men and women.

Obviously, this isn't how I pictured the coaching search. The day Tommy Tuberville and Auburn parted ways, I was sad, but hopeful. "Coaching searches are fun," I thought. "I can't wait to see what kind of awesome coach we get. The sky is the limit!" Boy, was I wrong. I was wrong in thinking that any of the past week and a half would be "fun." I was wrong in thinking that the people in charge of our university and athletic department could even recite the alphabet, let alone hire a great coach. It got me thinking that this whole thing is like a parable...

Continue reading this post »

Well, this coaching search is wearing on me. "What did the pirate say about the steering wheel attached to his manhood?" It's driving me nuts! So, I thought I would offer my own take on a recent Green Day hit to try and artistically (ok stop laughing) express my feelings about this whole thing.

This is called "Wake Me Up When the Coach Search Ends":

Tubby has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when the coach search ends

Like Phil Fulmer's come to pass
Ten whole years has gone so fast
Wake me up when the coach search ends

Here comes Muschamp again
Calling from Lone Star
Just saying no again
Because of who we are

As my memory rests
but never forgets the games we lost
Wake me up when the coach search ends

Tubby has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when the coach search ends

Put us in the top ten again
Like we did when fall began
Wake me up when the coach search ends

Here comes Muschamp again
Calling from Lone Star
Just saying no again
Because who we are

As my memory rests
But never forgets the games we lost
Wake me up when the coach search ends

Tubby has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when the coach search ends

Like Phil Fulmer's come to pass
Ten whole years has gone so fast
Wake me up when the coach search ends
Wake me up when the coach search ends
Wake me up when the coach search ends

Auburn fans -

A friend just sent me this link. Wasn't there one like this about Turner Gill a few days ago? From Fort Walton Beach? So, DON'T TAKE THIS AS THE GOSPEL TRUTH. But, if it's true, it's exciting, and our long national nightmare would be over. Anyways, without further ado, here's the link:

http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/sports/MuschampCouldBeGoingToAuburn

Maybe we can get a few more "Boom mf'ers!" Enjoy (I guess).

Ladies and gentlemen,

Throughout this search for Auburn's new head coach, which is on day 6 (feels like about day 600), names have been thrown around, no matter how feasible. What should we look for in our next coach? Head coaching experience? The ability to recruit? How good of a man the coach is? I think we're all overlooking the most important characteristic any Auburn head football coach needs to have.

I'm talking, of course, about the ability to nail a Golden Flake commercial.

This is one of the biggest problems with Tuberville's "resignation." Nobody could possibly replace those acting skills. I mean, just look at him:

At least we know Tubs has a bright future ahead of him winning Academy Awards. I heard he's already accepted a job as the new, mysterious man next door who claims to own an Applebee's, but you know he's selling smack in Guiding Light. Anyways, heaping praise on Tubby for his acting acumen was not the point of this post. It's hard not to do, but anyways, it's time to get on with the pos.

So which coach that's on our radar has the best acting chops to fill those giant shoes? Jimbo Fisher certainly has the name you'd expect to go along with a Golden Flake commercial. Will Muschamp could show some potential, but I'm afraid he's too raw. You need to be at least a little bit calm to take on a big job like Golden Flake commercials. How about Turner Gill? I'm not sure that crying over how good Maizetos taste would be the best route, but he certainly has potential. Mike Leach has already done the weather and offered dating advice, but those jobs pale in comparison to the Golden Flake behemoth.

Let's face it. When Auburn and Tommy Tuberville parted ways, we lost more than just a coach. We lost a thespian. Even if the next coach is better at coaching football, I can guarantee you that the acting level will drop off precipitously. Let's just hope that the next coach is half the actor that Tommy Tuberville was.

Hey everyone. I'd like to invite you to participate in a little contest I'm putting together. It's called "Guess the next Auburn head coach!" What I want you to do is give me the name of ONE person who you think will be named Auburn's next head coach. You can only give one answer. I actually will keep track of all the answers in a spreadsheet and give percentages once the new coach is named.

For those of you who guess correctly, tell them what they win, Marty!

Bragging rights!

Let the game begin!

