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The first game in Auburn's Post-Cam Newton Era (also known as the Barrett Trotter Era, according to the game announcers) did not go as expected—unless you expected Auburn to require a last-minute comeback to avoid a 10-point loss to unranked Utah State. Here's the onside kick and the ensuing drive that led to the Tigers' 42-38 win. More »
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It's the first big college-football Saturday of the season. Yay. No. 18 Ohio State, which lost its The in a haze of Tresselmanic scandal, plays Akron at noon (ESPN). Also at noon on the WWL, No. 23 Auburn hosts Utah State (2) and Northwestern visits Boston College (U). More »
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The Lee County Sheriff's Office in Opelika, Ala. took a creative approach to rounding up a few parents who'd fallen way behind in their child support payments: they told them they'd won free tickets to the annual Iron Bowl, and then they arrested them when they came to collect on the prize. It's like To Catch A Predator, but with more malice, because these people just wanted to watch a football game. More »
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Your morning roundup for May 5, the day a former vice president wants you to thank "enhanced interrogation" for the current president's visit to Ground Zero. More »
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Four Auburn football players—Antonio Goodwin, Shaun Kitchens, Mike McNeil and Dakota Mosley—were arrested today and charged with burglary, robbery, and theft of property, after an incident this morning. More »
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ESPN3 composed its love letter to Cam Newton today, with more than four hours of filming him walking around the field at Auburn's official pro day. Viewers were treated to Cam posing in backpack, Cam joking with teammates, Cam bending over to tie his shoes, Cam stretching his legs, and at the very end of it all, Cam throwing some passes. Under the gaze of an unknown number of HD cameras, he connected on 50 of 60 attempts in his drills — but a soft glow effect and a slow jam makes him look even better than that. More »
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Harvey Almorn Updyke, a 62 year-old from Dadeville, Ala., has been arrested for poisoning the beloved oak trees at Aurburn's Toomer's Corner. Updyke, according to his Facebook profile, is a retired Texas State Trooper and a dedicated 'Bama fan (note the patterned hat; he also has a Facebook friend named Crimson). He is being held on a $50,000 bond and will be charged with criminal mischief for applying the herbicide. More »
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The university announced that the part-time employee was fired for playing "unauthorized" music at Bryant-Denny Stadium. The unauthorized music also happened to be directed at Auburn quarterback Cam Newton. More »
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According to an emailer named "A Person With Connections" the laptop that Auburn's quarterback whipping boy Cam Newton stole from that poor kid in Florida has been recovered and is now for sale on the Scuzz Money Market. Here's his pitch. More »
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The Throbbing Purple of Northwestern face-off against the Auburn Eldricks. What say you, Todd McShay? More »
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Have you ever been to Auburn? No? Well, I have, and IT SUCKS! Which is why, in order to "attract" recruits, the program has to dispatch its illiterate boosters to harass the nation's top prep talent into signing with them. More »
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Tonight ESPN brings you a match-up of teams whose fans are pissed with their lives, their teams, and the fact that it's only October and they're already prepared to start discussing next year's football season. What's the most surprising thing about both teams so far this season? How godawful the offenses have been. West Virginia averaging 22.2 points a game while Auburn checks in at a robust 19.1. Both in the top ten at some point early in September, they've vanished from the polls entirely. A solid segment of each fan base wants their coach fired, and now they're coming to you live from Morgantown/Deadwood for Thursday night football. College football truly does not get any better. Except when it does. If there is any member of either fan base who feels confident about what's going to happen in this game, he's already drunk on his granddaddy's moonshine. More »
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The most shocking image of the college football weekend occurred in the second half of Missouri-Nebraska. And it had nothing to do with the fact that Missouri hung 52 on Nebraska before the third quarter ended. It was finding out that Missouri’s chubby and short quarterback who will win the Heisman Trophy is boyz with Warren Buffett, the sage of Omaha. As if that weren’t enough, they posed for photos with one another. Well, of course they did. And of course the two regularly exchange email messages as well. Does Warren Buffett use emoticons? I swear to god if he does, I’m going to be crushed. You wouldn’t expect anything less though after seeing them pose back-to-back with a smug, “I just bought See’s Candy, bitch,” look on their faces. More »
