Of course it’s quite possible all that’s in part a fault of the weather (East Tennessee in January is especially gloomy), or it could be a product of no longer ingesting six fish oil pills per day. (I’m told Omega-3 fatty acids are good for mental health.) Either way.

I told Chris I look forward to being old because old people have perspective.

“That’s interesting,” he said.

I’m not sure it is. And I’m not sure old people have perspective. I read somewhere that every person, no matter the age, has an “ideal age,” which is the age they picture themselves. All evidence could indicate a person is 85 and, physically anyway, pretty freaking gross. But that person, that pretty freaking gross old man of 85, pictures himself as 25.

But to continue being boorish. This guy named Donald Hall. This Donald Hall, he wrote a short essay for the New Yorker about perspective. It was about being old and watching “squirrels—tree rats with the agility of point guards” steal seed from birds. But it’s about perspective, I decided. Donald Hall was America’s Poet Laureate in 2006. He’s 83. He spends his summer looking out the window of his childhood home in New Hampshire and watching Red Sox games. Poets are people too.

Decades followed each other—thirty was terrifying, forty I never noticed because I was drunk, fifty was best with a total change of life, sixty extended the bliss of fifty—and then came my cancers, Jane’s death, and over the years I traveled to another universe.

Maybe the word I was looking for is detachment. This Donald Hall guy wrote eight words to describe a decade, and he was drunk for seven of them. Maybe old people have a certain detachment from life I find appealing. Old people are all, I’m rubber, you’re glue, everything you say and do bounces off me and sticks to you. That’s what old people are.

Old people are also all, Honey, I’ve got blood in my urine again.

Donald Hall

I tell you all this because after Chris and I sat at that table in the mall foodcourt we went and watched my and your beloved Auburn Tigers lose to the Tennessee Volunteers in Thompson-Boiling Arena. Not that I was expecting Auburn to win. Sure, it’d been nice. I wanted Auburn to win. But Auburn basketball post-Cliff Ellis (and his alleged system of cash money benefits) has taught detachment.

I’m comfortable with detachment. I don’t always like being detached, but detachment and me have reached one of those détentes. “The only way I know to exist within a group is to alienate myself from it.” This guy named David Shields wrote that in this book called Black Planet. More about Black Planet in a minute.

Groups make me uncomfortable. I never raised my hands when the mic man said, “Raise your hands for Two Bits.” (Partly because Two Bits sucks.) I often give false names at functions requiring nametags. I’m suspicious of the necessity of the National Anthem at sporting events. I usually keep several sections between the athletes and myself.

But for the AU-UT game Saturday I sat courtside. Like the first row. The row where Jack Nicholson and bored, pretty women sit at NBA games. I didn’t have a camera, but I took this picture with my phone.

So you see I’m not totally full of it. I don’t have courtside connections. But my dad does. He got the tickets from a local bank owner. The tickets also came with access to the Ray Mears’ Room. Ray Mears was the man who deemed East Tennessee “Big Orange Country,” and his room was full of free food and rich white people. It was something like Southern Baptist Heaven.

Courtside detachment has a face. Two faces actually. And they’re both angry and connected to squat man bodies with biceps like beach balls. Most of the event security personnel at SEC sporting events look like normal people, just some guy or girl who needed a job. Not these guys. These guys had ended lives, probably while somewhere in the “hot” portion of “the Middle [blanking] East.” Or so Chris and I decided. We decided the two of them combined had killed between 6 and 10 people. “But they didn’t consider them people,” Chris said. “They only really killed one man who was worthy.” I laughed. A large portion of our shared humor involves inventing elaborate and perverse backstories for people we don’t know.

Another instance of our shared humor involves a play on the typical Knoxville sports talk show listener. (Substitute Knoxville with Auburn, Tuscaloosa, Athens, Gainesville, et. all.) “Jimmy,” Chris will say, “Jimmy, Coach Dooley, he just, he just needs to get these PLAYERS into shape. Jimmy, these PLAYERS, they just ain’t got no discipline. I’ll hang up and listen to your answer. Go Vols, Jimmy.” Special emphasis is given to the word PLAYERS, because that word is a placeholder for a far different word.

It would be impossible to overstate the degree to which sports-talk radio is shadowed by the homosexual panic implicit in the fact that it consists almost entirely of a bunch of out-of-shape white men sitting around talking about black men’s buff bodies.

That’s from Black Planet. David Shields, author of the more recent Reality Hunger, spent the 1994-95 NBA season following the Seattle SuperSonics for the book, which is subtitled “Facing Race During an NBA Season.” It’s an honest exploration of a middle-aged white intellectual observing himself care much too much about the actions and outcomes of young black males. As such it is often embarrassing and painful to read.

I will say this about race and the modern SEC athlete: I don’t know what to say. The subject is too big, the moving parts too many. I don’t want to say it’s too soon. Can it be too soon? To talk about such things as they should be talked about? I don’t know. I just know such topics and considerations are outside the abilities of this particular person and this particular column. I’m not Harper Lee; this isn’t To Kill a Mockingbird.

It’s not futile to try. I wouldn’t say it’s futile to attempt nearly anything.

Auburn basketball is refreshingly futile. I mean, aren’t we all tired of this striving toward “victory?” Right? Right! Winning is so tiresome. Anyone can be a winner. It’s not that hard. But to be a loser, to really and truly fail, well, that’s something that takes effort. I don’t know much. I’m dumb and selfish and tired. Mainly, I’m pre-maturely tired. But I love losers. I think I might be a loser. And I love nothing more than I love myself.

No one learns anything from winning. Winning just justifies. Look at America post-World War II. Everything we do is great . . . because we did it. Millionaire presidential hopefuls call this American Exceptionalism, which is a corollary of Manifest Destiny, which is another way of saying, “We’re better than you . . . because we’re better than you.”

Auburn basketball will win again some day. We shouldn’t be too worried. While we wait, we should focus on “losing with dignity.” Which is a term winners use to keep us born losers in check—a sort of sly word warfare. You got to watch out for words. They’re tricky. Stop paying attention for a day, a decade, a century or two and they (you know, them) will have you chained in place with nothing but words. Duty, honor, sacrifice, the greater good, the silent majority. You got to check yourself before some balding alcoholic plutocrat from Kansas convinces the country dropping bombs on little brown boogey men is the only way we can be free. And, of course, then we’ve wrecked ourselves.

I’m saying give me a loser, a true blue loser. There’s beauty in striving. What else can we do, but strive? I don’t want to get too dour, but, but yet, but all this, your reflection in the mirror, your car, your house, your favorite hat, will be gone in a cosmic blink. Don’t let that depress you. You know this. We all know this. It’s boring to type. But yet.

But yet type it I did.

Writing about sports. Uggh. Is there anything less conducive to interesting, cliché-free language than sports? I’m sick of myself already. I can’t even imagine how tired you are. I can barely keep my eyes open.

So should we celebrate futility? I don’t know if celebrate is the right word. We should accept futility, because it’s our default condition. We should fight futility, because anything less leads to fetal position sadness. We should strive toward what seems to be the sun, even if we know our stupid wax wings will stupidly melt and send us spinning toward the stupid puke brown ground.

Forget everything I said earlier. We shouldn’t be detached.

Jeronne Maymon won’t always have 19 rebounds. Frankie Sullivan won’t always shoot 2-12 from the field. Auburn will one day score more than 49 points and shoot better than 30 percent on the road.

“We are what we are offensively, so that’s not surprising,” said Tony Barbee.

Which made me think of these lines from Vonnegut’s Slapstick:

I addressed his scribes directly, speaking over his head. “History is merely a list of surprises,” I said. “It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. Please write that down.”

Top photo via Rocky Top Talk.

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Limber Lauren Lane's lumbar limbo.

An Auburn gymnastics meet is something different from most things you’ve seen in sports. There isn’t a ball, a bat, a club, or a racquet. There are hand grips and chalk powder. Stripe-suited referees are replaced by judges seated at a scoring table. Gone is the green of a playing field or the reflective shine of a smooth hardcourt… because its covered by massive, unfurled mats and chalky balance beams.

But the passion’s the same.

