Auburn preview

The 2011 college football season starts in one week people! I, for one, love this time of year: the cooler weather, the leaves changing colors, football being played. My last post was the SEC West preview and I left Auburn out so I could devote an entire post for them. I know I'm a homer, but so what? so are you. Anyway, Auburn returns the fewest starters of any national champion ever, thus the reasoning behind AU being ranked lower than other national champ ever. The tigers start off #19-23 depending on which poll you look at, but it really doesn't matter because it usually evens itself out.

The offense: Auburn will start Barrett Trotter at QB. Trotter has been in Malzahn's system for the last 3 years and knows it better than anyone. He is a redshirt junior and played a little mopup duty for Cam last year. He came out of highschool playing the spread and should be able to lead the team. He won't be counted on to be as big a part of the offense as Cam was last year, but that's the great thing about Malzahn's offense: he designs it with the type players he has at his disposal. Trotter has a good throwing arm and his forte is his accuracy. While he won't run over you, he might fit a completion into a tight spot. He can run, however that is not what he will do too much of, probably. Trotter has better than average speed and will run if need be, but I would be willing to bet that passes more often than he tucks and runs. Dyer and McCalleb are back as the one of the most productive back duos in the league. The receivers will be new except for the reliable Emory Blake who emerged as a go-to guy last year. DeAngelo Benton, Q. Carr, and a host of freshmen will be asked to step up and produce this year. The offensive line must replace 3 out of 5 starters (A.J. Green was a starter until he got hurt in the Clemson game). As many as 3 freshmen may see significant playing time and may even start. There is a ton of talent there, just really short on experience.

The defense: The secondary will be better and deeper than in the past 3 years. Chris Davis and T Bell will lead the corners with extremely talented freshmen Jonathon Rose and E. Florence backing up. The safety position is held down by Neiko Thorpe and D. McNeal. Lots of talent and more experience here than most other positions. The linebacking core will have Jake Holland leading the group along with Eltoro Freeman and Daren Bates. Harris Gaston and Jonathon Evans will probably be (capable) backups. Holland is a smart kid and will take some time to learn on the fly but he is very good and I expect by the end of the year, to be very productive. The D line is the biggest question mark of the defense this year. Nosa Eguae and Corey Lemonier anchor the ends with Dee Ford playing alot. Sophomores Kenneth Carter and Jeffery Whitaker will be the interior linemen and will have to be studly to counter the SEC's big boys up front. I think they will be able to eventually but just need that big game experience.

The kicking game: Cody Parkey and Steven Clark will handle the place kicking and punting duties respectively. Parkey had a hand in a handful of extra points and kickoffs and Clark was pretty inconsistent at times last year, but had a good spring game and fall camp. I think we will be just fine here.

Overall, I think AU will go 9-3 and be in every game this year. The losses will come at Arky (dont play well there usually), LSU (haven't won in BR since Clinton was president) and either South Carolina or Bama. I think we handle MSU and Clemson and beat UF at home. USC will be too close to call and we have a great shot at beating UGA this year (esp if UGA loses early and packs it in for the rest of the year). Bama will be tough but we usually play them close.

Predicion: Auburn will go 9-3 with a close loss to USC and a win over bama to end the regular season. Auburn will play in the Cotton or Outback Bowl and have 10 wins to follow up the national championship season. Not too bad, esp considering no one thinks they will win 6 games. Now, this is homerism at its best and my prognostication skills are terrible. I don't think AU will be as bad as people think but won't win every game either. With a little experience and keeping the injury bug away, this team has a chance to finish really strong. It will be a fun year, no matter what, and like I said before: I love this time of year! Play ball!

SEC WEST PREVIEW

Ok, I've had enough of this talk about conference expansion, Miami, Danny Sheridan and everything else that drags down college football. It's time for my prognostication skills to come forward and predict how the West will pan out. I will list my order of finish but will save my Auburn preview for another post.

