Quotes from beyond the Interwebs. Enjoyable interview with Michael Dyer available here from the weekly Auburn Villager, touching on Malzahn’s early recruitment of him, when he made his decision on Auburn, etc. The story cuts off mid-article, but fortunately Jeremy has transcribed a key quote regarding his relationship to Fannin for us:
“Mario has been one of the main guys I look up to here,” Dyer said. “We tell each other every day that we don’t care. We don’t care who starts, who gets the most carries, any of that. We’re both here to help Auburn win. He’s been looking out for me ever since I got here. I really appreciate that. I think I could go to him about anything. Mario’s a pretty cool dude.”
Sounds awesome. I can’t really believe Fannin would be OK with losing the starting job, even in the event of a huge season for the team, but still … sounds awesome.
Another interesting tidbit, if you haven’t heard it before: Dyer wears the number 5 as a tribute to his older brother Jonathan, who was 5 when their father passed away in a car crash.
Now, just because any excuse is a good excuse to watch Dyer highlights:
BlAUgosphere. Firstly, if you haven’t seen the Auburner’s most recent video creations, see them now. Now. I don’t know why the Gus Malzahn offense and Meat Loaf seem to go together so well, but they do.
Secondly, this:
The Samford Hall on the right is an incredibly sweet touch, no? Kevin’s got a full-size version you can print out for your actual NCAA ’11 box there.
Elsewhere, Jay Coulter lists his most memorable Auburn moments. It’s a hell of a list. And the new-and-improved Joe Auburn is up-and-running with the usual restaurant reviews, Auburn alum info, and football shenanigans.
Even they hate it. Earlier this week I argued, again, that unless you have close geographical ties to Mardi Gras, you’d better not have the color purple involved prominently in your football uniform. As it turns out, even Clemson fans agree:
In 1970 Clemson redesigned its look. The Tigers adopted the Tigerpaw that year then sported orange shirts/white pants at home and white on white on the road. Coach Ford, prior to the 1980 South Carolina game, brought out the special orange pants and the Tigers upset the visiting Gamecocks in Death Valley. This uniform combination became a tradition: orange on white at home, white on white on the road, and orange pants for big games at home …
Well, your boy Ken Hatfield decided it would be a good idea to use orange pants on the road all the time and, in 1991 against NC State, to bust out the purple shirt in a win over the Wolfpack (he chose to get his ass handed to him against Cal in Orlando in purple jerseys also). We did not see the purple in Clemson for another decade and our biggest uniform concern was the blatant disregard for the orange pants tradition.
Then comes brother Tom, introducing all sorts of uniform combinations. Purple on white, orange on purple, purple on purple, white on purple. Nothing but ridiculous and almost like spitting in the face of Clemson tradition.
Tom came out and spewed some garbage along the lines of the players like purple and want to express themselves. That is complete crap, as no one should be able to look like such in public or on national TV. Newsflash Tom: I like rocking sweatpants and a T-Shirt, but don’t leave home or go to work in that gear because I would look like a fool.
I don’t have anything else to add other than: hahahahahahaha. (HT: MGo.)
Etc. The logical endpoint of the “Don’t blame me …” bumper sticker … JRS on The Decision: “Also ESPN has truly outdone themselves this time. I like to think they could never top this bulls**t…and yet I f*****g know they can.” Pardon the asterisks, but that’s exactly how I feel … Auburn > Alabama in the Aughts, according to Steele … “Catching excellence“? Try washing your hands sometime, Western Kentucky, geez.
And finally, soccer. With a little bit of football. A big congratulations to readers P. Edwards and B. Berry whose selection of Spain helped them to the No. 2 and No. 3 spots in the first-ever TWER World Cup pool. As for who came in top spot, well, modesty prevents me from HA HA HA SUCK IT, LOSERS!! I’M NUMBER 1!! I’M NUMBER 1!!