The pride is there, the heart is there, and the sights, and the sounds, and the colors. The crowd is just as lively, the cheers are just as bold, the orange just as orange, the navy just as blue.

It’s that spirit — the spirit of Auburn, the spirit of competition. The drive, the fight, the struggles, the successes, and the failures that bring people together the way only sports can. It’s all still there when the Auburn gymnasts take the floor.

And it will be there even more tonight in Auburn Arena the 16th-ranked Tigers try to snap a 103-meet losing streak to 6th-ranked, defending national champions: Alabama.

Auburn is hot off of posting its highest scoring total of the season in last Friday’s meet against No. 7 Georgia. Despite dropping that meet to the “Gym Dogs,” the Tigers still come into tonight’s meet with the momentum that comes from having on one of your best performances of the year go down in front of 4,508 fans, a record-setting crowd for gymnastics in the new arena. The record should probably stand for a few more hours before the house is packed for tonight’s throwdown with the Tide.

It’s not going to be easy for the Tigers to snap the losing streak tonight, because after, oh, 100 or so consecutive losses, it’s not much of a streak. It’s a marathon. Auburn is going to have to pretty much be perfect and, realistically, they’re going to have to hope for a couple of slips from the Tide. But if Auburn can run mistake-free, and if the Tigers can get another beast-mode performance from their senior leader and best all-arounder Kylie Shields, they could very well bring the meet down to the beam and the floor, the final two events.

If you go to the meet tonight you’ll see two bitter rivals competing. But it’s different: There’s an overtly positive vibe—and it isn’t forced or insincere, either. When an opponent slips there is no celebration or cheer as for a penalty flag. When an Bama girl doesn’t stick her landing, there won’t be a “Push’em Back” chant (though when an Auburn girl sticks her Heisman pose, you’ll definitely hear boos). And you’re not going to see a gym coach argue the judges’ tallies like they would argue balls and strikes.

There’s also a certain level of chaos on the floor that makes it that much more approachable. The invisible wall that seemingly makes the football field at Jordan-Hare Stadium sacred and unreachable, and the Auburn Arena court during basketball games untouchable, are all barriers that are pulled down for a gymnastics meet, traded for just the right amount of disorganization, a din to where you feel you could almost overhear coaches on the floor, and kids running notes over between the two judges’ tables.

The focus of attention is all on the action — the motions, the movements, the girls. There is no constant emphasis on the score, or the stats, or how many events are left, like the Fox Box and computer graphic scoreboards have trained us to look for. Instead, the crowd can just focus on the sights and sounds, the competitors and the routines, and the cheers and their neighbors. It’s the traits that you would usually consider as what would make it less of a spectator sport that makes gymnastics an even better one.

But while an Auburn gymnastics meet does appear to be different from beginning to end than nearly all other athletic events at the school, what it has in common with the others — the passion, the spirit, and the competition — it has in spades. They may call it a “meet” as opposed to a “game,” but all the while it’s hard to believe that neither team is actually ever doing the same event at the same time. And with competition so involved and with momentum so evident, sometimes it gets easy to forget that nobody is playing defense.

And at the end of the meet, both squads huddle up and stand on the mat in the center of the floor, like boxers in the middle of the ring after a heavyweight fight, awaiting the PA announcer to call out the judges’ final tallies.

The field is replaced by a mat, the uniforms are exchanged for one-piece tights, and the helmets are swapped for colorful hair bows. And instead of a thick line of eye black there’s thick, black eye liner—but it’s all the same. It’s war paint.

And tonight, it’s all the same. It’s Alabama.

Photo via Van Emst.

Justin Lee is a third generation Auburn man. In his spare time, he is junior-ish at Auburn, majoring in journalism. Curse him at auborangej@gmail.com.

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Now, if had turned down a death penalty plea bargain, that would have been believable...

It’s a standard rule with a standard concept of “professional respect.”  When one of the so-called “big boys” runs an article, and a smaller outlet provides good information that contradicts, the “big boy” at least acknowledges it.

Not when the “big boy” is ESPN, apparently.  Let’s trace this one.

First, Friday evening, Mark Schlabach of ESPN posted an article that claimed that alleged tree poisoner Harvey Updyke had turned down a plea bargain where he would have served 13 years and agreed never to attend another Alabama sporting event.  The article quoted an anonymous “source close to the case.”

Let’s stop here.  Thirteen years?  Serious?  On a plea bargain?  Updyke would probably get a better deal with a trial.  And as for not attending any Alabama athletic events, um, I suppose that carries some weight anticipating that Updyke would get time off for good behavior.

But wait?  On Saturday morning, in its print edition (remember those?), Ed Enoch of the Opelika-Auburn News quoted Updyke’s defense attorney, Everett Weiss, as saying that prosecutors have offered no such deal.  A named source disputed an anonymous source.

Oh, wait — Schlabach quotes Charles Barkley, who was in town this weekend.  Big name.  Great quote.  But not a central figure in the case.

As I write this, it is Sunday evening.  And Schlabach’s piece remains on ESPN.com, unedited since Friday.  Information from a colleague has not been acknowledged.  Why not?

There is one good explanation, offered by one of my Twitter followers, Lesley (@Mrs_EDO).  She wondered if ESPN were aware of the article, but considered it pregame jockeying by the defense attorney.  It’s a possible scenario, but even in that case, shouldn’t it be up to the reader to determine that?

Two other possible scenarios were offered by Kenny Smith— Samford journalism faculty, frequent blogger, TWER assistant editor and overall smart sports media guy.  One is that it was an honest oversight, though it is a continued honest oversight.  The other is a lack of commitment to the piece.  It’s done, and Schlabach has moved on.  For both Kenny and myself, neither scenario will make it into a “how it’s done” lecture.

And let’s be honest: Schlabach is usually a pretty spot-on reporter.  For all that the AU faithful hate him for it, his early reporting in the Cam Newton scandal was indirectly verified by the ensuing penalties.  Note that pronoun: his reporting.

But whatever the scenario, the result is still the same: ESPN.com has an article on its Web site that lacks credible information.  At some point, the article should be updated.

And at least on this Web site, in this article, let’s give Enoch some credit for doing some good news gathering on this situation.  Schlabach and ESPN.com might be tacitly dismissing a colleague.  I’ll acknowledge it and say “job well done.”

Related: First and Wrong: Read Carvalho’s breakdown of journalism’s breakdown re: Joe Paterno.

John Carvalho, associate professor of journalism at Auburn, blogs about the sports media at johncarvalhoau.tumblr.com. Find him on Twitter at @johncarvalhoau. Read his previous columns here.

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He wasn't down then, but how will the No-Whistle Missile go down in Auburn memory?

Auburn lost its best football player Thursday night. In trying to process what exactly the loss of Michael Dyer means to Auburn’s football team, that fact can’t be sugar coated.

Can Dyer be replaced by one of the gaggle of running backs coming back in 2012? Probably, but his dependable production on the field will be missed. Will his presence in the locker room? Not so sure.

Something has apparently—and obviously, in hindsight—been going on with Dyer since before the 2011 season began. Auburn beat writers, particularly Jay G. Tate, hinted at issues early in fall camp. Chizik listed Onterio McCalebb ahead of him on the initial depth chart, an odd move at the time despite the coach’s insistence that people not read anything into it. Carries were limited in several key games throughout the season, with the occasional heavy load (41 carries against South Carolina) sprinkled in to keep fans confused. Message boards were abuzz with rumors of unsavory behavior and serious attitude problems.

When the talented tailback was initially suspended indefinitely prior to the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, chatter began that he would never again see the field at Jordan-Hare. Chizik insisted at the time that if Dyer ever put on an Auburn uniform again then he would have done everything asked of him to earn that chance. Apparently Dyer wasn’t interested in taking his coach up on that opportunity.

Phillip Marshall of Auburn Undercover confirmed last night that a conditional release has been granted by Chizik for Dyer to leave for another school, presumably Arkansas State.

Reuniting with his former offensive coordinator and new Red Wolves head man Gus Malzahn might be the best thing for the diminutive speedster, but it is also the most puzzling aspect of this story if it does indeed happen. Why leave an SEC program known for producing NFL running backs for a Sun Belt school where he’ll have to sit out a year unless granted a rare waiver from the NCAA? Maybe it’s his best option. Maybe it’s his only option.