 

My answer is Jimbo Fisher.

Regardless of whether you were in the "Fire Tubs" or "Keep Tubs" camp, or on the fence (like me), you have to admit it's a sad day for Auburn University when we fire Tommy Tuberville. His career ends at Auburn with an 85-40 (52-30 SEC) record, 1 SEC Championship, a 5-3 bowl record, and a 7-3 record against Alabama. This thread is not about speculation on his replacement or the future of Auburn's football program, but more of a thread of gratefulness to a great man who represented this university admirably for ten years. Tommy, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the job you've done at Auburn, and I wish you the best of luck in the future.

War Eagle.

Hey everyone -

Well, the 2008 Iron Bowl has come and gone, and it will go down in the history books as a forgettable game, particularly for us Auburn folk. The outcome was almost never in doubt, and when the final whistle blew, everyone who watched (I could only stomach 2.5 quarters) knew that one team dominated the other in every phase of the game: offense, defense, special teams, coaching; you name it, Alabama was better yesterday. So I just thought I'd take a break from licking my wounds to come over and congratulate you guys on a very impressive win and the most lopsided Alabama victory over Auburn in my 24 years of living. Good luck against the Gators next weekend. They look very impressive and hard to beat, but anyone who says it will be a cakewalk for Urban Meyer's squad doesn't know what he's talking about. See you next year!

With Oklahoma slamming Texas Tech last night, the Big 12 South is now in a 3-way tie. Everyone seems to be in agreement that the BCS championship game will come down to the SEC championship game winner vs. the Big 12 South winner, and it's only natural, considering that the top four teams are all in either the SEC or the Big 12 South. However, it got me to thinking about an interesting scenario.

For argument's sake, let's say that the Alabama-Florida winner is in the BCS championship game no matter what. Then, let's say that Texas and Oklahoma both win next week, and the BCS stays as it is this week, with Texas above OU. That sets up a Big 12 championship game of Texas vs. Missouri. Now, imagine that Missouri wins that game. What would the other team in the BCS championship game be?

Would it be Oklahoma, which did not win its own conference? How about USC, which won't win the Pac-10 outright unless it beats UCLA next week and Oregon State loses to Oregon? Utah is the MWC champion, sitting undefeated at #6, should they get a shot? Should Texas Tech get back into the conversation? Basically, what I'm saying is that if Missouri beats the Big 12 South winner, we are almost guaranteed to see a team that didn't win its conference playing Florida or Alabama.

Is that okay with you? What if the team that didn't win its conference beats Florida or Alabama and is deemed the national champion? How would you feel about a team without a conference championship ring wearing a national championship ring? Does this make a playoff even more needed/wanted?

I've been a playoff proponent for years, even before the 2004 fiasco. I also had the basic Barack Obama college football playoff plan a year ago, before he stole it and made it his. Eight teams, the 6 major conference champions, and 2 at-larges, either mid-major conference winners or a very good team that didn't win its conference. Now you may be saying, "but POD, isn't that counter-intuitive to what you said earlier about conference champions should win national championships?" And yes, it is. But the difference here is that the champion is determined on the field, not by some arbitrary computer system. It's like the NCAA basketball tournaments. Nobody disputes those winners because they were the best in the tournament. As everything stands this year, this is how I would set up the playoffs:

1. Alabama/Florida vs. 8. Oklahoma

2. Texas vs. 7. Utah

3. Penn State vs. 6. ACC Champion

4. Cincinnati vs. 5. Oregon State

Use the BCS for seeding, and switch Oklahoma and Utah to keep Texas from playing Oklahoma in the first round. What do you guys think?

This season has been a disappointment, to say the least. We started in the top ten, and it will take a win over Georgia or Alabama to become eligible for a bowl berth (assuming we beat UT-Martin). We got rid of Al Borges because the offense wasn't performing at the level we needed it to in order to be a top-tier SEC team. Tony Franklin came in, and all our numbers were lower than they were under Borges, so we fired him. Before yesterday's game, the offense was even worse than it was under Franklin. The defense has seen its share of injuries, for certain, but was its early-season success a matter of being really good or playing really terrible offenses? It's obvious that what we have right now don't work. If I were in charge of making the decisions about Auburn football, here is what my plan would be, for what it's worth.

