Big day. Beaver has your run-down on today’s expected recruiting developments. The real drama is with Ken Adams and especially Roszell Gayden; the latter would give Auburn four offensive line commitments, three four-star prospects, and a hell of a foundation to start building the 2011 line around. Fingers crossed. Until there’s some movement on this front, though, we might as well talk about …
That Heisman thing. So Ingram won it. You know I don’t think he was particularly deserving, and like every Auburn fan I’d have preferred the Tide have stayed Heismanless just for the sake of pure, unadulterated pettiness. But I’m nowhere near as bothered that Ingram won as that Suh didn’t … and in fact somehow managed to finish fourth immediately behind the same player who he straight-up mauled in classic Discovery Channel predator-prey fashion in the Big 12 title game. Heisman voters are seriously teh stoopidz, but not for picking Ingram over Gerhart; if you’re dead-set on voting for a skill-position player because Suh’s stat don’t impress you that much–nevermind that he outproduced the entire Tide defensive line and was about as productive as Texas’s and Florida’s–Ingram’s as good a choice as any. Gerhart had the more impressive season (26 TDs?), but Ingram’s probably the better back. You could flip a coin, and the final margin indicated that’s more-or-less what the Heisman voters did.
Actually, flipping a coin would have been preferable in some cases. Via TNIAAM, take the Syracuse Post-Standard’s Bud Poliquin, who despite being a Heisman voter has some pretty shrewd insight into the problems with the system:
I ask how valid can so many of those votes cast by so many of the voters possibly be? How often do you believe college football beat writers actually sat down and watched, oh, Toby Gerhart run or Ndamukong Suh tackle or Colt McCoy throw or Mark Ingram prance or Tim Tebow scramble?
And I mean “live,” and not on some show featuring taped highlights and all those babbling Corsos?
Do you get my drift here? The Heisman Trophy is pretty much a wonderful thing, but the body of deciders includes too many who are swayed by the packaging and even by the pre-packaging . . . who bow to the hype machines . . . who never seem to consider that the “most outstanding college football player” in all the land might play for a mediocre club whose overall talent load won’t allow that athlete to fully flower.
I hear ya, man. Glad to see someone who has a say in this thing admit they’re not going to follow along with the media sheep-train, that they’re thinking outside the box, that they’re throwing away the “pre-packaging.” So who’d you vote for, Bud?
Anyway, for the record, my 1-2-3 official ballot read like this: Tebow-Ingram-McCoy.
Even bloggers couldn’t get their act together; they went with Gerhart by the slimmest of margins.
There’s some good news here if you are of the a) Tide-hating b) jinx-trusting persuasions; teams featuring Heisman winners really have sucked the proverbial hind teat in their bowl games, particularly in title games, where they’ve gone a chilling 1-6 against the spread.
So it’s really too bad Texas is so horrible that even this kind of jinx won’t matter.
(As an aside, in answering the currently popular Auburnland question “Are you going to be rooting for Alabama in the title game?”, I think I’m going to end up answering yes. Sometimes these things change when the game actually starts, but the blatant injustice of Texas getting the no-questions-asked nod over TCU is so great that I’m hoping the ‘Horns get annihilated–preferably with TCU drilling Boise at the same time, for maximum “whoa, maybe the BCS screwed this up after all” outrage. Even with all the insufferability an Alabama win would create, I want a four-team playoff badly enough that I’d deal.)
Reminder. You’ve got until Saturday to join the TWER Bowl Pick-a-palooza at Yahoo!; sign-up instructions still available here. Winner gets a two-day supply of pride.
BlAUgosphere. PPL’s Kevin has taken to Sir Charles’s “they still shoulda hired Gill” comments with a little less understanding than I did:
[M]y issue is with Barkley. For bringing up this dead-horse issue again and for being hypocritical. This quote in particular stands out:
“Let’s not kid ourselves. As far as name recognition, Auburn is at a decided disadvantage. Not just in the state. In the SEC.”
You know who could change that perception? How about you Charles Barkley? You’ve got a national television audience every night on TNT. You never refrain from giving an opinion (good or bad) or ANY subject. I’m sure there are contributions Barkley may have given behind the scenes to Auburn. However, there are two sides to that coin. Outside from some face time during Auburn’s 2004 Undefeated run, you’ve been noticeably silent about Auburn football. It should stay that way. I will gladly listen to Barkley when it comes to hiring a Basketball coach. However, when it comes to football? Never. Does North Carolina care what Michael Jordan think about Butch Davis? Nope.
I’m personally OK with Chuck saying whatever the hell Chuck wants to say–by all accounts he’s put his Auburn money where his Auburn mouth is–but Kevin does raise several good points.
Elsewhere, it’s not Auburn-related, but any of you music/movie geeks out there will enjoy JRS’s best-of-the-decade albums and films lists.