1. Alabama: unfortunately (haha) the tide have 10 starters on defense returning this year and 6 on offense so they are the odds-on favorites to win the West and possibly the MNC. Questions arise however because of the vacancy of some pretty crucial positions, esp on offense, that bama has to replace. The first is quarterback. A J McCarron and Phillip Sims are vying for the top spot. McCarron filled in (mop up duty) for McElroy last year and has the most experience albeit a handful of snaps more than Sims. Saban has said Sims is an amazing athlete, but as we all know, athlete doesn't necessarily mean great leader/QB. Another is the top wide receiver now that Julio has become rich with the Falcons. Will Marquis Maze be able to handle the load now that there really isn't anyone that will demand a double team? The other is a dominant defensive lineman. Saban said himself that this defense will be different from his other ones because he doesn't have that dominate lineman that can disrupt so much. But, since when do we take anything Saban says to the media without a grain of salt?

I think bama will be favored in all their games and will probably win most if not all of them as well. Saban does not require alot from his QB, so if Richardson stays healthy all year and can carry the majority of the runs (due to injuries), bama will be just fine. If a team is going to beat them, they will have to play a perfect game b/c bama's defense is going to be really tough to score against. I don't really see a big hurdle in the schedule except maybe LSU, but it's at home. Auburn on the road will be tough, but certainly has proven manageable (see 2008/2010). I don't think bama will run the table (wishful thinking maybe?) but will go 11-1 and play in the SEC championship game against a very beatable SEC East team. A 12-1 tide team playing for the national championship is very probable.
My prediction: 12-1 and playing for the MNC.

2. LSU: LSU will have a great defense and if they can get any production out of the QB, LSU will be very very tough to beat. If Jefferson plays at all like a QB and not throw stupid interceptions, I believe the winner of the LSU and bama game wins the West. LSU does have a much tougher schedule than bama (who doesn't this year?) starting with a HUGE game vs. Oregon. LSU plays Auburn and Arkansas at home, but has bama and West Virgina on the road. I think one or two of those games trips them up and keeps them out of Atlanta.
My prediction: 10-2 and possibly playing as an at large team in a BCS bowl.

3. Arkansas: Arkansas' success will largely depend on new QB Tyler Wilson and the newly revamped defense. Arkansas' defense failed them miserably last year (see Auburn game) with the offense failing them less but in a big way (see bama game). Tyler Wilson has the best receiving corp in the SEC and possibly the nation and the running game was something that could have been really good until Knile Davis broke his ankle last week and is out for the year. That is why I put Arkansas third behind LSU. Ronnie Wingo is ok, but he is no Davis. If the defense plays well, Arky could win 10 games. If not, it will be a shootout every game and I'm not sure that Arky could hang like that with bama or LSU. I choose the latter.
My prediction: 10-2 with losses to bama and LSU but beating AU and a good Texas A&M team. Probably playing in Cotton or Capital One bowl.

4. Auburn - coming soon

5. Mississippi State: I'm not buying into Dan Mullen's resurgence of MSU into a team to be reckoned with just yet. He is a good coach but until I see MSU win a bunch, I can't put them high in the SEC West. Jackie Sherrill, largely regarded as the best coach ever at MSU, only won 9 games in his best season (I think that is right, I could look it up but I'm lazy. Nevertheless, it wasn't that many). MSU will be better and may even beat AU, but playing at JHS is tough and AU will be better than most think. With road games at Arky and UGA and playing LSU and bama at home will be too tough... even with a better team.
My prediction: 6-6 with losses to AU, LSU, UGA, USC, UA, Arky. Playing in a lower tier bowl, possibly in B'ham.

6. Mississippi: Ole Miss is just bad. They had Jeromiah Misoli last year and still stunk, mainly because of their defense. They allowed something like 6.1 yards per play which is atrocious. They replace alot of starters, but the schedule helps with the only road games being at Vandy, Fresno (what?), AU, UK and MSU. Home games, however, include BYU, bama, UGA, Arky and LSU. Houston Nutt has his work cut out for him.
My prediction: 4-8 (very generous) and maybe a close Egg Bowl game.