For this description, I'm going to assume that we beat UTM and lose to Georgia and Alabama to close the season and finish at 5-7 (2-6). On the Monday after the Iron Bowl, I call Tuberville and all of the people in charge to discuss the football situation.

The first thing I would tell him is that he has done an admirable job as head coach at Auburn. His record at Auburn is 85-39, including 52-30 in conference. He has won an SEC title and won or shared five SEC division titles, two of which ended with a berth in the SEC championship game. He has gone 5-5 against LSU and Georgia, and 7-3 against Alabama. Against all other SEC teams he has a winning record. He has taken us to eight bowls in ten years. He has won five of those bowl games. He has kept the program out of trouble, has done a good job graduating players, and has represented Auburn University with class and dignity. By all accounts, he is a good football coach.

However, the program has slid in the last five years. The SEC record since 2004 is 8-0, 7-1, 6-2, 5-3, 2-6. We are winning fewer and fewer SEC games each year. Our offense has been regressing every year since 2004 as well. We are having a hard time recruiting talented offensive skill position players. Other SEC schools are passing us by in terms of recruiting ability and prestige. We haven't seen the SEC championship game since 2004. We have still had a good overall record since 2004, but we are trending in the wrong direction.

I would tell Tuberville that he has one year to make positive improvements. He doesn't need to go undefeated or win the conference title in 2009 to keep his job, but he needs the team to play better and have better results. Something like at least a 5-3 or 6-2 conference record, an 8-4 or 9-3 overall record  and a New Year's Day bowl game are goals. If he fails to meet these goals in 2009, then it's time for him to hit the road. If he meets or surpasses these goals, we see what he does in 2010. If the program continues to improve, we look at an extension. If we have another stinker year like we did this year, then we let him go.

As far as the offense goes, let Tuberville make his own decision about whom he hires as the next offensive coordinator, but we are involved in the process. The new coordinator either is allowed to bring in his own position coaches, or understands up front that he will have to work with the ones we have. Let offensive coordinator candidates meet with the position coaches to determine if the relationship is going to work. Let Tuberville know that his loyalty to the offensive position coaches is in question. But ultimately, let him make the final decision about the next offensive coordinator.

Auburn's football program is definitely in better shape right now than when we hired Tommy Tuberville. We have loads of talent on the defensive side of the ball, and we have some decent offensive talent. However, if we continue to deteriorate as a program, we could just as soon be in the same position as we were in 1998. And with the high level of coaching in the conference and the amount of talent at other SEC programs, it would be a much harder task to rise back to the top from that level than it was back then.

War Damn Eagle!!

Pat Forde didn't hold back any punches in his most recent "Forde Yard Dash." The senior writer from ESPN.com gave our beloved school a tongue lashing when descrbing some of the events of the last ten years. Here's the particularly slanderous passage:

Fitting that the two schools engaging in the cold-blooded, NFL Lite practice of kneecapping coaches in October are Auburn (1) and Clemson (2). They historically rank among the most warped perspectives in college football. Check the NCAA infractions database: Auburn has had five major infractions cases in football alone; Clemson has had three.

Patience has never been a strong suit at Auburn. Terry Bowden resigned there at midseason 10 years ago under direct pressure from super-booster Bobby Lowder. Five years later, the school orchestrated a clandestine interview with Bobby Petrino to replace Tommy Tuberville (3) while Tuberville still had the job. And Tubs has changed coordinators like underwear in his tenure.

Given that cuckoo's nest context, it's not shocking to see Auburn trap-door offensive coordinator Tony Franklin (4) all of five games into his tenure at the school. Sources told The Dash that the coaching staff had become embroiled in turmoil and Tuberville felt compelled to do something to stave off an internal insurrection -- but shouldn't the head coach and administration be able to settle disputes with something less rash than an in-season firing? Isn't that part of the reason a coach and athletic director get paid the big bucks, to handle personality and philosophy conflicts?

I don't know about you, but it angers me that he says we have a "warped perspective" and calling our football program a "cuckoo's nest." Am I overreacting or does this strike y'all the same way?