If even some of the tales are to be believed, and at the very least there is no denying he did something serious enough to get suspended for the bowl game and potentially beyond, then it is also somewhat surprising that Malzahn would be willing to take Dyer with him (one can only wonder what Kristi Malzahn thinks of the idea). Still, he is a phenomenal talent and can help his old coach win games. Maybe that’s reason enough.

Whatever the reason for Dyer’s departure, there is no question that the former five star recruit—the Auburn five star curse continues—did more in his first two seasons on The Plains than any to carry the ball before him. He chalked up two 1,000 yard seasons and leaves with a ring and a BCS National Championship Game Offensive MVP trophy that can never be taken away from him. His game changing run against Oregon will live on the memories of Auburn fans forever. Is that memory somehow cheapened now that he will not finish his career as a Tiger? It shouldn’t be, but it’s hard to tell the long term effect while the news is still so fresh.

Auburn fans should be fairly disappointed in how things turned out and can fairly shake their heads at the wasted opportunity to be an legend among legends at Running Back U. But the finger wagging and character assassinations should be left to other fanbases. Dyer is gone now and he is not coming back. Best to remember the good times and the success he helped this team achieve, and hope that he finds whatever it is he’s looking for.

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Arkansas State?  Really?  Arkansas State?  

Call us naïve, but we always assumed that when Gus Malzahn left Auburn it would be in a platinum-plated Learjet to become the head coach at a top-shelf BCS-type school.  The situation that has developed this week is a little tougher for us to handle, and for multiple reasons –not least of which that (to put it mildly) we really enjoyed the offense he coached, how it worked, how much fun it was, and what it tended to do to many opponents.

On top of that, there’s the fact that we simply did not see this coming.  Sure, some medium-sized jobs (North Carolina, Kansas) came open and were filled in the past couple of weeks, with Gus’s name being mentioned prominently among the finalists.  And sure, Houston was out there, after Kevin Sumlin packed up and moved to College Station.  But last year he turned down Vanderbilt and didn’t interview with Maryland.  So now he takes… Arkansas State?!  Nope—we didn’t ever really consider them the real threat to steal our beloved manic compulsive genius Offensive Coordinator.

But Gus is leaving—though he promises to stay involved through the bowl game, bless ‘im.  Some will weep (Van and John raise our hands), while others will actually celebrate.  (In case you didn’t know, there was a startling amount of recrimination about the poor performance of the 2011 offense that was aimed directly at Gus, particularly during the latter half of the season—unfairly, in our estimation.)  But, one way or another, all of us will just have to deal with it in our own ways and move on.  The real question is: What do we do now?

Thank the Gus.

The very first thing every Auburn fan needs to do is thank Gus Malzahn for everything he did for Auburn. Malzahn came to Auburn and brought tremendous offensive innovation, which led to overall success, which helped lead Auburn to the National Championship in 2010.  That alone should get the man a statue—were we the type of school that did such things.  But more than that, Malzahn’s offense was often incredibly fun to watch and it felt like his offensive abilities created an advantage for Auburn at times.

Van breaks it down a bit:  I have to admit that I am more bummed by this than by any other assistant coach leaving that I can remember.  I loved almost everything about that crazy offense and how he ran it.  I was awed by it for the first time when he ran it (or something just short of it) against Auburn in the 2006 Arkansas game.  It made a believer out of me; before that, I wasn’t big on the Spread or gimmick plays or the hurry-up or any of that.  I was an old-school, Pat Dye, run the ball between the tackles and on the sweep kind of guy.  But Gus’s offense made watching Auburn play football on Saturdays all that much more fun than it already was.  Every single week, I went into games thinking, “We have the coolest and most fun offense in the country.”  For a while last year I was concerned that Oregon’s was a little better, a little more fun… but then we settled that for good in Glendale.

As a Pat Dye disciple, one reason I have always liked the wishbone/option is that it relentlessly attacks.  It’s never indecisive.  It goes at the defense and dictates what will happen, even as it reacts to individual defensive players’ movements and choices during the play.  The offense I hate worst is the pro-style, drop-back, “survey the field till you get sacked” passing game.  That offense is boring and–unless you have great players at all the key positions–often ineffective.  Gus’s offense was smart, exciting, fast (though never as fast as it could’ve been), fun, and it relentlessly attacked!  From every freaking direction, it attacked!!

Think of the first quarter against Alabama in 2009.  Think of the West Virginia game that year!  Think of how Gus’s offense made Chris Todd into a really decent SEC quarterback, for crying out loud.  Think of all the amazing ways that our offense took advantage of Cam’s abilities in 2010, and how the ways we used him (and the other top players) expanded each week, and how we adjusted each week as teams tried different ways of stopping him and the rest of our offense.  Think of that one certain comeback for the ages, and for the points explosion that followed eight days later in Atlanta.  Think of Cam and Lutz and McCalebb and Dyer and Tate and T-Zac and Darvin and Blake and Fannin and all the different ways that Gus employed all those different weapons to sometimes devastating, overwhelming effect—and all at near- hyper-speed.

Good heavens, but I will miss this offense.

Why Would Gus Malzahn Leave Now to be a Head Coach?

There are several reasons why Gus could have chosen this move.  Some of them actually make more sense once you think about them a little bit.

First, he may have felt that his stock was slipping.  Last year he was the “super-hot” candidate and this year he was still mentioned for some of the big jobs, but he didn’t land a top-quality head coaching job. (Think North Carolina here.)  In last year’s (to the day!) “If the Gus Bus Leaves” column, we discussed this possibility, concluding that if he chose to be picky about job offers back then, he could look like less of a genius a year later, minus Cam Newton and most of the O-Line.  It’s not that he’d grow dumber, just that it’s a lot easier to show off your coaching and play-calling skills when you have incredibly talented and/or veteran players to execute those plays.

Another reason for him to leave now is that perhaps he wasn’t happy with how the Auburn offense had to change in order to compensate for the poor defensive performances this season.  It is clear from watching the games that the Auburn offense slowed down dramatically and became more run-oriented after the first few games.  Was that by Malzahn’s design or was he asked to do that in order to protect the defense?  If he was asked to do it, did it bother him?  We know it was an issue between him and Houston Nutt in 2006.

This one is pure speculation in terms of the relationship between the OC and the head coach.  But here is the other side: both Chizik and Malzahn are competitive guys and they want to win.  If slowing down the offense was the best thing for the team to win, you’d like to think it could and would have been done without creating tension.

Why “The Natural State”-State?

Gus Malzahn leaving for a head coaching job was not a complete shock.  Malzahn leaving for Arkansas State was a shock at first.  But after thinking about it, this move makes a lot of sense.

First, Malzahn is a native of Arkansas and a legendary high school coach there.  He will be able to get recruits for his offense.  Newly-minted Mon Calamari Hugh Freeze left Arkansas State in pretty good shape for someone to come in and be successful right away.

Let’s also assume that Malzahn’s goal is still the same—to become the head coach of a big-time college football team.  What happened this off-season?  Teams hired head coaches from smaller schools who had proven success as a head coach and who had produced offensive success.  (Southern Miss’s Larry Fedora to UNC; Freeze to Ole Miss; Houston’s Kevin Sumlin to Texas A&M.)  In the interview for the UNC job, Malzahn was supposedly told it would help if he had head coaching experience.  How does he get to his goal?  By taking the Arkansas State job, winning big and scoring a lot of points—all while demonstrating that he can manage all the other day-to-day jobs that a head coach has to deal with.  If Malzahn does that at Arkansas State then he will be a viable candidate for bigger jobs when they come along down the road.  (For example, who thinks Derek Dooley is surviving another bad year at UT?)

Most Importantly:  Where Does Auburn Go from Here?

First and foremost, Gene Chizik needs to answer this fundamental question: What kind of offense does he want? Is Auburn now permanently (at least for now) a “Malzahn-style” spread offense school?  Would some other form of the spread offense do just as well? Might we take a page from Alabama and LSU and go back to a more traditional I-formation pro-style offense (i.e. Al Borges 2.0)? Or might we swing the other way and try to implement a high-flying, pass-heavy spread offense in the air-raid style of an Oklahoma?  Or does he not really care about the particulars as long as the offense scores points, in which case he just picks the best guy regardless of offensive style?