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The eyes of the college football world shift to Nashville, Tennessee this weekend where the mighty Vanderbilt Commodores will be hosting Auburn. This is a huge game for Vandy. The last time they beat Auburn was 1955, the same year that Rosa Parks instituted her bus boycott in Montgomery. Yep, black people couldn't ride in the front of buses the last time Vanderbilt won in this "rivalry." But the theme of this weekend is undefeated Big 12 teams go on the road to face tests against decent conference foes that they should beat but could slip up against. Texas Tech is traveling to Kansas State, Texas is headed to Colorado, and Missouri will be at Nebraska. All three of these games will be broken down below as soon as I recover from my hangover brought about by playing Sarah Palin cliches during last night's vice presidential debate. (I'd like to take this opportunity to give a shoutout to Ravenwood High School in Brentwood, Tennessee. You get extra credit for reading this.) By the way, another top ten team already gone via Thursday night football? Congrats to Pitt fans (Wannstedt is safe for another few weeks!) and wave goodbye once more to South Florida. On to the breakdowns of the 10 most interesting games. More »
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Each week more signs appear behind the stage at ESPN's College Gameday. Some are original and funny (Knowshon Crossing sign with his leaping outline), some are entirely inside jokes (let's make a sign with our friend's name on it and hold it up for three hours early in the morning), and some are deemed offensive and are destroyed by ESPN heavies. Which brings us to the sign posted above, "Lou Holtz Spits, Mark May Swallows." It comes to me via reader Pete and he says, " By 10:05 AM ESPN had already confiscated it and broken it apart, but it did set off quite a commotion the few minutes it was up." So now you know if you're interested in trying to sneak your sign past the heavies at ESPN, you're out of luck. Unless that sign says, "Lee Corso is a penis", then you may survive for a little while. I've always thought that Gameday doesn't take advantage of this signage enough. For instance, what if they actually made Desmond Howard do something, anything worthwhile on the show, and put him to work selecting the five best signs of the day and bringing them on set for the final segment? Or the top three signs? Actually, given his sense of humor Howard might not be the best choice. But wouldn't this be a great idea? To acknowledge all the fans who show up early in the morning and scream and yell and make the show such a success. Granted "Lou Holtz spits, Mark May Swallows" is not going to make the cut, but for original signs with good humor, wouldn't it be cool to encourage the creativity? Instead of, you know, taking a college kid's sign and breaking it up after deeming it offensive. (Offensive is a stretch here anyway, Lou Holtz does spit and Mark May does swallow...sometimes, or he would die.) Could Pete have gotten away with, "Lou Holtz Expectorates and Mark May Ingests." I think so. I want to know which ESPN guru is in charge of deciding whether a sign is offensive or not. I'm picturing this bespectacled guy sitting in front of a large HD screen on the Gameday bus, television images reflected off his glasses, laptop in lap, and googling sign phrases with laser-like focus. Then he has like fifteen guys dressed entirely in black (the ESPN shockforce), snaps his fingers, and Gino Torretta goes outside and wreaks havoc. Either that or they borrow David Pollack from CBS and send him out to say, "Golly gee, y'all should have known better," and Pollack throws the signs down and then skips from one side of the sign to another, smiling at you all the while, as he destroys your sign. Anyway, if you've ever wondered whether ESPN brings the muscle to break down offensive signs, now you know. On to 8 other things I noted from this week's games. 1. Someone finally stopped Tim Tebow on a 4th and 1 shotgun sneak. That team was Ole Miss. Prior to this stop, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Ole Miss had all been victimized by the Tebow fourth down sneak leading to victories. It was believed by many, much like the four minute mile, that this play simply couldn't be bested. And then Ole Miss stopped it. A Houston Nutt coached team stopped it. Wow. When this final score was announced at UT-Auburn, there was a roar throughout the stadium. A roar so loud that the Florida guys with their sleevless t-shirts and the Florida girls with their bingo wings, felt a sudden chill of air on the backs of their exposed arms. Here's the play. Note how Ole Miss sends every single player storming into the center of the line. There isn't a single player more than two yards from the line of scrimmage. If Florida goes play action here, they win. Or even with the Tim Tebow jump pass. New theory: Florida can't handle the rural SEC schools. Ole Miss has won two in a row in the Swamp, Miss. State sent the Zooker packing, and Auburn's owning of the Gators is well-chronicled. There's something about cows that spells Gator disaster. Otherwise how to explain the incongruous site of Ole Miss fans mocking the Gator Chomp with a derogatory chop of their own in Gainesville. 