Etc. Brian Cook’s year-end wrap-up of his This Week in Schadenfreude column is a must-read … presenting the Morgan Freeman Chain of Command … Chris Low at least gives Darn Bates his props.
You’ve probably figured this out, but the chart is via the Auburner.
I will not be rooting for bama but I also will not be rooting for UT. Being an Houston resident (it’s where I’m from) there’s more burnt orange in the neighborhood than there is red and green just like there was a lot of purple and mustard two years ago. I’m hoping the Heisman curse continues on just so I can smirk for 8 months…
Regarding Bowl Pick’em
Are we picking straight up who wins and who loses, or are we picking against the spread as well?
Rivals says Gayden has committed to AU.
http://rivals.yahoo.com/auburn/football/recruiting/player-Roszell-Gayden-97661
JJF: straight-up, but there’s confidence points attached. You assign values to each pick; the game you’re most confident about gets 34 points, the second-most confident 33, etc.
Fantastic news on Gayden. More later.
Jerry,
Yep you can tell you live out-of-state now (-: Come on dude! You are rooting for bama???!!!??? You ought to take a little trip to your home state. EVERYWHERE you go there is a bammer with his bammer sweatshirt, cap, car magnets and 4 flags. At work, on your street, wherever you go, you cannot dig a hole deep enough to get away from these people. To top that off I can’t even enjoy my freaking Sunday sports page now since every week it is another momentous event for them. I have NEVER cheered for those arrogant condescending and I NEVER will. HOOK’EM HORNS!!!
AUstr, no doubt, it’s a lot easier for me out here than it would be back home. But I hate frauds even worse than I hate the Tide, and the ‘Horns are out-and-out frauds. I wish like hell it was the Gators, and the game may start and I may see those Crimson unis and end up rooting for Texas anyway … but man, I want to see them punished, I really do.
I might pull for Bama, if there is an engine out on the team plane. But I would need more information on wind conditions and emergency landing options in order to make my decision.
Hook ’em Horns!
Sincerely.
A guy who cheered for the USSR in an exhibition hoops game against Bama in the 1970s
I’ll keep it PG….hook-em horns
Jerry, I think you’ve been living outside of alabama for WAY too long. These “fans” are insufferable enough as it is.
Hook em horns!!
hi Jerry
I saw this on WHAB and may have even posted it…
“Nothing good for dear ole AU can ever come from a Bama win…”
Nada, zero, zilch…..
On WHAB, this is known as the “Correct Doctrine”…
To paraphrase the great Winston Churchill…
“If Bama were playing Hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Winston Churchill …
your blog is the best!!
WDE Jerry and Merry Christmas!!
Auburn Undercover I think might be giving us false hope on “shaken” South Carolina commit OL Eric Mack:
http://auburnundercover.com/news/articles/2009/12/16/recruiting-rewind-dec-16-mack-is-shaken
No doubt, he sounds like he has an interest in Auburn, but it looks like Florida is all over this guy after his lead recruiter left USC:
http://www.goupstate.com/article/20091213/PSPORTS02/912139974/0/PSPORTS04
JH,
Birmingham is more “bammerham” than EVER before. I own ONE piece of red clothing, (a sweater i dragged out for Xmas card photo). I will find something green from now on. We had our chance to knock off the evil empire…………..but I cannot and will not pull for the classless clan from the western side of our state. Hook ’em Horns
one thing you can be sure of is that bama’s fan base as a whole was NOT cheering for auburn to jump ou back in ’04 (and that is probably true for the rest of the sec fanbases as well). why in the world should we hope for good things for them when they clearly wish nothing but the worst for us? its every man/team for himself/itself as far as i’ve concerned. they’ve got plenty of people cheering for them already. they don’t need me.
aubiece said it well: “Nothing good for dear ole AU can ever come from a Bama win…”
hook ’em horns.
Jerry, if you hate ANYTHING football-related more than you hate the bammers… dear lord, you disappoint me so sometimes.
Heretic! How can you even consider rooting for Bama? It’s MUCH preferable that the SEC suffer a black eye due to Bama’s arrogance (see last year’s Sugar Bowl).
Guys, guys, it’s not about ‘Bama. Or the SEC. I was rooting as hard for Utah last January as anyone. It’s about 2004 never happening again–not to us, not to TCU, not to anyone. I hate ‘Bama. But I think I hate this gawdawful system just as much, and since ‘Bama ain’t changing anytime soon …
Of course, I say all this, but I’m leaving the door open to change my mind the night of. Just so you know.
jerry, respectfully, i think you may be missing the point. 2004 was not an sec thing. it was an auburn thing. your other sec “powers” namely bama, uf, ut, lsu and uga, would NOT have gotten the same screwing that we took. i don’t know exactly how it would have worked out — split nc probably — but rest assured the pollsters would’ve found a way. bama winning or losing the bcscg this year won’t change any of that and frankly won’t prevent it from happening to us again.