These are interesting questions, and ones Auburn coaches have faced before—recently.  In  2004, having lost Bobby Petrino to Louisville more than a year earlier and having seen the resulting “Nallsminger” offense sputter and die in 2003, Tuberville seriously considered bringing in someone to install a Spread offense.  But he wasn’t convinced during interviews that the Spread-preaching coaches sufficiently knew how to adjust at halftime to unexpected in-game developments.  He hired Al Borges not because he was determined to go with a particular style of play but because Borges seemed to have the best answers for how to adjust to changing conditions and adverse situations during games.

Three years later, with Borges booted out after a precipitous decline in points, yards, and skill-position players on offense, the search was on again—and this time Tubby did choose a “Spread guy,” in one Tony Franklin.  We all remember how that worked out.  Gene Chizik didn’t let that little bit of recent history scare him off of the Spread, though—or the idea of a willful, “mad genius” offensive coach—and thus he made one of the best hires in recent SEC history, in Malzahn.

So that’s the recent past.  Now for the future:  Some potential candidates.

Baylor co-offensive coordinator Phillip Montgomery.  Was on our list last year and the offense was good enough to create a Heisman Trophy winner this year in RG III.  His team finished second in the nation in total offense this season.  But apparently he’s known his head coach at Baylor since high school and there might possibly be a bond there that could prevent him from jumping to another school on his own.  We’ll see.

Oklahoma State coordinator Todd Monken.  He’s a hot name right now, and is probably on Florida’s list also, but the Cowboys have the (oil) money to try and keep him, too.  (It’s unfortunate for Auburn that Florida is currently in the same situation—looking for a new OC.  It almost guarantees we won’t get the top name, if Florida wants him, too.  And then there’s Alabama, also in the market.  Are there enough top OC candidates to go around, right now?)

Southern Miss coordinator Blake Anderson.  Currently a candidate for the USM head coaching job, or he could go to UNC with Fedora.

Boise State coordinator Brent Pease.  He made UGA’s defense look bad, and maybe would be more willing to leave now that Kellen Moore will be gone.  But can he function on a home field that is actually green??  And how much “green” will he want?

Dark Horse Candidates:

Utah State coordinator Dave Baldwin.  He did an excellent job in the Aggies’ game against Auburn.  Utah State was 20th in the nation in total offense this year, too.

Missouri coordinator David Yost.  Truman’s Tigers were 12th in the nation in total offense this year.

Some have mentioned Malzahn’s disciple, Rhett Lashlee, currently the OC at Samford (another team we played this year).  But in all likelihood he will be packing up and moving to Arkansas State soon, to serve as Gus’s non-play-calling OC.  Maybe a couple of years of seasoning there, and Auburn can look him up again.

Grimes n’ Luper!  Because promoting from within and handing control of the offense over to the OL coach and an offensive position coach worked out just AWESOME last time…. Um… Okay, scratch that one.

Chizik at the Crossroads

The very best thing that Gene Chizik did when he was hired was to hire a great coaching staff.  The decisions he made in that hiring process were the primary ingredients that led Auburn very quickly to a celebrated date in the desert in Glendale, and to the National Championship.  (Even if you want to make the ridiculous argument that Auburn’s national title was “mostly or all Cam,” remember that it was Gus and Curtis Luper who lobbied Chizik very hard to even give Cam a chance to play at Auburn.)

Now Chizik has a lot of money freed up to spend and two new coordinators to recruit.  To keep pace with the other top programs in the SEC, Chizik needs to make two very good hires here.  There’s no margin for error.  We can’t have another Tony Franklin (or even another David Gibbs) situation.  He has to hit two home runs.

The template for how to do that should be very familiar to him.  It’s what happened nine years ago—when Tommy Tuberville hired one Bobby Petrino to take over the offense, and you-know-who to take over the defense.  Things worked out pretty darned well that time.  Will they this time?

That’s why we pay him the big bucks…

Howlzahn via @AUlteredEgo, our Michael J. Fox + Auburn GIF-giver.

Related: Young Bartley asks Gus Malzahn about the Wu-Tang Clan / Razing the Roof… gently.

…

Van Allen Plexico managed to attend Auburn (and score student football tickets) for some portion of every year between 1986 and 1996. He realizes that’s probably not something one should brag about, but hey. He teaches college near St Louis (because ten years as a student was somehow just not enough time to spend at school) and writes and edits for a variety of publishers. Find links to his various projects at www.plexico.net.

John Ringer graduated from Auburn in 1991 (which may be the greatest time ever to be an Auburn student – SEC titles in 1987, 88 and 89 and the 1989 Iron Bowl). His family has had season tickets every year since well before he was born and he grew up wandering around Jordan-Hare on game days. He currently lives in Richmond, Virginia where he spends way too much time reading about college football on the internet and teaching his children to love Auburn football.

Previous Wishbone columns are waiting for you here.

Order Season of Our Dreams — every “Wishbone” column from the 2010 preseason through the fabled Date in the Desert, plus a stadium full of extras.

…

So you’re obviously wanting to relive Auburn’s national championship season now more than ever.

Go to WarEagleDVD.com and enter TWER as your promo code. You’ll get free shipping… and you’ll help your favorite Auburn website keep the lights on during the long winter.

…

Keep Reading:

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Oh, and they can

Will Alabama bring home its second Heisman Trophy tomorrow night? According to Grantland, no, at least not if people who can read have anything to say about it. And the latest straw polls seem to back them up. Trent Richardson’s chances at winning were supposedly tripped up by not playing last weekend. Thank God for small scheduling miracles.

But I’m preparing for the worst, planning to again rezone my Auburn pride as we all had to that dark night in 2009—”Got Two?”—when Mark Ingram’s name was so undeservedly uttered and the huge, seemingly insurmountable lead we enjoyed for a quarter of a century cut in half. I still can’t believe I have to, though. I still can’t believe that the luxury restored so amazingly and immediately to the Auburn psyche by the healing stiff-arm salve of the Blessed Individual is again in jeopardy. So I’m digging deep. Just in case. Here it is.

There is one thing related to the Heisman Trophy that Alabama will never have, can never have. Sure, Auburn remains the only school where John Heisman coached football to have a player win the Heisman Trophy. We know this. We brag about it in media guides. We put it on T-shirts. But I’m talking more than trivia. I’m talking deep down, historical assurance that John Heisman—Big Papa H. we used to call him*—didn’t just coach football at Auburn, he loved Auburn. I’m talking about something physically and emotionally tangible.

I’m talking about a letter.

He wrote it after deciding to resign from coaching in order to become, get this, a Shakespearean actor. (That didn’t pan out and he instead headed over to Clemson, sure, but they don’t have any Heisman winners, so who cares?) It was printed in The Plainsman (then called the Orange and Blue) and later in Rich Donnell’s great book of quotations on Auburn football, “Down Through The Years.” And it’s beautiful.

December 11, 1899

Dear Auburn Boys,

At last we are to part. Is it not hard to believe? There are tears in my eyes, and tears in my voice; tears even in the trembling of my hand as I write you.You will not feel hard toward me; you will forgive me, you will not forget me? Let me ask to retain your friendship. Heaven knows I never felt more in need of it than I do at this moment.

Can a man be associated for five successive seasons with Grand Old Auburn, toiling for her, befriended by her, striving with her, and yet not love her? No. Where on earth’s surface have I found better friends, manlier sportsmen, truer gentlemen than among the sons of the deservedly popular A.P.I.

The many fresh evidences I have lately received of your unwavering respect and esteem for yo me have touched me to my heart’s center. It is true that “prosperity brings friends and adversity tries them” Our friendship has more than once been thoroughly tried and never yet found wanting.

You believe in me—you trust me. Let me ask for a continuance of that faith. It shall be my life’s endeavor to prove myself worthy of it.