War Eagle!

I've made several posts on this site (before Franklin was fired) about why I prefer to look at yards per play than yards per game when judging an offense's effectiveness. Some of you have disagreed with me, but let me offer this argument for yards per play vs. yards per game:

Imagine a team who gains 500 yards in a game. Sounds impressive, no? Well, let me also tell you that through some amazing use of timeouts, running out of bounds, and incomplete passes, that team had 100 offensive possessions, and went 3 and out every time. Now, the 500 yards in the game looks great, but when you look at the 1.33 yards per play, it's not as impressive. Now, it's an extreme example, but I think it illustrates my point.

Now that I've got that out of the way, take a look at the national leaders in yards per play:

Click here

Notice anything? Only five teams have a worse yards per play average than Auburn. It's hard to imagine it getting much worse, that's for sure. The reason I'm posting this, however, is not to point out how bad we've been offensively, but look at teams who have done a good job in yards per play. I'm omitting major teams from BCS conferences (no, we're not getting USC's or Oklahoma's OC), because for most of those offensive coordinators, coming to Auburn would be a lateral move. I also want to leave out coordinators from Sun Belt teams, because for one, we've already been down that road, and for another, it might be the worst conference in the country. Here's a list of guys I'd be interested in:

1. Matt Canada - Indiana
2. Jeff Brohm - Louisville
3. Philip Montgomery - Baylor
4. Mike Locksley - Illinois
5. (special case) Chris Klenakis - Nevada

I say Klenakis is a special case because he runs an offense that is only run at Nevada, and I wonder how much of their success is his and how much is Chris Ault's. Anyway, these are guys whose teams have high yards per play averages, with special emphasis on yards per rush, since we want to be a running team.

What do you guys think?

Well, I guess everyone's heard by now that Tony Franklin is no longer our offensive coordinator. That drastically changes the dynamic of this season, to say the least. It's hard to tell whether this will have a positive impact or negative impact on the rest of the season, and I don't know about you, but this news strikes me as bad considering it's in the middle of the week and we have a bye next week.

So I thought I'd have a little fun with it and consider some titles for Tony Franklin's tell-all book about his 10-month Auburn experience. Feel free to add your own in the comments, but these were the best I could come up with.

War Eagle!!

Poll

What will be the title of Tony Franklin's new tell-all book on Auburn and Coach Tuberville?

10%

Run out by a WingNUT

6 votes

17%

Three yards and a cloud of injustice

10 votes

5%

Fourth down and life to go 2: Electric Boogaloo

3 votes

32%

Spread Eagle my ass!

18 votes

8%

I spent ten months as Auburn's OC and all I got was this pink slip

5 votes

5%

Hey does anyone still have Mumme's number?

3 votes

19%

I kissed Chris Todd and I liked it

11 votes

56 votes | Poll has closed

Now that autumn is settling in and October is nearly upon us, I think it's time to review the first five games of the season and see how we stack up against the rest of the SEC and nation in a few stats. Below you'll find a table that should give a pretty accurate depiction of how our offense and defense have done so far this year:

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------||
|           |                   Offense                  |                   Defense                  |
|-----------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
|           | yds per rush | yds per pass | yds per play | yds per rush | yds per pass | yds per play |
|-----------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
| Number    |     3.8      |     5.9      |     4.7      |     2.9      |     4.6      |     3.8      |
|-----------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
| SEC Rank  |      9       |      t8      |      11      |      7       |      1       |      1       |
|-----------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------|
| NCAA Rank |      82      |     t90      |     t97      |      23      |      3       |      t3      |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Earlier this year I did a similar comparison between Tony Franklin's numbers and Al Borges' numbers from last year, and the conclusion was that Franklin's offense wouldn't be a great improvement over Borges', at least in the SEC. I guess I underestimated a few things: how playing SEC defenses would affect the numbers, and how long it would take for the system to click (if it ever will!).

Obviously, the numbers tell us what we already know: our defense is incredible, and our offense is inadequate.