2. Wisconsin blows a 19-0 lead at Michigan and loses. As if that weren't bad enough this was the biggest second-half comeback in Michigan stadium history. That's 500 games. This is one of those losses where if you're a Wisconsin fan you find yourself sitting outside in the fading light staring off into the coming darkness thinking, "No matter what happens, Michigan is always going to be better than we are at football. Always." Michigan had 5 turnovers and only 21 yards of offense in the first half. And they won. Wisconsin had an undefeated team, was favored, and choked away the second half. How painful was it? Wisconsin scored on a two-point conversion to tie the game but was penalized and failed on the second attempt. 3. Tennessee quarterback Jonathan Crompton is the worst quarterback in my life at UT. He was 8-23 for 67 yards against Auburn. To say that this game was an atrocious display of football is insulting to the word atrocious. From UT giving Auburn a defensive touchdown by failing to execute the always complicated handoff, to Auburn's quarterback, Chris Todd, having the arm strength of a girl's power puff quarterback, this thing was epically bad on every level. How bad? Auburn's fans booed their team while they were leading in the fourth quarter. How bad part two? Jonathan Crompton's entire quarterbacking skill seems to consist of throwing the ball really hard. He didn't complete a pass for the final 20 minutes of the game. At one point, though, he did manage to throw a three-yard slant pattern 400 miles an hour. No one on earth could have caught this thing. Yep, he's Ricky Vaughn. My book is going to be awesome. It might just end up being an itemized roster of how much money Jonathan Crompton has cost me. There was no joy in either fan base aw we left the stadium. Everyone looked like they'd just witnessed an execution. 4. Duke beats UVa 31-3. Meaning that Duke, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt are a combined 12-1 this season. The only loss among the three? Northwestern beat Duke. All three are likely to go bowling. As if that weren't enough ESPN's College Gameday just announced yesterday that they're coming to Vanderbilt for the game against Auburn this weekend. Seriously, Vanderbilt is hosting College Gameday. Any Tennessee fan who said that losing offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe wouldn't hurt was a fool. Duke is probably 1-3 without him, UT is 3-1 with him. Anyway, the big news here is that Vanderbilt becomes the smartest school since Williams-Amherst to get College Gameday. I'm expecting signs that are so insulting, biting, and smart that ESPN isn't smart enough to note their sublime subterfuge. Don't disappoint me Vandy, don't disappoint me. 5. Alabama eviscerates Georgia. Much to the chagrin of Georgia fans, I've been one of those people who has been saying all along that Georgia was overvalued relative to the other teams in the SEC. But even I was shocked by this outcome. 31-0 at the half? Imagine how bad it would have been if Georgia hadn't blacked out the stadium. What's the only thing worse than watching your team lose 14-12? Having to drive back across the whole state of Alabama and listen to Crimson Tide radio announcer Eli Gold have 48 orgasms on the radio. Here's Eli, pictured above. By the way, can Alabama fans back me up on this, is Eli the only radio announcer on the Crimson Tide broadcast capable of speaking in sentences? Everyone else he had on-air with him just spoke occasional words and then uttered sounds after. How did they select these guys? Worse, who did they beat out? Eli Gold sounds like a Shakepearean actor and his co-workers sound like stand-ins for the missing link. 6. Oklahoma is your new number 1 team after the dust setlles on Saturday's results. The Sooners dispatched TCU 35-10. Four of the top ten lose. Alabama slides in at number 2 after their pasting of Georgia. Three teams from the Big 12 join two from the SEC. Anyone who tells you they have any idea what the hell is going to happen for the rest of the season is a damn fool. Survival is the operative word. Are we headed towards another two-loss national champion? Perhaps. 7. Don't look now but BYU is going to cause some major BCS headaches. They moved up to number 8 and only play one top 25 opponent for the remainder of the season (at home against Utah on the final week of their regular season) With all the attrition up top could BYU end up in the title game? Yeah, they really could. 8. UConn took down Louisville to go to 5-0 and reach the top 25 at 24 with fellow top ten crasher South Florida from the Big East. Which brings us to a second crazy thought, could BYU and South Florida end up in the national championship game? Looking at both of their schedules they'll be favored to be undefeated come season's end (with the possible exception for USF's season finale on December 6th at West Virginia). Fans would demand a playoff then, right? Right? More »