I hope this is not the end. I hope that we shall meet again. The recollection of these years of mutual endeavor, of mutual joy over all that was good for Auburn, of intermingled sorrow over all that was bad for Auburn, shall never fade. To you, to your faculty, to your friends, who have all been so kind, so just, so unfailingly true to me that I doubt I deserve it, I say “Farewell and yet I say “Aufs Wideuschen.”

May God bless you, everyone!

Devotedly yours,

Heisman

Devotedly ours, now and forever. And no post-millennial string of undeserving Bama running backs can ever change that (DO YOU HEAR ME, GOD?!)

* Totally made up, but I mean, maybe.

Related: The press release announcing Bo Jackson as the 1985 Heisman Trophy winner.

..

So you’re obviously wanting to relive Auburn’s national championship season now more than ever.

Go to WarEagleDVD.com and enter TWER as your promo code. You’ll get free shipping… and you’ll help your favorite Auburn website keep the lights on during the long winter.

…

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"Stokin' the chaos since 2010, baby! Myself, myself, myself is on fire!" -- our graphic (and caption) from John Magruder's Sept. 9, 2010 piece on the hidden value of Roof's drunken fighting style. Thanks for the memories, Ted.

A necessary change, a soft landing, and no messy firings.

On Wednesday, seemingly out of the blue, reports came that Auburn Defensive Coordinator Ted Roof was packing up for Orlando to serve in the same position for the University of Central Florida.

A loud contingent of fans had been clamoring for a change at the position since early in the season when Roof’s defense was gashed in consecutive games against Utah State, Mississippi State and Clemson. Things quieted a little following a strong, Stephen Garcia-aided showing against Top 10 South Carolina. But things only got louder and more venomous after blowout losses to Arkansas, LSU, Georgia and Alabama.

Fans wanted Roof fired and they wanted it done immediately. That didn’t happen, but they did eventually get their change. At the risk of stating the obvious and/or sounding like another fanbase in the state, defensive coordinators do not just leave Auburn for the same position at UCF (it goes the other way). The move was obviously precipitated by Gene Chizik’s desire for a change, and he couldn’t have handled it a better way. And that’s important— both in terms of keeping the remaining players and staff “All In” and in attracting good coaches in the future. It was also important to let Roof leave in a dignified manner, a courtesy he has more than earned in his time at Auburn.

Whether you wanted Roof around for another season or not, he’s a well respected and well liked coach who was a major part of winning Auburn a national championship. Current and former players on both sides of the ball took to Twitter upon hearing the news to call him a great coach, a great man, and to wish him luck. Nick Fairley’s smiling mug is hanging on the side of the stadium holding a big block of granite thanks in part to Ted Roof. The defensive gameplan he devised against Oregon, which held the Ducks to 30 points below their season average, should be gilded and placed on a pedestal next to the crystal football. Roof should leave The Plains with fans’ respect and admiration, even if they’re perfectly fine with seeing him go.

Sure, he was an easy target, but he wasn’t the sole source of Auburn’s defensive woes. Youth, inexperience, poor execution—all factors. A coach can instruct his players, but he can’t make their tackles.

It’s also been rumored that there were differences in philosophy between Chizik and Roof, that the head coach had been “meddling*” in Roof’s defense, and that it could have been the cause of some of the Tigers’ issues on that side of the ball.

If so, then this change absolutely had to happen. If the head coach and his coordinator aren’t on the same page, then problems are bound to surface and likely increase over time.  If the rumors are just rumors, then the poor defensive performance over most of the last three years really is ultimately on Roof. If so, then this change absolutely had to happen.

Either way, the Tigers will start fresh in 2012 with a new coach. But who?

Early names bandied about the always reliable internet include South Carolina’s Ellis Johnson, one of the Stoops brothers (Mike, formerly of Arizona, or Mark from Florida State), North Carolina’s Everett Withers and a host of other wild fantasies like former Tennessee Titans Head Coach Jeff Fisher (I MEAN, HIS SON IS ON THE TEAM!). Whether it’ll be one of these names or someone yet to be considered remains to be seen, but it’ll likely happen sooner than later with recruiting reaching a crucial stage. Signing day is in February. Signing day waits for no man.

Will all that ails the Tigers be magically cured once the new guy comes on board? Nope, but with change comes hope—hope that the defense Auburn puts on the field next year will live up to the reputation of its past and the potential of its future. And while fans are perfectly within their right and reason to be excited by Roof’s departure, it sure wouldn’t hurt to wish him the same success they hope to see.

If only all coaching changes could go so smoothly.

*If Chizik, the former Broyles Award winning defensive coordinator, had not stepped in to try and fix some of the issues on the field then that would be a bigger issue.

Riley Downing graduated from Auburn in 1999 and moved to the Washington, D.C. area, where he has been stuck ever since. He makes the most of his long daily commute and forfeits sleep in an attempt to keep up with everything Auburn and cling to his brief moment on The Plains. Follow him on Twitter—@FearlessandTrue.

…

So you’re obviously wanting to relive Auburn’s national championship season now more than ever.

Go to WarEagleDVD.com and enter TWER as your promo code. You’ll get free shipping… and you’ll help your favorite Auburn website keep the lights on during the long winter.

…

Related: Hella Perfect: Magruder on the 2010 Overture (and Ted Roof).

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Possibly the most vicious hit of all time, or at least the most vicious received by an Auburn player, was laid on Stacy Danley in the 1990 Hall of Fame Bowl against Ohio State. Danley took the lickin', kept on tickin', and helped lead the Tigers to ultimate victory over the Buckeyes.

For the Auburn Tigers, the 1980s did not end on December 31, 1989.  They didn’t even end a few weeks earlier, on December 2, when Auburn faced Alabama in Jordan-Hare Stadium for the “First Time Ever” and defeated them.

No, for Auburn football, the decade of the Eighties actually ended on a slick field in Tampa, Florida on January 1, 1990.  For on that day, the same squad of Tigers that had beaten the second-ranked Crimson Tide at home—and many of the same players that had given Auburn faithful three straight SEC Championships—faced the Buckeyes of Ohio State in the Hall of Fame Bowl.

Wait.  The what?  The Hall of Fame Bowl?

It does seem like an odd choice of bowl games in which to find the SEC Co-Champions.  However, at that time, the Hall of Fame Bowl was a New Year’s Day game (when that still meant something) and was in the process of trying to boost its reputation.  Players called it the “Fame Game,” and there was just a hint of a growing cachet to it—though of course as we know now, that wouldn’t last long.

The game itself is not really remembered among Auburn’s greatest contests of the modern era, but a couple of things do sort of stand out about it, making it well worth the time to re-examine.

First in the minds of many, when thinking back to this game, is the incredible shot suffered by running back Stacey Danley early in the second quarter—possibly the most famous (or infamous) blow dealt an Auburn player in modern history (and made all the more remarkable for the fact that he walked off the field and then played throughout the second half!).

Equally important, we would argue, is that this was the game after the “First Time Ever” game.  The same squad that beat Bama got to take the field against a powerful Big Ten team in Ohio State.  It was the first game Auburn played in the 1990s—and it was the last game for the great 1980s teams.

So let’s sit down and watch the game—for the first time in two decades, for some of us—and talk about it.  (NetFlix has it available on DVD. Hardly any others, but they do have this one.)  Okay, so—ready?  Here we go:

“Championship Monday?”

NBC Sports.  “Championship Monday.”  There’s Pat Dye in classic Pat Dye form: sport coat and tie and baseball cap.  Pat Sullivan stands next to him in his orange sweatshirt, waving frantically between plays.  Reggie Slack is under center, one last time.  Stacey Danley and James Joseph swap into and out of the backfield, along with occasional appearances by Darrell “Lectron” Williams.  Alexander Wright and Greg Taylor and Shane Wasden and Victor Hall catch the passes.  Win Lyle kicks the field goals.  Ogletree and Riggins and Billingslea and Crawford chase down Buckeye ballcarriers.  And look there, back in the secondary—it’s Eric Ramsey.  Oh, my.

