Jim Fyffe’s “Touchdown Auburn!,” which we’ve been revisiting this week for obvious reasons, is brimming with wonderful recollections of the highlights of the Pat Dye-era of Auburn football. And “the Eric Ramsey thing.”
In his defense of Dye’s role in the scandal (from the chapter “With Him All The Way”) Fyffe writes: “The whole Eric Ramsey thing with the tapes was such a setup. I think a lot of it had to do with Auburn pulling the Alabama game out of Birmingham. It was a get-even thing with Coach Dye. Well, they got Dye but they didn’t get the game back.”
The idea that Ramsey was a pawn in some Bamaham-born, “House of Cards”-esque long con executed as vengeance against Dye for bringing the Auburn-Alabama game to “Mecca” is the sort of Iron Bowl intrigue fans on both sides would all probably secretly relish in—Nastiest Rivalry Championship!
But the most interesting, and possibly fact-based tidbit in Fyffe’s take on the Romance Novel Rogue is his interpretation of Larry Blakeney’s infamous “Keep it down home, cuz,” the cliche of choice to close every conversation about alleged Auburn impropriety for the past 20 years:
And remember coach Larry Blakeney made that comment on the tape, “Keep it down home, cuz.” It was the most misunderstood statement of all. Bo Jackson brought that with him to Auburn and it stuck. Bo used to say it to everybody. It was like saying, take it easy, or see you later, keep it down home cuz. It came across on tape like sort of conspiracy between Blakeney and Ramsey. But it was just a Bo Jacksonism.
How about it, Cousin Bo? Is that true? And does anyone know if “car payment” and “steak” were maybe just, like, Wayne Hall slang for Bible study materials or something? ‘Cause that’d be awesome.
Related: When Eric Ramsey cried racism, Mike Pelton cried foul.
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Keep Reading:
* Watch Pat Dye lick sugar off a football
* Best Auburn majorette name ever?
* Cam Newton on a Segway
* The Thing That Ate Auburn
* The truth behind the Auburn-LSU ‘Earthquake Game’
* Pat Dye maybe would have killed Jerry Sandusky
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