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If you stayed up past midnight on the east coast last night to watch USC-Oregon State right now you're blearily wiping your eyes and cursing the decision as lunch nears and all you want to do is crawl under your desk and sleep. If you're like me you might also be questioning why you let Birmingham, Alabama's finest talk radio show host, Ian Fitzsimmons of JOX radio, convince you to do shots in celebration of Mark Sanchez's fourth quarter interception. Shots only a few minutes before you have to stumble across the street to your hotel and lay in bed realizing that the most shocking game of the college football season is already complete. And it's still September. Which means that suddenly, amazingly, the national title game has no one's name written in. Hell, we don't even know who deserves to be number one. More »
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The annual Auburn-LSU showdown lived up to the hype last night, as redshirt freshman QB Jarrett Lee found Brandon LaFell with an 18-yard touchdown pass with just over a minute remaining. That strike proved to be the difference, as the sixth ranked Tigers pulled out a tough road win, and now have dreams of a national title dancing inside Les Miles's dome. More »
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Here's a letter from Auburn's dean of students Dr. Johnny Green that was sent out to the student population (then to us), prepping them for the big game against LSU this weekend. This seems like it could possibly backfire. No booing! More »
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Sometimes choosing which college football games to watch is tough. Particularly since, unlike the NFL, the games kick off at odd hours, on odd stations, with odd match-ups. And there are so damn many of them. As college football has become more commoditized the top 2 or 3 games soak up 99% of the attention and the rest of the games sort of fly under the radar. Especially if they don't happen to feature top 25 teams. So we're doing you a favor with a viewing guide of sorts. Not necessarily the most competitive or the most scintillating games (although those are included as well) but the most interesting. If I were South Carolina, I'd find that girl in the stands and send her to Georgia's hotel...pronto. 8. UVa at UConn (-12.5)- Remember how Al Groh was supposed to revitalize Cavs football? Yeah, those dreams have long since passed. Now dontfirealgroh.com gets more and more frustrating each week. Already Cavs fans are rooting for the good ole days when their players were being arrested at gay bars to return. But has it really gotten to the point where a UConn team that scored 12 points on Temple, Temple!, opens as a favorite by more than 12 over Virginia? Yep, that time has come. UVa beat UConn last year 17-16. But you have to take UVa with that spread, right? 7. Oregon (-8) at Purdue- This game will take 5 hours to play and end with a score of something like 56-49. The new college football rules designed to shorten the game have no prayer of helping here. Joe Tiller is the most reliably average of all Big Ten coaches. He's good for 7 or 8 wins a year (10 bowl games in 11 seasons) and will inevitably have at least a single game in September that makes you think Purdue might be a factor. Then, they aren't. Unless it's sleeting and his mustache freezes. Then, you have to watch. Oregon is probably USC's most legit challenger in the Pac-10 and no one has mentioned them all season. Why? Because as much as the Pac-10 complains about a lack of media attention on the East Coast, the only Pac-10 teams that get any West Coast media attention are in major markets in California. The most interesting thing about this game? Both teams had a bye coming in. Why? (Note, evidently this is not true. Both teams actually played games; Purdue-Northern Colorado and Oregon-Utah State. Even still, I stand by my bye week statement.) The second most interesting thing about this game, Oregon is traveling to Indiana for a football game. Again, why? This is one of those cross-regional games that makes no sense. Does Purdue bring in northwest recruits? No. Does Oregon hit up Indiana for players? No. Have Purdue and Oregon fans been clamoring for this match-up? No. So, why play? Just so the Pac-10 and the Big 10 can play another game on the same day as USC-Ohio State that no one on earth will remember? Brilliant. But look at all the pretty touchdowns. 6. Auburn (-10.5) at Miss. State- Last year Miss. State and Sylvestor Croom found a way to beat Auburn at Auburn. Now, Auburn has a new quarterback, a new offensive coordinator, a new defensive coordinator, has looked mediocre in two wins thus far and they are favored by two scores in a road game. This makes zero sense to me. Granted State has looked horrible, but even when State wins they look horrible. How could you not take MSU here? I'll tell you, if Croom makes the mistake of scheduling the team fieldtrip to the only escalator in Starkville on the Friday before this game. Last year three starters were injured trying to walk the "magic stairs." 