The viewer of today can’t help but notice the gigantic white Hall of Fame Bowl patches on the shoulders of the Auburn jerseys, in place of the usual numbers.  These had to have been among the largest and most obnoxious bowl patches in football history.  To make things worse, the Ohio State players aren’t wearing them, so they look even more ridiculous on our guys.  Oh well.  Moving along:

Auburn comes out slinging the ball around, with Reggie Slack throwing deep for Alexander Wright at every opportunity.  (He even runs back kickoffs—and does pretty darned well.)  After one early completion, though, the Buckeye defense seems to figure out how to take Wright out of the game.  With the other Tigers receivers slipping down on the wet grass (apparently a recurring problem in Auburn bowl games) and otherwise bobbling and dropping catchable balls, nobody seems able to hang on to it.

The Buckeyes score first and look pretty strong in the process.  Trailing 7-0, Auburn finally gets down to the Ohio State two yard line, but the Buckeyes defense looks pretty danged tough up the middle against the run at this stage, and so Pat Dye elects on fourth down to settle for a short Win Lyle field goal.  A little while later the Buckeyes score another touchdown, and the Tigers are down 14-3 early in the second.

And then comes the big hit on Danley.

The Hit

If you weren’t old enough at the time and no one’s shown it to you or told you about it before, here is—briefly, because it happened just insanely quickly—what happened.

Slack took the snap and dropped back.  Danley curled around out of the backfield into the right flat.  Nothing but green (muddy, slick) grass in front of him at that point.  Slack lofts a gentle pass over to him.  He looks back at Slack, watching the approaching ball.  Meanwhile, a Buckeye defender comes straight at him, full-bore.

THE INSTANT THE BALL LANDS IN HIS HANDS, THE BUCKEYE PLAYER COLD-COCKS HIM.

It was rough.  Visceral.  Violent.  It was insanely violent.  And, above all, it was fast.

The Ohio State players nearly walked over the prone Danley in their rush to celebrate.  Sideline personnel swarmed out, bending over him.  The story goes that Pat Dye told him, “If you can run off, run off.”  The TV broadcast doesn’t show it—they went to commercial, and when they came back, he was on the bench, not looking terribly well—but supposedly he did just that: he jogged off, or at least walked off under his own power.

Considering that for a long moment it appeared as if they’d be searching for his head, this was very impressive.

As I said earlier, he would re-enter the game in the second half and perform quite well.  Meanwhile, the rest of the Auburn squad seemed to decide that now would be a good time to wake up, get off the team bus, and actually play up to their potential.  And that they did.

This, at least, is the popular conception.  But it is a misconception.

The Surreal Life

The Auburn passing game actually got worse after the Danley hit.  A short time later, Slack was intercepted on a deflected pass by—we kid you not—Bo Pelini!  The screen graphic identifies him as “Mark Pelini,” but announcer Don Criqui makes it clear that he’s known as “Bo.”  (He also points out that Pelini has played with a broken jaw, broken collar bone, etc.)  Does this make Reggie Slack the only Auburn quarterback to have a pass intercepted by the head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers?

If you’re watching the game (as we are) in the present day, things only get more surreal from there.  First the Danley hit, then the Pelini interception, and then Criqui (and his color analyst, Ahmad Rashad) throw it down to their sideline reporter, who is in the stands visiting with none other than Twilitta Ramsey.  She has her little boy sitting on her lap and is telling the reporter his name is “Eric Ahmad Rashad Ramsey.”  That may well be his name.  But it says a lot about Twilitta that those of us watching today instantly found ourselves wondering if that really was the young man’s name, or if she only made it up to get on television.

Back to the action:  Shane Wasden returns a Buckeye punt for a then-Hall of Fame Bowl record 30 yards, but Slack throws another interception—his second of the quarter—on the next play.  Ohio State looks to be trying to run out the clock and get to the half, but the Tigers defense holds and forces another punt.  Retreating to field the kick, Wasden then breaks his own barely-four-minute-old record with a 34-yard return down the right sideline.  Then Slack hits Alexander Wright inside the 20, and on the next play he hooks up with Greg Taylor for the touchdown with only eleven seconds left until halftime.

The quick score before the half was great, but the stats at halftime were not.  Auburn had rushed for just 61 yards and thrown for only 74, along with Slack’s two interceptions.  This from the team that, in its previous outing, had rolled up 30 points on the undefeated Crimson Tide.  Clearly, something had to change.

And it did.

Breathing Fire in the Second Half

The great Will Collier was in attendance that day, and he tells us:  “I talked to several players at a rest stop on the way home from that game.  I asked them what the hell Pat Dye said at the half [that fired the team up].  All they did [in reply] was wince and say, “Oooooo!”  We can just imagine.

(Will also amusingly points out that the Ohio State fan sitting next to him at the game observed, “Youse guys’ colors clash.” Meanwhile, the guy was wearing maroon and gray pajamas.)

The second half begins with Ohio State receiving the kickoff.  Auburn’s defense is fired up and the Buckeyes can’t move the ball.  Their punt is terrible and Auburn takes over on the Buckeyes’ end of the field, just inside the fifty.  After run plays from seemingly every member of the backfield (Joseph, Danley, and “Lectron” Williams), Slack rolls out and hits Taylor again for the go-ahead score.  Two TD passes from Reggie, two TD catches by Taylor.

After some third quarter back-and-forth, Slack is sacked and leaves the game, and we get a rare Frank McIntosh sighting.  It’s interesting to note that Big Frank’s passer rating at that point in the season was in the mid-twenties, with three completions in ten attempts.  Eeek.  At this moment, however, he comes through like a champion—albeit without winging the ball.  He simply gives on the quick draw handoff to Danley, who fights his way for sixteen yards on a third-and-fourteen.  Mission accomplished, Frank.  Have a seat, son.

Slack re-enters the game after that single play.  He quickly makes his presence known, running for another critical first down conversion and then, toward the eight-and-a-half minute mark in a very long drive, running into the end zone for the score.  Auburn is starting to pull away now, 24-14.

Ohio State clearly realizes at this point that things are going against them in a big way.  The Tigers defense is breathing fire and smothering everything the Buckeyes are trying to do.  That last drive by the Tigers not only pushed the lead to ten but also took the game deep into the fourth quarter before it ended.  Facing another fourth down, John Cooper calls for the “Bummerooski,” a fake punt play in which the ball is actually snapped to the blocking back, who then hands it to another player to run with, even as the punter pretends to grab for it as it seemingly sails over his head.  Auburn sniffs the trick play out instantly and the Tigers crush the ball carrier for little or no gain.  A bad situation for the Buckeyes has become much worse: Auburn now has the ball deep in Ohio State territory.

The Tigers waste little time in striking again.  Danley rips off a run down to the three, and then Slack rolls out and hits Herbert “the Weapon” Casey (oh, yes—Herbert “the Weapon” Casey) for the score.  Now it’s 31-14 and the hay is pretty much in the barn.

(Interestingly, and to give some real “wow” perspective on how long ago this was:  Following the last Auburn touchdown, NBC cuts to Bob Costas, who reports that following the Orange Bowl late that night, Lou Holtz’s top assistant at Notre Dame, Barry Alvarez, will be leaving to become the head coach at Wisconsin.  Wow.  And another odd twist—sixteen years later, Alvarez would coach his final game at Wisconsin in another Florida bowl, the Capital One, against none other than the Auburn Tigers.)

Ohio State threatens one more time, but Quentin Riggins steps in front of a short pass over the middle for the drive-killing interception and, hey—as NBC actually rolls the credits over the game action—it’s Frank McIntosh, one more time!  He hands off a few times, the clock is quickly eaten up and the game ends.

It was nice of Ohio State to show up, at least for the first half.  Another in their long line of bowl losses to SEC teams goes into the record books, ladies and gentlemen.

Reggie Slack gets the nod for MVP, and is carried onto the field on the shoulders James Joseph and Stacey Danley.

The Coda

And there you have it.  A game that ended more than two decades ago—a game in some ways nearly forgotten today, a game always overshadowed that season by the monolithic, megalithic contest that immediately preceded it—yet a game that contained very visible and memorable shards of both the past and the future of Auburn football at that singular moment in time.

