Friday, August 20, 2004
ESPN Insider on Auburn Football
I subscribed to ESPN.com's Insider package last night (partly to gear up for a fantasy football league with Hoser), and I have been amazed at the depth of their college football team previews. There are a couple of surprises in the Auburn section that I think simply must be shared, in the name of spreading information and tweaking Bubba. ESPN.com is rather clever in that they disable the ability to copy text from the insider information, so I get to type it in by hand. As a result, you're only getting the biggest surprises/highest impact parts. There's just no point in posting "hey, the running backs are good!" because we all know that. This had best be worth at LEAST a half-dozen comments from you people!
The good:
The bad:
The ugly:
So, our offense may be better than expected, our defense may have a rough start of the year, and we got murdered on in-state recruiting by a team that's been on probation for the past two years. Could be an interesting year. I'm hoping for 8-3, with our cupcake out-of-conference schedule.
The good:
(New Offensive Coordinator) Borges said the wide receivers were the biggest surprise he encountered at Auburn.
"Overall, the receivers were a very nice surprise for me," Borges said. "It turned out to be a much better position than I had anticipated when I came here."
The bad:
"It starts on defense and I'm very concerned about us defensively," Tuberville said. "We've been very good defensively the last few years and last year we lost five of our front seven. I'm very concerned with that. You win with defense consistently. I think we can win some games on offense and we'll have to be much improved on offense because defensively, we're going to take a step back until the players that we do have that are going to be very good SEC defensive football players grow up. They're going to have to grow up in a very quick period of time."
"We're going to be very young and inexperienced and we're going to make some mistakes. Our offense and kicking game is going to really have to step up for us to have a chance."
Auburn defensive coordinator Gene Chizik agrees. Chizik, (unneeded background here) was unhappy with his charges for the better part of the spring. He called the defense "below average" at one point.
"I don't think we're very good," Chizik said in the spring. "We've got a long way to go. Thank goodness we don't play for five months."
The ugly:
(As a result of the botched attempt by Walker, Lowder, and Co. to replace Tuberville with Petrino before the Iron Bowl) Recruiting suffered greatly as Alabama beat the Tigers on virtually every major in-state prospect, sans Alabaster safety Tony Bell.
So, our offense may be better than expected, our defense may have a rough start of the year, and we got murdered on in-state recruiting by a team that's been on probation for the past two years. Could be an interesting year. I'm hoping for 8-3, with our cupcake out-of-conference schedule.
Full Steam Ahead!
Wednesday was the first day of fall semester for most students at Auburn University -- the College of Veterinary Medicine started Monday -- so I think this is a very good time to reinvigorate the Broun Blog.
Myself, I plan to have a more regular schedule posting to the blog, including updates about social events at Auburn, football and other athletics, and news of interest from around the region. And with the AU Alumni Association directory at my disposal, I may start extending invitations to former Brounies outside the current roster's social circle, such as upperclassmen from my freshman year.
There are a number possibilities for the upcoming season of Auburn football. We can use the blog to help arrange on-campus reunions, and we could even use a comments page as a chatroom of sorts for those who must watch/listen from home.
I encourage everyone to post when they can, to frequent the site on a more regular basis, and to tell other former Brounies about what we're trying to do here.
Myself, I plan to have a more regular schedule posting to the blog, including updates about social events at Auburn, football and other athletics, and news of interest from around the region. And with the AU Alumni Association directory at my disposal, I may start extending invitations to former Brounies outside the current roster's social circle, such as upperclassmen from my freshman year.
There are a number possibilities for the upcoming season of Auburn football. We can use the blog to help arrange on-campus reunions, and we could even use a comments page as a chatroom of sorts for those who must watch/listen from home.
I encourage everyone to post when they can, to frequent the site on a more regular basis, and to tell other former Brounies about what we're trying to do here.
Birmingham's Stadium Woes.
From Southern Appeal, a politically conservative weblog with a decidedly Southern point of view:
(And let's be honest. Those who argued that Birmingham was a "neutral site" for the Iron Bowl were full of it. As this blog entry admits, Legion Field was a second home to Bama, and Birmingham is neutral when it comes to the Rivalry the same way Stalingrad was neutral during the Cold War. Sure, it wasn't Moscow, but...)
The closing of Legion Field's upper deck will probably lend more strength to the seemingly wacky movement to build a dome stadium in Birmingham. A lot of people think that the plan's ultimate goal is to attract an NFL team -- 'cause that's the only logical thing, right? -- but I think they miss the mark.
Barring a dynasty-caliber team using old SEC coaches and players, no "big-time" professional football team will ever succeed in the state of Alabama, even in its largest city, and I think the "dome stadium" crowd knows this. I think there are only two real reasons they want a dome stadium:
1. To steal the SEC Championship from Atlanta.
2. To bring Bama back to Birmingham.
Consider the possibility of attracting Bama, and the dome stadium idea finally fits the profile of the schmucks who support it.
Birmingham's Legion Field, aka the "Gray Lady," is a legendary college football venue. It has fallen on hard times, however, as witnessed by yesterday's decision of the city's park department to close the 9,000-seat east upper deck because of "structural problems." This makes it very likely that the University of Alabama -- a frequent user of the field since 1927 -- will never play another game there.I've never had any love for Legion Field, myself. It's a miserable stadium in a bad part of town. I'm not too upset to see it deteriorate, nor does the possibility of Alabama staying out of Birmingham break my heart.
(And let's be honest. Those who argued that Birmingham was a "neutral site" for the Iron Bowl were full of it. As this blog entry admits, Legion Field was a second home to Bama, and Birmingham is neutral when it comes to the Rivalry the same way Stalingrad was neutral during the Cold War. Sure, it wasn't Moscow, but...)
The closing of Legion Field's upper deck will probably lend more strength to the seemingly wacky movement to build a dome stadium in Birmingham. A lot of people think that the plan's ultimate goal is to attract an NFL team -- 'cause that's the only logical thing, right? -- but I think they miss the mark.
Barring a dynasty-caliber team using old SEC coaches and players, no "big-time" professional football team will ever succeed in the state of Alabama, even in its largest city, and I think the "dome stadium" crowd knows this. I think there are only two real reasons they want a dome stadium:
1. To steal the SEC Championship from Atlanta.
2. To bring Bama back to Birmingham.
Consider the possibility of attracting Bama, and the dome stadium idea finally fits the profile of the schmucks who support it.
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
The Blogger Navbar.
As you may have noticed, the banner ad at the top of the Broun Blog has been replaced with Blogger's new Navbar, which is designed to aid navigation. The Broun Blog is not yet in Google's index, so the search engine is not yet much help, but I've taken steps to remedy the problem.