That we rank #1 in the SEC and tied for #3 in NCAA in defensive yards per play is amazing. This may just be Tuberville's best defense yet. It also may be a product of already having played Mississippi St. and Tennessee, two teams whose offenses give ours a run for the money as far as ineptitude goes. We also played Louisiana-Monroe, a Sun Belt team. Once we start playing the big dogs of the SEC in the coming weeks, we'll find alot more out about our defense.

As far as the offense is concerned, the 11th place finish in the conference and tie for 97th place finish in the country should be enough to make your skin crawl or your blood boil. If this team wants to have a good season (a good season to me is making a New Year's Day bowl) the offense needs to wake up soon. Defense does win championships, but you can only rely on your defense so much. It could only be a matter of time before the defense breaks down from overuse.

The verdict, obviously, is that our offense sucks while our defense rules. Both of these things you should already know, but using these statistics, it just goes to show how good our defense has been and how bad our offense has been. Both are at extremes of the spectrum. It makes me wonder if we've scored an offensive touchdown in practice all season.

Well I guess that's all for this one. Thoughts? Comments? Criticisms?

War Eagle!!

That's right. ESPN's College Gameday will be live from the campus of VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY on Saturday at 10 AM ET for the matchup between #13 Auburn (4-1) and #19 Vanderbilt (4-0).

http://www.collegegameday.com/

If you had told me before the season that Gameday would be going to this game, I would have laughed directly in your face. I probably would have said the same thing if you told me Vandy would have been ranked! It's definitely not going to be a typical Vandy game. If we aren't careful, Vandy could EASILY beat us. The line is opening at Auburn -4.5 right now. I would imagine that Vandy will do a "blackout" like they did against South Carolina. Hopefully if they do that, we handle it better than we did last year against UGA.

Interesting facts about College Gameday in 2008:

• Five out of the six weeks of the season, one of the two teams in the on-site game has been from the SEC.
• Eight of the twelve teams featured in the on-site games have been SEC teams
• Four of the six weeks have been hosted by SEC schools, while a fifth was in Atlanta, home of the SEC championship game
• Alabama and Auburn both have two appearances on the show, meaning the state of Alabama has been represented in two thirds of the shows this season
• This will not only mark the first time Gameday has been to Vanderbilt, but also the first time Vanderbilt has been one of the on-site teams

War Eagle!!

Hey everyone -

In the spirit of discussing Georgia's "blackout" of Alabama on Saturday, I thought it would be a good time to post what I just read about. Coach Tuberville has asked the fans to all wear blue for Saturday's game. I would guess it's to distinguish ourselves from our lighter-orange brethren. It seems awfully late in the week to be announcing something like this, but here's the link:

http://auburntigers.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/092508aab.html

Something tells me it won't make much of an impact, kind of like whenever we have an "all Auburn all orange" game. It will probably just look like a regular Auburn game. But I support Tubs, I'm gonna wear a navy blue shirt!

Great game last night gents. It was a tough one for the Auburn nation to swallow, for sure. Our players played their best game of the season by far, and really didn't make many mistakes. If football games were 65 minutes instead of 60, who knows, there may be a completely different feel right now. It was just a hard-fought game, and somebody had to lose. Unfortunately, that was my team. I just have to tip my cap to your team, they played an excellent game, and coached an excellent game.

We'll be ready in Baton Rouge next year, and we'll be gunning for you.

Now, if you'll be so kind, please lose at least two SEC games from here on out :)

To my fellow Tiger brethren -

Just thought I'd come over to your corner of the blogosphere and wish you all good luck for the game this weekend. Even after our stinker of a game against Miss St. I still feel that Auburn and LSU should be (relatively) close. If you're traveling to the Loveliest Village, drive safely.

Oh, and one other piece of advice. If you're into gambling, TAKE THE UNDER. I don't know what the o/u on this game is, and I don't feel like looking it up. But even if it's 2.5, take the under. Easy money.

War Eagle!

PowerOfDixieland

Hey everyone. One of my good friends from high school is getting married in a few weeks, so we had a "bachelor party" in the woods of Tennessee for him this past weekend. That said, I did not get to watch the Auburn game on TV, and only could sneak away and listen to the last ten minutes on my XM radio. Plenty of people on this site have offered their opinions about the team and particularly the offense and Tony Franklin, and obviously, it is a cause for concern. What I want to do is take a look at the relationship between offensive coordinator and (current) starting QB Chris Todd.