Fishing Trip

I wanted to talk about the trip I took about three weeks ago. It was a guys trip to Gulf Shores, AL to go deep sea fishing. Me and 8 other guys from work went down there on a Friday night and came back Sunday morning. The morning of the actual fishing day (Saturday), we awoke to a huge thunderstorm and torrential rain. We were supposed to meet the captain at the dock at 6 am but he had called and told us to wait an hour and then call back because it was raining too hard. The rain did slack some but never did stop completely. When we got to the dock, the captain met us there and asked if we really wanted to go out. We told him we were there to do some fishing so if it was safe, then let's do it. We, of course, knew of the risks of getting sea sick so we took precaution and each had a scopolamine patch on. We set out with it still raining and the trip out wasn't so bad....until we lost sight of land. Once that happened, there was nothing you could really focus on so it was easy to get carried away by the swaying of the boat. Oh yeah, did I mention there were 7 foot swells? I looked out at the horizon at one point and saw a huge base of black clouds that looked like a wall cloud of a tornado. The deckhand (Drew) told us it would probably behoove us to go inside the cabin while we went through that storm. So we did and really regretted it. I started to get really light headed and my mouth started watering and my stomach was turning. Before I puked, I got outside and was able to get a little better. Two guys were not so fortunate. They puked like crazy. Drew told us he had only ever seen one person get sick while wearing a scope patch and we had two. Once we stopped to fish, I felt fine. And boy did we catch some fish. Amberjack and Grouper were closed but we caught a ton of snapper and king mackerel and a fish Drew called albacore jack. It's in the amberjack family but not quite the same fish. Robert, one of the guys on the trip, caught a HUGE amberjack. He weighed at least 50 pounds and Robert worked on reeling him in for a good 30-40 minutes. Drew picked him up to his chin and his tailfin was dragging the deck. After the picture was taken, Drew dumped him overboard. It was really depressing, especially for Robert, to work that hard and then let the fish go. Oh well, it was still fun. We ended up going about 42 miles out to sea and the sun shone for about the last hour of fishing. Other than that, it either rained or was very overcast. Not too bad really, because it wasnt so hot. It took us 3 hours to ride back into shore and once we got back, we had Drew clean the fish for us and said we caught about 400-500 pounds of fish total. I was able to take back 4 gallon size baggies of filets back with me. I had a cookout for family (about 12 people) and still had 2 gallon and 4 quart size bags of fish left over. We had an amazing time and I would love to go back and do it again. In my next post, I want to talk about the trip Erika and I just took to Dismals Canyon near Phil Campbell this past week to celebrate our 7th anniversary.

Interesting state of affairs

Last week the SEC media days took place at the Wynfrey hotel in Hoover, AL. This is usually a time where you can bridge the doldrums of the summer into the start of fall practice. This year would have its share of story lines and crazy fans. It started on Monday with an Alabama graduate oddsmaker from Mobile making a huge accusation on the Paul Finebaum (Jerry Springer of sports talk radio) that the NCAA has found a "bag man" in the Cam Newton case and is trying to get him to come forward and admit he gave the Newtons money. This oddsmaker, Danny Sheridan, said he had two sources in the NCAA giving him this info. Really Danny? An oddsmaker that has two sources with inside knowledge of an ongoing case that will just willingly give up this info to you so you can spread it around? That makes alot of sense. Finebaum relies on people calling his show and listening to boost ratings so he doesnt care what lies he tells or who he ticks off to get those ratings. Well, he got Sheridan to boost ratings for media days. Apparently, Sheridan realized what a mistake he had made and started backtracking as soon as he started getting killed in the national media. Too late, though. He looks like a big idiot and now his credibility is shot. Wow, sounds a lot like other members of the media who have tried to lie and deceive their way to a big story only to make themselves look foolish (cough, cough, Thayer Evans, cough, Pete Thamel). Alabama has also had a story in the news, although since they are the chosen ones, not as big as AU in the news. A couple players have been seen signing merchandise and posing for pics and going to dinner with/for the owner of T-town menswear. This is an NCAA violation. Bama has sent a cease and desist letter to the store and the compliance dept has said no benefits have been received. But that doesnt matter because a student athlete cannot provide services (autographs, pics, etc for money or advertisement) for a retailer. I dont think anything will come of this, nor do I think that they should get in trouble, but what bothers me is the media will downplay this just like they do for everything else that bama does. Remember the text book scandal? Yeah, I remember when it first broke and the compliance dept from bama and the media downplayed the heck out of it and guess what happened? Yeah, it was a little bigger than and more serious than they made it out to be. I know this is a different situation but it amazes me that the media is still hanging on to this Newton story so hard after 9 months and after the NCAA has numerous times stated that they have found nothing to implicate Auburn in anything. I guess I should just expect the media to do this b/c apparently AU doesnt belong in the elite of college football. Oh well, this is what happens when you are on top... unless you are bama.
Next post I will talk about the deep sea fishing trip I and some guys from work went on.