5. Oklahoma (-20) at Washington- Can you imagine what will happen if the officials, feeling sorry for Washington's excessive celebration penalty last week, blow another call on the west coast in favor of a Pac-10 school against Oklahoma. I'm rooting for this to happen just to see Bob Stoops storm the field and choke the head ref to death with his headset cord. Otherwise the Ty Willingham death march is likely to continue. 4. Michigan (-2) at Notre Dame- The fact that Michigan is favored in this game speaks volumes about Jimmy Clausen's hair. Because if you've watched Michigan's offense thus far they look like Australian aboriginees being instructed in how to build websites without first learning to read. Yet, amazingly, the over/under on this game is 37. How? The score of this game is going to be 13-10 Michigan and after it's over, Charlie Weis's amazingly invisible crotch is going to be soiled. But not for long. Immediately after he soils himself, Notre Dame fans will arrive to lick up his mess. All the while exclaiming, "Oh, yeah, Ty Willingham's the one who really blows. This isn't a blow job, this is just a European crotch cleaning." 3. Kansas at South Florida (-3.5)- This game is actually being played on Friday which means 99% of college football fans are going to think, man that sounds like a good game. Only the game will already have been played before we realize it's going on. Which is a shame because Kansas's Mark Mangino and USF's Jim Leavitt are the two angriest coaches on the sideline not named Mike Gundy. Kansas hasn't lost since John Brown's Raid but South Florida is favored at home. Anyone who tells you they have any idea what's going to happen in this game is a fool. USF is the moderately attractive girl of college football. Except she's bipolar. One party she's ski-polling two guys while sitting on the drier, the next weekend she's worn a navy pantsuit to the party and is crying into her Cranberry Diet Mike's Hard Lemonade. I'm sure this is tough to take for USF fans. Hopefully for Mark Mangino's sake he'll avoid having his picture taken alongside oranges this time. 2. Georgia (-7.5) at South Carolina- Steve Spurrier is reverting to 1994 and plans on alternating between his two quarterbacks, Smelley and Beecher. Neither of them is any good and they're probably not going to be able to throw bubble screens to wide receiver Kenny McKinley, who has an injured hamstring. Meanwhile, Georgia comes into town incensed because Mark May didn't invite Knowshon Moreno onto the set and let him demonstrate his great leaping ability by tea-bagging Lou Holtz. Also, former Georgia defensive end David Pollack is now a member of the CBS announcing team. In what capacity, I'm not sure. There's a strong part of me that wants his only role to be high-skipping into the press box while barking with Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson walking calmly behind him. This game may be the last chance Steve Spurrier has to prove he's still relevant. Otherwise he sinks to 1-7 in his last 8. It's also one of two early SEC East games (the other is Florida-UT) where every other SEC East fanbase needs to be rooting for the underdog to win so chaos rules in the SEC East. 1. Ohio State (-11.5) at USC- Too much has been said about this game already. And the most interesting question, hasn't even been answered. How much does USC have to beat Ohio State (sans Beanie) by to guarantee that Ohio State has no chance to play in the BCS title game? 30? 40? I'm interested in the number because I really have no idea. More »
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We're rolling through the top 25 and later this afternoon we'll finally crack into the top ten. Until then enjoy the melodic stylings of 2003 Auburn grad Brian J. Stultz as he brings down the hammer on the Tide, raises the profile of apostrophized greatness that is Sen'Derrick Marks, and defends Tommy Tuberville's transition lenses sunglasses. Also, it appears that our LSU previewer has dropped out so if you want the great honor of previewing the defending national champion then email me establishing your LSU bona fides via blog or topless photographs of LSU undergrads. More »
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Of course the legal strategy was pay a retarded man to take the blame for a fight you started. The fight happened at the 2005 Iron Bowl when an Alabama fan, Joey Barrett, Jr., yelled, "Roll Tide!" at an Auburn fraternity house. Oh, and the Alabama fan happened to be a cage fighter armed with a knife. In the ensuing brawl one of the Phi Kappa Tau brothers was stabbed and sent to the hospital with a collapsed lung. To try and escape punishment, Barrett offered a retarded man, Louie Holtz, a car to say he'd beaten and stabbed the fraternity brothers. This offer led to a mistrial in the first case. So a cage-fighting Alabama fan doesn't know right from wrong? Shocking. More »
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