As you may remember, one of the first things Franklin did after accepting the Auburn OC job is to give a call to Troy commitment Chris Todd, a junior college QB in Kansas originally from Kentucky who started his college career at Texas Tech. It has been documented often that Todd has been running this offense since his high school days in Kentucky, and he would be a natural fit in Franklin's offense, despite the fact that he was only a three-star recruit after two years of college experience. After the Chick-fil-A Bowl, Burns seemed like the heir apparent to the Auburn QB position after a pretty decent performance against a good Clemson defense.

Fast-forward to 2008 spring practice. By all accounts in the papers and on the internet, Burns had outperformed Todd at the QB race, but a starter was not named due to a "shoulder injury" to Todd. Watching the A-Day game, I remember thinking Todd looked like a decent option at QB, but the real deal was Kodi Burns because he had an arm and some speedy legs. However, Burns still wasn't anointed the starter.

Going into this season's opener against Louisiana-Monroe, the starting QB still had not been named, and it was assumed that a fair "trial by fire" between the two during the first two games would determine who would receive the majority of snaps the rest of the season. Kodi received the "start" in that game, but the two alternated series, allowing neither to get into any rhythm in the offense. Once Burns got hurt, Todd finished the game.

In the second game, Todd received most of the snaps in the whole game, mostly due to Burns being injured. The few plays Burns was allowed to run, he either ran it or handed it off, with the exception of one throw that was poorly thrown for an interception. The bottom line is that Todd has been allowed to get into a rhythm, while Burns has yet to see action in consecutive series.

In this weekend's game against Mississippi State, Burns did not play a single down, while Todd danced around in the pocket all game and took too long to make decisions. His final line looked decent enough, but to be honest, I have yet to see anything out of Chris Todd this year that Kodi Burns isn't capable of doing. Burns may not be as accurate as Todd, but Todd isn't even as accurate as Brandon Cox.

It really makes me wonder if there is any favoritism being shown by Franklin to Todd, simply because Todd is "his guy." I sincerely hope not, because anybody on Tubby's staff who makes a personnel decision based on personal feelings rather than wins and losses, should be immediately fired. It's just something to think about considering what's gone on since Todd arrived at Auburn.

To me, Todd should be relegated to a backup role, someone who can fill in decently enough if the circumstance arises, but is not a good enough QB to take Auburn to the top of the SEC. Our defense is good enough to be a top 25 team regardless of how good (or bad) our offense is. But the fact of the matter is that the offense we have is the difference between spending our New Year's holiday in Shreveport or New Orleans. Burns at least has the ability to make things happen with his legs when everything else falls apart, and can be a burst of energy for the offense. I'm not sure Chris Todd is the guy to lead us to the promised land.

According to the AP, he tore a ligament in his knee on the opening kickoff. That's right, one 2008 play, and his season is over. At least he'll have this season to redshirt, although it will be disappointing because he was supposed to be something special this year. And we NEED something special this year.

Also mentioned in the article, KB should be back by next week, Swinton hyperextended his knee but should be back by next week, and Montez Billings is questionable with a nagging hamstring injury.

Greetings, fellow Auburn fans!

The season is a mere 23 days away, and if you're like me, you wish you could go into hibernation for those 23 days and wake up on the morning of August 30 ready to watch College Gameday and a slate of college football action. Who cares if it's Ball State vs. Eastern Michigan! We just want some college football action and can't wait.

Anyways, one of the things that has most Auburn fans boiling over with excitement is the installation of Tony Franklin's new offense. We all got tired of the swift downfall of the "Gulf Coast Offense" as it was called, and needed a change. Three yards and a cloud of dust just doesn't cut it anymore in football.