As for the final, despite the win in the pool I was disappointed my Dutch lost, but really, even more disappointed that van Marwijk’s tactics of brutality destroyed decades of soccer goodwill in the space of just 45 minutes. Until they prove otherwise, the Dutch are just another band of thugs that happen to have a few brilliant players like Sneijder and Robben. I think the Dutch should have received more credit in the aftermath for their positive start to the second half and mostly offensive-minded substitutions–they were the only team other than Chile to make even a half-hearted attempt to play straight-up against Spain instead of bunker-ball–but no team that puts butchers like De Jong and van Bommel on the field is going to get the benefit of anyone’s doubt, and frankly wouldn’t deserve it.
One last thing before any and all mentions of non-Auburn soccer are banished from this site for at least the following fiscal year: Spencer’s suggestion that soccer-inspired on-field advertising should be used to eliminate the occasional commercial break in (American) football? Doesn’t work for the college game, since I know I and a ton of my fellow fans would find the idea of Pat Dye Field turned into a billboard repellent, and I have no doubt you’d find the same response from Wolverine fans about Michigan Stadium, Dawg fans about the hedges, etc.
However: you know how during baseball games they have the blank panels on the walls behind home plate that networks will digitally project ads onto? Ads that you don’t see at the game, because all you see is a blank panel? Could those work? Let’s say ESPN just laid down some big strips of black plastic down either sideline, maybe some of those panels along the walls behind each end zone, and projected ads onto them for the viewers at home. I know they’d be unsightly, but would they be so unsightly that they wouldn’t be worth a few less commercial breaks a game? So we’d never have to go kickoff-commercial-kickoff again? So we could actually, finally play a televised game of college football that lasts less than three hours? I don’t know. They might be. But it also might be worth finding out.
Don’t give ESPN any more ideas on ways to advertise. It’s not like they would do away with commercials if they found suggestions to be viable; they would just add those advertisements in addition to the existing commercials.
Speaking of unis, has there been any recent buzz about the larger AU helmet decals used during A Day?
I’m really hoping never to see those again.
WDE!
An excellent question, Jess and one I’m not sure has been definitively answered. IIRC, in the immediate wake we were told they were a one-time thing, but who knows? I’m with you: I hope they were burned afterwards.
michael, that’s a good point. Sigh.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure the scorer table ads don’t really cut commercial breaks in basketball, so I doubt it really would.
Honestly, I’m kind of sick and tired of all the hate ESPN is getting for the whole thing. I mean, LeBron approached them, and, in the end, the money did indeed go to the Boys and Girls Club. I mean, what if they declined the opportunity to give a charity a bunch of money? Then they’d come off even worse.
The only problem I had on ESPN’s part was the ridiculous softballs lobbed by Micheal Wilbon and company. The man, the myth, the legend, greatest journalist ever Bill Simmons said on his podcast the other day that he would have had a few different questions in mind. Like “When’s Chris Paul coming?” and “Hey, LeBron, how’s your elbow?”
I’m glad the money went to the Boys and Girls Club, but don’t forget that that’s a sizable tax write-off for James.
Re: Clemson Blog Post
Did you all notice that in one of the responses somebody posts text and pics from their CU Vault book that say that AU used Purple and Gold at one point? News to me! I’ll be consulting my AU Vault book when I get home.
That’s the thing, though, AO–LeBron didn’t just approach them about airing a special about his choice, he and his camp mandated much of the content and presentation. LeBronCo. was who hand-picked Jim Gray. They decided how long into the program LeBron would announce his choice. Basically, they first decided to let Lebron air his own infomercial for 30 minutes, and when they finally did get some control over the content with the Wilbon interview, it was nothing but softballs. It’s utterly indefensible from a journalistic standpoint and, going forward, annihilates any credibility ESPN’s news department had when covering James. Yeah, charity, but some standards ought to be too important to not be upheld, for virtually any reason. I cannot wait to see what the Ombudsman has to say about it.
Jess, I didn’t see it, and frankly unless we’re talking pre-1920s, I don’t believe it. Guess I could be wrong, though.
