Well, that time has come. I’m not going to duck this week’s post just because we lost and frankly looked like hot garbage while doing it. Multiple teams including Georgia looked like their games from the previous week took something out of them. It looks like one coach is standing at the standing at the precipice of what could be an unbelievable fall.
Let’s get it out of the way and start today’s trip in the Classic City.
I’m sure these 2 geniuses were crowing about going 16-0 and winning the whole damn thing last Saturday night after Tuscaloosa. No excuses. Auburn played physical on both sides of the ball … that surprised me. Byrum Brown never had the backbreaking turnover, but Gunner did … that surprised me. The terrible penalties? That surprised me.
To people who want to place the blame completely on Gunner (yes, he gets some of the blame … see above), he wasn’t on the field when the only play that seemed to work for Auburn was the QB run. The undisciplined penalties weren’t by the offense.
I admit I start every game with the defense because that’s Kirby’s side of the ball and where our talent has been stacked. The defense was spotted a 14-0 lead even with Puglisi having a forced involvement in the first drive. The effort after that until the 4th quarter was awful, period.
Kirby was right during his press conference. All of this team’s goals sit in front of them IF, IF, IF they play disciplined, complementary football. There could be multiple losses on the horizon if they don’t. Any big overarching conclusion about the direction of the program and especially of Kirby’s stewardship of the program over 1 loss should be ridiculed.
Let’s move on to the banks of the Tennessee River as Georgia beats Alabama for the 2nd week in a row.
All week we were told that Bama was going to take out all of their frustration from last Saturday on Tennessee. Instead, they got their asses beat in Knoxville. -2 turnover margin, less than 4 yards per play, 24:00 of time of possession. They gave up 20 first downs and 350 yards to an offense led by a quarterback whose name sounds more like the chairman of the board of your local Kiwanis Club rather than an SEC quarterback.
I wonder if the windows of Kalen DeBoer’s office have brick-resistant glass in them. The Auburn team we played yesterday (Will it be?) will whip Alabama in T-town.
Let’s go out to DKR where Sark is looking into the abyss after losing at home to the Handbags who looked like garbage the last 2 weeks.
Even in a win, the North Florida trailer park trash doesn’t get a pass.
Damn, the meteor didn’t hit again. The Texas faithful have to be fit to be tied at this point. They have lost 2 games in a row to mediocre to OK programs. Texas was 2-10 on 3rd down. Florida had 38 minutes of possession. The Longhorns blow a 1st half 2 TD lead to a team that was absolutely lit up and left for dead the last 2 weeks.
Hey, Handbags, when I bookmarked this, I was hoping you would completely melt down on Saturday. I don’t know if Sumrall is another Sun Belt Billy or the next coming of the Corch. What I do know is that you are going to have our full and complete attention in 2 weeks’ time. That hasn’t typically gone well for you over the last 10 years.
Let’s move on to lovely hamlet of Oxford to check on the ultimate SEC interloper, Missouri.
That running game that ran all over Florida and Texas A&M the last couple of weeks went for 39 yards on 26 carries, and Ole Miss gashed the Tigers for almost 500 yards and 31 points. Is that the Ole Miss defense we’ll see the rest of the season or did they put it together for one day in Oxford?
Missouri fans who call Drinkwitz a “beta” deserve to have him leave and take his abilities elsewhere. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see an ACC school make a run at him this offseason.
Let’s move out west to check in on the ultimate media darling after they lose their first game against a real opponent.
If Notre Dame loses to Miami in South Bend in 3 weeks, will the committee penalize them for their joke of a schedule come rankings time? Certainly, if they lose to both currently ranked opponents remaining on their schedule, there’s no way they can be in top 12 to get their special treatment that no one else gets.
Can the sport’s powers that be quit treating Notre Dame like it’s 1976 instead of 2026? Of course, now we’re going to devalue winning a conference in the expanded playoff, so any motivation the Domers would have joining a conference for football is now gone.
We’re going to finish our trip in what has become a mainstay on our trips over the last few years … Clemson, South Carolina … and it has nothing to do with what happened in their win over Charleston Southern.
Yes, you would expect a Civil War reference to come from the state of South Carolina. To this genius, the problem the Tigers have has nothing to do with programs from the north raiding for talent. It’s that Dabo hasn’t found an NFL top of the draft type of quarterback since Trevor Lawrence left. No one has ever really thought Swinney is this great Xs & Os kind of coach. I don’t even think he’s this great CEO within the program itself. He got people to open their checkbooks and cheered on lil old Clemson to the IPTAY crowd. Everyone knows he got a few players and took advantage of the Almost Competitive Conference while Miami and FSU were down.
What did you see this weekend? Let us know in the comments.
We were screaming for Kirby to call timeout from our seats when Gunner forgot he was the holder on the field goal unit. Made zero sense he wouldn’t use one there.