So in comes Tony Franklin to spread the field and rack up the yards. Everything is going to be great, right? Well, I'd like to look closer at the numbers. Everytime someone brings up Franklin's offense, he points out that our average yardage per game was 327.8 and we amassed 423 yards against Clemson. Almost 100 yards more! The thing that I think too many fans (and analysts, to be honest) believe is that Franklin's system will naturally rack up more yards because it runs more plays. So what I've done is created a table that shows our yardage per game and also our yardage per play. I broke it down by game for extra analysis:

 

OPPONENT        # PLAYS         TOTAL YDS       YDS/PLAY

Kansas St.      67              291             4.34
South Fla.      70              290             4.14
Miss. St.       68              323             4.75
N.M. St.        71              422             5.94
Florida         70              326             4.66
Vanderbilt      57              404             7.09
Arkansas        76              290             3.82
LSU             63              296             4.70
Ole Miss        74              420             5.68
Tenn. Tech      65              374             5.75
Georgia         65              216             3.32
Alabama         63              282             4.48

Overall         67.42           327.83          4.86

Clemson         90              423             4.70

 

Oh no! Al Borges' offense actually gained more yards per play than Franklin's! Now, I want to explain the reasoning and what all this data means.

1. First of all, it must be said that Franklin's offense was installed in just a few practices before the Chick-fil-A Bowl, and we still averaged 4.70 yards per play, against a talented defense like Clemson's no less.
2. Franklin's offense at Troy averaged 5.55 yards per play. That is a ton of yards per play, but we also must consider the level of defense Troy played. The Sun Belt is definitely no SEC. However, Troy faced two SEC defenses last season in Arkansas and Georgia, and averaged 4.7 and 5.8 per play, respectively. They also played a Big 12 opponent in Oklahoma State and gained 5.8 yards per play. So their games against Georgia and Oklahoma State actually helped their total yards per play average.
3. Borges' offensive numbers were buoyed by games against New Mexico State, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, and Tennessee Tech. In every other game they underperformed the season average on yards per play.

So what to make of all this? In my opinion, Franklin won't be the great savior of Auburn football like some believe he will, and Borges wasn't as bad as he sometimes gets painted. Another factor to consider in Borges' offensive ineptitude these last two years is Brandon Cox. I love the guy, but he was a poor quarterback at racking up yards. He did great in leading late drives against Arkansas and Florida (and even Mississippi State to some respects) but I'm glad he's not our quarterback anymore. Regardless, I can't wait for football to start!

Thoughts?

Tonight, the Auburn men's basketball team lost their game against Georgia, 59-54. It was the last home game of the season, and the last home game for seniors Frank Tolbert and Quan Prowell (as well as Archie Miaway and benchwarmer Adam Luquire). The loss dropped the Tigers to 14-14 overall and 4-11 in SEC play. They likely will not qualify for postseason play, excepting a highly unexpected run through the SEC tournament to the SEC championship. This is Jeff Lebo's fourth team, and he has amassed an overall record of 57-62 and 19-44 in SEC play. His year-by-year totals are 14-17 (4-12), 12-16 (4-12), 17-15 (7-9), and this season, 14-14 (4-11).

Continue reading this post »

Now that the regular season is over, we can safely look ahead to possible bowl locales, and even recruiting and next season. I'd like to take a few minutes and look at the first of these options.

If I had to guess, there are three main bowl possibilities that we have for this year:

Outback Bowl
Cotton Bowl
Chick-fil-a (CFA) Bowl

I believe we will be selected for the CFA Bowl, and here's some reasoning:

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I was at the Ole Miss game on October 27, and a friend and I got to talking. We were discussing who would be Auburn's quarterback next season. I said I thought it would be Blake Field, and he said he thought Kodi Burns. I tried to argue that the reason that KB relieves Cox is because he is a different quarterback than Cox, and Field is pretty much a right-handed carbon copy.

Mind you, this was before the Tennessee Tech game, when KB sucked it up and Field looked great. Even so, I have kind of changed my mind. I do not think that Field will be our starting quarterback, but instead it will be Neil Caudle. He's younger and has more upside (IIRC). Also, has anyone else noticed that we are using Blake Field on special teams (kickoff return and punt return)? I know he's a big dude, but if he's truly the second-string quarterback, that's not somebody I'd risk injury to.

With all that said, here's a poll. Basically give me a prediction.

As always, War Damn Eagle!