Lockouts, Cam, Pageants and the Beach

Hi everyone,
Its been a while since my last post, but we have been very busy. This past weekend, my daughter was in the Little Miss Alabama state pageant in Huntsville, AL. She participated in this because she won a prelim pageant and had her entry fee paid. Anyone could be in the pageant but there were only 7 girls in my daughter's age group. There was a sports wear and gown section involved. Addi did really well! In fact, she won. She got a huge trophy as you can see in the picture and the crown that she is wearing is not the one she will get but very similar. An interesting fact, the crown is imported from Hong Kong and costs about $150! No wonder the entry fee is so much. A friend of Addi's, Ashton, was also in the pageant in the age group just younger than her's. She got first runner-up, but in my biased opinion, she should have won. Addi, Ashton, and Ashton's sister Ally all got to spend the night in a hotel the night before (with the moms of course) and get pedicures and eat ice cream and have a great time. They all had such a good time and I'm so glad they got to do that. My sister lives close to Huntsville and the rest of the family got to spend the night with her and visit. We all had a great time. After the pageant, we drove to the beach. We spent about a week there and had a blast. We played on the beach, went to Gulf World, rode the SeaScreamer and saw tons of dolphins, played in the pool and built sandcastles. This was the first beach trip the baby has been on. He absolutely love the water! A friend from work was staying close to where we were so we were able to spend the morning playing with his kids. The weather, for the most part, was great and not too hot.

The NFL and NBA are now officially locked out. This is great. I can't imagine a more petty and stupid reason to lock out and not play a freakin game than over money. I know, I know it's about more than that, but let's be honest. The bottom line is this is about money and how much money people can get and they call it "revenue sharing." Look, I could care less about the NBA and I have made that clear, but I know there are a lot of people that do like it, so for the fans, please come to an agreement and stop being so freakin greedy. Same for you NFL. It's never about the fans, but money. No, you say? How many times have the prices been lowered on tickets or food and drinks at the game in comparison to them raising the prices? How about ease of access to the players for autographs and such. I understand the need for security but a designated time and place for autographs would be very awesome. Also, with the gigantic salaries these guys are making, you would think that they would be a little more accommodating to the fans and act in a professional manner, but you can polish a turd but in the end it's still a turd.

As far as the Cam saga goes, Auburn's compliance director went on record yesterday for the first time describing, in detail, the events of Cam's eligibility issues last fall. But I thought you couldn't talk about that until the NCAA is finished with its investigation. You do the math. So, I hope all the haters out there will shut their pie-holes. There will be no games evacuated, forfeited or likewise. The National Championship will count and Cam will get to keep ALL his awards (as i say this I feel like doing the X across the lower half of my body, but i digress). Now, the NCAA, I'm sure, is interested in pursuing more info regarding the HBO 4, but, still to this date, no official letter of investigation has darkened Auburn's compliance door. Until then, no other word will be spoken of it (unless new developments occur).