Here’s a bit of background, however accurate, on the connection between AU / Clemson color-schemes (and football programs in general) from hibernating Auburn blog patdyefield.blogspot.com:
WBE, I don’t know man, I just don’t see what other options ESPN had at the time. I mean, like I said, I would have loved to see someone like Simmons or anybody with any kind of aptitude lay on a Tom Rinaldi / Tiger Woods style grilling, but it’s not like if they didn’t accept the show that they wouldn’t be spending the whole night’s worth of SportsCenters talking about him anyway. And it’s not the like Around the Horns and PTIs of the network haven’t been blasting him ever since then, because they have.
Another thing that no one has really been talking about, but has got to be like a second knife to the chest for Cleveland, is the departure of Big Z, to, of all places, Miami. Like, he’s their guy, their warrior. He’s their Kodi Burns. And, honestly, he was my second favorite player on the Cavs.
And, on a personal note, I think I’ve built up enough credibility in my career as a sports fan to make one solid shameless jump to the driver’s seat of another NBA bandwagon. It didn’t take me long to find out whereto.;
http://twitter.com/KDthunderup/status/17953851838
That, my friends, is how you handle your business. Besides, I’m a sucker for orange and blue.
That’s awesome stuff if it’s true. Seems plausible enough. To me, all that stuff seems more like a reason to like Clemson, rather than something to hold against them. If it weren’t for a certain couple of baseball games a little while ago, I might not hate Clemson at the moment.
And Jess, the only thing in the Vault book, as confirmed by a quick flip-through out of curiosity, about Auburn wearing anything other than orange and blue is where in one season sometime in the 1930s or so, when we were coached by Notre Dame alum Jack Meagher, we wore green as a pseudo-tribute to them for a season. Seems pretty shameful now, but as coach he also, apparently, opened the team up to travelling long distances and playing teams around the country, including that Bacardi Bowl in Cuba, as is always kind of the Notre Dame way of doing things.
Was it a whole season? I’ve heard Housel mention that, but I thought it was just for one game — a Green Out.
To quote:
“Most of the coast-to-coast games were played against teams coached by other former Notre Dame players a coaches. A fraternity of sorts, they liked to play each other to see who would best carry on the glory and honor of Notre Dame. Meagher dressed Auburn in green jerseys for an entire season to emphasize his close ties with the Fighting Irish.” (page 47)
Don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s what it says. It doesn’t say which particular season or anything like that, so who knows.
Kick-ass thread here all the way around.
AO, ESPN’s options to were either to sack up and tell James “no thanks” or to tell him that they’d allow him to plug the B&G Club but that they would be managing all other content. Maybe it bugs me more because of the journalism perspective, but to see an ostensible news organization just kowtow to a single athlete so cravenly is nauseating. I’m much more offended by ESPN in this whole thing than I am James. And yeah, Z bolting has to hurt, but IIRC he and Cavs management have been feuding for a while after he didn’t play in his 1,000th game, or whatever that brouhaha was.
Yeah Z brought his family to the game and all that, and then they didn’t put him in the game. To his credit, LeBron was livid about that, and he was even more pissed when Z wasn’t given the start for the next game as a nice gesture. But that was more of a Mike Brown mistake I would think than any of the management that’s still there. But I’m sure he wasn’t all that happy about the 30 days buyout trade thing they did with him to get Jamison this past year, especially if there was as much uncertainty around them re-signing him as they led on to the media.
You know, the recruitment of Z might have actually humanized LeBron a little if it wasn’t such a gut-punch to the city (and worse, a quiet one where they don’t even get any sympathy for it) and if the Heat didn’t so desperately need him as a player. He’ll fit perfect in that system, unfortunately. Then again, I hate the three for wanting to just play with their buddies, so maybe if they want Big Z the player instead of Big Z the friend, then that’s a good thing.
Either way, LeBron can do no good right now. He’s the devil at the moment, as far as I’m concerned.
Reason #48 to like Oklahoma City: They have the second coolest battle cry I’ve ever heard: “Thunder Up”.
Oh so close, i guess i put too much faith in our own country.
Thanks for the reasearch Jerry and AubOrange!
I can imagine how the blue jerseys with orange numbers could have faded to what appeared to be purple with gold numbers as a result of the washboard abuse.
WDE!
Hasn’t at least one network been digitally superimposing ads on Jordan-Hare’s field for years?