Certainly there were big moments still to come in the Pat Dye Era.  The 1990 season would see titanic battles with Tennessee and Florida State, among others.  Ultimately, however, that campaign proved to be disappointing, and somewhat foreshadowed the downward spiral of the following two years that would culminate with scandal and investigation and Pat Dye’s resignation in the hours before the 1992 Iron Bowl.

If “First Time Ever” on December 2, 1989 was therefore Pat Dye’s Wagnerian operatic climax to his brilliant Auburn career, this Hall of Fame Bowl in south Florida served as a sort of early coda presaging the end of the Dye Era.  It gave us one last real look at Dye in his prime, and one last visit with so many of the players that had carried Auburn football to new heights during the decade just ended—before the 1980s themselves evaporated into history like the steam coming off of Tampa Bay.

…

Van Allen Plexico managed to attend Auburn (and score student football tickets) for some portion of every year between 1986 and 1996. He realizes that’s probably not something one should brag about, but hey. He teaches college near St Louis (because ten years as a student was somehow just not enough time to spend at school) and writes and edits for a variety of publishers. Find links to his various projects at www.plexico.net.

John Ringer graduated from Auburn in 1991 (which may be the greatest time ever to be an Auburn student – SEC titles in 1987, 88 and 89 and the 1989 Iron Bowl). His family has had season tickets every year since well before he was born and he grew up wandering around Jordan-Hare on game days. He currently lives in Richmond, Virginia where he spends way too much time reading about college football on the internet and teaching his children to love Auburn football.

Previous Wishbone columns can be found here.

Order Season of Our Dreams — every “Wishbone” column from the 2010 preseason through the fabled Date in the Desert, plus a stadium full of extras.

You’ll obviously want to relive Auburn’s national championship season now more than ever.

So go to WarEagleDVD.com and enter TWER as your promo code. You’ll get free shipping… and you’ll help your favorite Auburn website keep the lights on during the long winter.

…

Keep Reading:

* Five Auburn coeds featured in Playboy’s “Girls of the SEC” issue
* John Travolta in an Auburn shirt
* Auburn cheerleader and “Survivor” contestant Krista Klumpp tells all
* Auburn grad stars in new National Geographic reality show
* Glee star Naya Rivera wears Auburn shirt in FHM photo shoot
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Overhead Friday afternoon in the AU Hotel & Conference Center: "Who did you say you were with again? SHUT UP— THE WAR EAGLE READER?! THAT'S MY HOMEPAGE!!! KIRK, KIRK, GET OUT HERE... THIS GUY IS WITH THE WAR EAGLE READER!!!"

By the time it was Chris Fowler’s and Kirk Herbstreit’s turn, it was obvious why the production meeting had stayed at the hotel.  It was as much a GameDay crew viewing party for the Arkansas-LSU game.

After Erin Andrews finished her interview, it took a while for either Herbstreit or Fowler to emerge.  When I stuck my head in to check, a producer looked up from the couch and yelled, “Next commercial break!”  Or he might have said, “Hang out and watch the game with us, sports media scholar bro!”  Just to be sure, I went out and waited.

Not to wear out our welcome, when Fowler and Herbstreit emerged, Coleman McDowell and I interviewed one while the other was interviewed by the Eagle Eye crew.  (Just a footnote: Brooke Fletcher of the EE crew was asking excellent questions.  I’m looking forward to checking out the segment.  She started her Erin Andrews interview with a subtle Auburn boyfriend reference: “I know you have been to Auburn quite a few times …” Smoove.)

Pre-footnote: I pitched TWER to Fowler, and referenced the rumors that Harvey Updyke would try to attend the game.  So when Fowler mentioned the rumor on GameDay on Saturday (with the comment, “bad idea”), I took some satisfaction in that.  Coleman can confirm.

Chris Fowler.  Fowler was not surprised at the small media turnout for the GameDay crew interview.  Having toured the campus and done some stand-ups, he noted that hardly anyone was there, period – rare for a college campus the day before a big game.  He said it was “eerie.  The quietest day in the world; the whole world has gone home.”

Fowler not only hosts GameDay; he grounds it.  With a variety of ex-players and ex-coaches providing the jock talk, he keeps the show focused on game day information, even as he understands the picks schtick.

“It’s tough to do journalism with a capital J on a show which is a pregame show,” says the 1985 Colorado radio-TV news grad.  “It’s important for the show to know what we’re trying to do.  A lot of shows are confused about what they are trying to be.  We’re a pregame show.  We’re trying to capture what’s going on two hours before the games are going to kick off.  There is a lot of entertainment.”

He admits that College GameDay is not a news source.  “We’re not going to break too many stories on our show,” he said.  “But if by journalism you mean perspective and analysis, information in the midst of entertainment, our job on a week by week basis is to figure out what our audience wants.”

Fowler admits that, with breaking stories like the Sandusky arrest and Paterno firing, College GameDay has adjusted.  “The shows have taken on a different texture,” he said.  “But fundamentally we’re a pre-game show and that’s why the show continues to be popular and relevant after a number of years.  We’re not trying to be the ‘show of record.’  We’re not going to be everything that happened that week.”

As the host of GameDay since 1990 – heck, he even predates show sponsor Home Depot – Fowler has seen ESPN morph into the contradictory mix of entertainment and journalism.  Having blogged about it before, I was interested in his thoughts, and he was up to the challenge.

“I don’t speak for the company.  This is my impression,” he said.  “It’s difficult to balance an investigative journalism side with a business side of a corporation that has very deep long-term lucrative symbiotic relationships with conferences and teams.  What’s good for the business of most of these schools is good for the business of ESPN.”

That said, Fowler had a comment for those who think ESPN has it in for certain schools (i.e., Auburn last year):  “It’s often amusing to me when I hear fans criticize ESPN for trying to bring down this program or get that program in trouble.  How is it good for the business of ESPN if Ohio State or Miami or USC is on probation?  It’s not.”

He referred to it as a “balancing act,” adding, “How do you chase stories?  How do you pursue tough journalistic angles?  That’s stuff that our reporters have to deal with – the Syracuse case, Cam Newton. It’s tough to balance.  It’s no secret that we have relationships that have been built up over time that are worth protecting, and you won’t blow the relationship on a scoop if the scoop they’re breaking is less valuable.”

By this time Herbstreit, who had just finished his interview with Eagle Eye, was eager to get back into the coolest Arkansas-LSU viewing party in Auburn (The GameDay crew, bar food Ariccia-style, even a couch!).  Fowler was gracious and wanted to continue the conversation, saying without irony, “I’ll be in town until tomorrow, if you want to talk more.”  But we knew we were just two journalistic ships passing in the night.

So we swapped and took our two minutes with Herbstreit.  No, we didn’t ask if it’s true that he’s leaving GameDay to coach with Urban Meyer at Ohio State.  It was closer to “Please say something into this here recorder.”  The project was running on fumes at this point.

"Oh... I was kind of hoping to get to meet Jeremy Henderson. Heard he's the greatest interviewer and conversationalist of our time. But yeah, what can I do for you, professor?"

Kirk Herbstreit.  As a quarterback at Ohio State, Herbstreit watched GameDay.  Three years later, in 1996, he joined the show as an analyst.  “When GameDay first started, it was always a big deal to me as a player to watch it,” he recalls.  “It’s changed a lot. I think our growth parallels college football as a sport.”

Doing the interviews in a small reception area across the hall from the production meeting room, Herbstreit also noted the families at the hotel.  “You’ve got former players and alumni they come back and they bring their kids and teaching them about their school and their traditions, and they do this all over the country.  Every campus has special traditions, youngsters like this, they grow up with this.”  Herbstreit should know; his father, Jim, was also a captain for the Ohio State football team.

By comparison, he said, also without a trace of irony “The NFL is more of a business, a corporation, fantasy football, gambling.”  At this point, he was edging toward the production room door; our time was up.  In our defense, the first quarter of LSU-Arkansas was scoreless.

Photo by Coleman McDowell.

John Carvalho, associate professor of journalism at Auburn, blogs about the sports media at johncarvalhoau.tumblr.com. Find him on Twitter at @johncarvalhoau. Read his previous columns here.

Related: Personal Fowler: The incident of the set of College GameDay at the 1995 Iron Bowl

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Can we refill your eggnog for you, Bama? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?