Summer Doldrums

For the past 10-14 days, we have had temperatures in the upper 90's with no rain. It has been miserable, hot, muggy, dry, energy-sucking couple of weeks. It is almost too hot to even go to the pool. Yeah, when the water feels like a bath, it's to dang hot. We did buy a pool membership this year. The two older kids are old enough to need something to do during the day and not only do they have a good time, it wears them out! They sleep really well. A couple of weeks ago, we started trying to wean the baby from nursing. He did not like it really well at first, but after a couple days he started to drink milk from a sippy cup and also started sleeping all night. It is sooooooo nice. I had forgotten what it was like to have (almost) a whole night of uninterrupted sleep. The wife and kids will be going to the beach (without me) this weekend into next week. I'm not really excited about this, but I will get to go at the end of June so not too much longer. Also, having three small children at the beach is really not a relaxing vacation, but it is a lot of fun.

Quick sports update: A few Auburn junior baseball players were drafted this past week in the MLB draft. It was in later rounds so they will have to decide if they want to take their chances in the minors or go back for their senior season at Auburn. Also, football is in the middle of summer "voluntary workouts" so the only drama is if the QB transfer from NC State will be coming to Auburn. Just a little background: he is a dual QB from NC State named Russell Wilson. He had a really good year at NC State leading the ACC in a number of offensive categories last year and has signed a pro contract in baseball. Well, as you know, one can still play football even if they are a professional in another (see Kyle Parker) and Wilson has another year of eligibility left and he wanted out of NC State. So, State let him out of his scholarship so he could transfer and play right away. He is looking at AU and Wisconsin right now as his top two schools to transfer. Quick note: Wisconsin graduated a very successful senior QB so it makes sense to me that Wilson would want to go somewhere that he would play right away. AU is in a similar situation. They do not have an experienced QB returning either and could use a guy with experience to step in and lead. However, Wilson would not be able to practice until late summer and chemistry would be an issue as well. But, if he can come in and win, does it matter? I personally do not think he is coming, but if Malzahn and Chizik think that he can do the job, that's why they make the big bucks.

til next time....

Sports update

Auburn's baseball season ended similar to how the the whole season played out. Auburn came into the last weekend of the season needing only two wins to guarantee a spot in an NCAA regional and if they swept, AU would win the West. AU played Tennessee who by the way sported the worst record in the SEC. AU promptly lost two of three and while gaining a spot in the SEC tournament, they needed to win one game to get into the NCAA. Did they win one? Nope. Really, this was probably a good thing because AU has been so inconsistent this year. They would play really well (beating UA two of three) but then losing to Troy or Samford or USA in the middle of the week. They really dont deserve to be in a regional with the way they played throughout the year. There are alot of freshmen on the team that played significant innings this year, and AU has some good recruits coming in so the future looks good. AU just has to be more consistent in everything; fielding, hitting, pitching :)

My best friend and I got to go to a Braves game this past Friday. I havent been able to go to Turner Field in about two years and it is always a good time. The Braves have been a little like AU this year, very inconsistent. they are playing pretty well, but playing in the East with the Phillies and Marlins is pretty tough. I dont think anyone can beat the Phillies in the long run because they have an allstar pitching staff, but I do think the Braves can win the wild card. Jair Jurrjens has been awesome this year and if Lowe and Hudson can continue to pitch really well, the Braves could compete.

The NBA playoffs are coming to an end! The Heat and the Mavs are about to start a 7 game series. The Heat have Lebron, D-Wade, and Bosh and all the hype surrounding their allstar team playing the Mavs with J-Kidd and Dirk who might just be the best player in the league. I dont really like either of these teams, ok, i dont really like the NBA but I do hope the Mavs win. I do like Dirk and he is a clean player and plays really hard. But, really, I just want it to be over. I predict the Mavs in 6.

AU had their Big Cat Weekend this past weekend and got one commitment from it; a four-star OL from Colorado. There were many high profile recruits on hand and many left impressed. Hopefully, this will continue to a good recruiting class. Its still really early in the process and if i can stand it, I'll keep updating.