It all comes to a head today in Jordan-Hare Stadium; Auburn and Alabama will finally meet in the 2011 edition of college football’s greatest rivalry, The Iron Bowl. Each week we’ve taken a look at the movies fans in Auburn and Tuscaloosa were watching to gauge their emotions before and after each win or loss. If “Zookeeper’s” inclusion on both towns’ list of Local Favorites is any indication, fans across the state are ready for a fun game and crazy atmosphere. Both sides are obviously ready to settle their differences on the field, but how is each planning on winning the game?

Fans in Auburn seem to know one simple fact: their team is facing one of the best teams in the nation. While other fanbases might be pessimistic about their team’s chances against the second ranked team in the nation after witnessing their own team’s up and down season, the Auburn Family still believes in their young men. One of the top Local Favorites is “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” Auburn men and women have no doubt seen a little bit of Clark W. Griswold in their young team. At times he can appear to be a bumbling idiot, but you can never doubt his sincerity and determination to succeed. In the end, Clark W. Griswold provides his family with a Christmas they’ll never forget, as ugly as it is to watch at times. Auburn fans have to be hoping to see their team overcome any mistakes they’ve made and put it all together when it counts to deliver the Auburn Family an early Christmas present: an Iron Bowl victory.

Clearly Auburn faithful aren’t lacking in belief, but what about a plan to actually succeed against Bama and their tough D? It seems Auburn is confident that their team has a plan in place as well as belief in the team to get the job done. “Horrible Bosses” inclusion as a local favorite indicates that Auburn knows their coaching staff will have their team prepared with a plan to succeed. This movie also shows confidence in Auburn’s preparedness to adapt their plan throughout the game in order to obtain a victory (just as the men dealt with changes in their plan to kill their bosses).

So Auburn fans still believe that their team can pull off the upset and has a plan in place to do just that, but how will they defeat their rival? I think two movies on the Local Favorites list indicate Auburn’s plan of action. “Just Go with It” seems to be an indication of the attitude Auburn’s struggling offense will employ. In the movie, a man uses a fake wedding ring and a sob story about a fake wife that hates him to pick up women. It’s not exactly the most upfront way to meet women, but it works. I believe Auburn’s offense will need to rely on deception and a few new wrinkles in order to get a leg up on the Crimson Tide’s strong defense. Two years ago Auburn struck quickly to take a 14-0 lead, only to see their lead diminish and the game end with a heartbreaking defeat 26-21. This year I look for Auburn to do all they can to get a lead, but instead of slowing things down too much and killing any momentum they generate, they’ll continue to force the Alabama defense to deal with new formations and plays all game long.

Look for Auburn’s offense to have an innovative gameplan in place. I look for the defense’s gameplan to be much more simple: stop the run. Of course, this is much easier said than done. The Crimson Tide’s rushing attack is led by a freakish specimen and Heisman candidate named Trent Richardson. If Auburn’s defense can contain the run, they’ll force Alabama to try to move the ball through the air, taking away one of the Tide’s keys to victory, clock management. If Alabama can’t dictate the pace of the game through their running game Auburn can not only put pressure on the Alabama offense, but also the Tide’s defense to ensure Auburn doesn’t keep them on the field all day long, tiring them out. In the simplest of terms, Auburn needs their defense to be “Beastly” Saturday to help secure a victory.

As good as any gameplan the Auburn coaching staff can come up with, none of it will matter if the team doesn’t execute and if it doesn’t believe that it can pull off the upset. This is why I believe “Fireproof” has been the top choice of Auburn residents this past week. Targeted to a Christian audience, the film focuses on fireman Caleb Holt  who lives by the motto, “Never leave your partner behind”. The only problem is he has only been applying that to his job and not his marriage, which is deteriorating. The man’s father challenges him to a “Love Dare” in an attempt to save his marriage from ending in divorce. Throughout the film the fireman works to fix his marriage through a series of tasks outlined in the “Love Dare”. Of course, Auburn’s football team isn’t going through a divorce, but they can learn a lot about faith and belief from the Kirk Cameron film.

The team has been through a lot of ups and downs this season, but they still must have faith in one another and believe that they can defeat the second-ranked Crimson Tide. In the film, Caleb lives by the motto, “Never leave your partner behind”. This motto recalls this speech by Coach Gaines in previous local favorite “Friday Night Lights.” Gene Chizik always tells his young men to “plan your work and work your plan”. If his young men can do so Saturday, with each man doing his part, they will have the chance to pull off one of the biggest upsets in Iron Bowl history.

To say that Auburn’s season hinges on the Iron Bowl wouldn’t be a stretch. The same can also be said for the Crimson Tide who’s playing for much more than bragging rights. Alabama needs to win this game in order to keep their hopes for a shot at the BCS Championship in tact. Sure, there’s no guarantee that the Crimson Tide will play in the title game, but all indications are that they’ll have a good shot at it if they can avoid a slip up against their in-state rivals.

While the game might appear to be a mismatch on paper, fans in Tuscaloosa seem to be preparing for Auburn to pull out all of the stops against their team Saturday. “The Lincoln Lawyer” is one of Tuscaloosa’s Local Favorites. The movie, centered around a smooth talking defense attorney, is filled with several plot twists and turns. The Tide have to be prepared for Auburn to try and throw as many wrenches at them as possible. I mentioned above that Auburn will more than likely use some deception to get Nick Saban’s defense off balance. I look for the Tide to be expecting the unexpected…

Whether Auburn runs new plays and utilizes new formations remains to be seen. One way to offset any potential advantage the Tigers could gain from the element of surprise is to control the line of scrimmage. Auburn lost four seniors from their offensive line last year, with many of them having played together for a few years. The Tigers revamped offensive line has had its fair share of struggles and the Tide’s defense might be looking to have their own, “Honk if you sacked Moseley” sort of game. Tuscaloosans appear to believe their team can control the line of scrimmage as “Push” clocks in as a top 10 Local Favorite. If Saban’s team can control the trenches Auburn will be in for a long day.

A few weeks ago I noticed that “Something Borrowed” had been showing up on the list of Local Favorites in Tuscaloosa. As previously mentioned, this title has to refer to the fact that Auburn is holding on to some hardware that the Crimson Tide believes is rightfully theirs. For one, there’s the Foy-ODK Sportsmanship Trophy that has been residing in Auburn for just over a year. The sight of the “state championship” trophy in Auburn’s hands has to remind Tide fans of last years collapse in Tuscaloosa. Another piece of hardware was taken from Alabama’s grasp by the Auburn Tigers last season, the BCS National Championship Trophy. A win Saturday not only allows the Tide to erase the painful memories of last year’s lost while helping further their case to be included in the BCS Championship Game.

Although you won’t hear any of Alabama’s coaches or players admit it, the Iron Bowl serves as an audition to be included in the BCS Championship Game. Fans in Tuscaloosa don’t have to be as coy. They’ve been enjoying the exploits of Selena Gomez in “Monte Carlo”. The film involves a young lady on vacation being confused with an heiress and more or less taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to the famous young woman. I don’t doubt for a second that the goofy romantic comedy appeals to the detergent box and toilet paper on a stick set, but I also feel they’re watching it because they are anxious to see their team prove that they deserve a shot at the national championship. The Tide’s only loss came to the number one team in the nation in overtime. On Saturday The Tide will be looking to prove that their being considered a legitimate title contender is not a case of mistaken identity and they are indeed one of the top teams in the country.

And with that, our journey has come to an end. Beginning Saturday night one team’s fans will be requesting “Titanic” from Netflix as their season has been sunk. The others will be celebrating with “It’s a Wonderful Life”, as they’ll have just vanquished their biggest rival and cemented their season as a good one. Thanks for taking the journey through the Netflix Iron Bowl with me. “Good Night, and Good Luck” (unless you’re a Bama fan).

Stephen Savage writes at “Movies ‘n Munchies” and is considered by his mother to be the best blogger on all things movie and food related. Holding two degrees from Auburn University, Stephen is proud to call himself an Auburn Man. He currently spends his time working on his blog. He is available for freelance work and retirement parties. Follow his blog on Twitter @moviesnmunchies.

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