I know he says he wasn’t concussed, but it sure did seem like Gunner was off the entire game after that first play. Not being on the field for the FG, missing the short pass so badly over the intended receiver resulting in an INT, general bad pass attempts throughout the game…
The silver lining for me me is, despite 3 turnovers, 3 personal fouls, and a botched field goal, it still took Auburn until the final play to win the game. Surely the team won’t have another day where it shoots itself in the foot to that level of folly.
While wasting a TO on the old “we’re in no mans land, we’ll try to draw them offsides, but I don’t want to lose 5 yards so as the play clock is running down, I’ll call it…..” I’m sure someone has done the analytics, but surely the value of a TO there is worth much, much more than not losing 5 yards of field position (particularly in a spot where your punter might be able to use the extra space)…..
Exactly.
Speaking of punters, we’re really missing the Thunder from Down Under. Miller hasn’t been bad, but he also hasn’t been the consistent field position weapon we had become accustomed to.
Thorson was at the game. I saw him walking in the 200 level of the southeast side of the stadium during the game. Unfortunately it was booming kicks or pinning the other team inside the 20 yard line.
I was doing the same. I couldn’t believe Kirby didn’t call timeout there to reset. I don’t know if Gunner missed the field goal signal or didn’t see Woodring come on the field.
For all the bad pass attempts during the game, Gunner was still 22 for 34 for 270 and threw 2 nice TD passes. One interception was a great play by the safety coming off the hash (Gunner stared down Dandridge?). The other interception was just a poor throw. It wasn’t the wrong decision. If I recall correctly, neither led to points but did take a potential scoring opportunity away from us. My problem with Gunner is that he seems to have too many balls batted at the line of scrimmage. I would be interested in hearing from a QB guru why that is because it seems more than bad luck.
He executed the 94 yard drive to tie the game like a Heisman candidate in complete control. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know the game.
I probably didn’t word that the best. I meant he missed the back out of the backfield badly and the INT down the sideline was never open. Those two passes plus the high throw for the other INT were not Gunner like.
What I’ve learned from MBG is every school not named Vanderbilt or Arkansas are expected to go 16-0.
MBG is one of the best parts of college football’s finest traditions schadenfreude. Watching other fan bases melt down can be very pleasurable.
There is a difference between suggesting “everyone played perfect except one player” and “one player lost the game.” If a kicker had 3 shots at a 30 yard field goal, missed all of them and you lost by a point, would you point at missed tackles for the loss? No one would. Yes, players made mistakes across the board. Only one gave the ball away 3 times, once when the game was either a W or going to OT and instead turned it into an L. Only one.
Wins have plenty of missed tackles and penalties to go around. Losses have 3 TO’s.
Sorry, but I don’t agree. It was a team loss.
When the most important player on the field makes the mistakes, the errors are magnified (see Mateer, John from a few weeks ago). I didn’t see Gunner Stockton on the field for likely the most important possession of the game … the beginning of the 3rd quarter when the defense got shredded by QB run and had 2 major (one of those undisciplined) penalties to set up the TD to put us down by 10.
You’ve made your point clear over the last 2 1/2 days.
Excellent. I’ll kindly await others, who with the benefit of the favored viewpoint, will be given as much time as necessary to assemble their words carefully enough to try and do likewise. God knows they’ll need it.
Oh Gawd…enough already. By your logic Gunner would have been the only player to win the game if he doesn’t fumble. If the OL is road-grading Auburn CMB isn’t calling so many QB draws and counters to begin with. If someone keeps a hat on that AU LB who ate us up we win. If Frazier could see holes again, if our TEs and Bobo didn’t combine to create a disappearing act, if the D tackled their QB low instead of bouncing off of him high, if…if…if. IF your take is one guy lost the game on one play you’re the idiot. We’re not in position to win without that guy.. And the entire D was more than welcome to shut Auburn down and head into OT but they completely face-planted when it counted the most. That was a team loss including coaching with mistakes made by key people all on our sideline.
Insulting ee and the rest of us with the accusation of a favored narrative that doesn’t match yours is out of line.
Still a bit hazy on where you’re coming from here. What other things happened in the second quarter that gave Auburn the ball last at midfield in a tie game?
Feel free to revise and extend until we reach a point of clarity.
Attention Alabama and Texas fans. Georgia lost a home and managed not to throw shit at the opposing players. We missed Bolden, but I the defense absolutely was maddeningly inconsistent.
We also managed not to complain incessantly about officiating, whine about injuries and just say we didn’t get the breaks.
I have a friend that last night was trending heavily into that Dabo mode you mentioned above. He was telling me how rough we’ll have it next year and beyond because we don’t have the talent. I do agree the talent overall is more dispersed among all teams now, and that we seem to be set up for a good run this year. But I don’t know that it’s time for gloom and doom. Kirby and his coaches still seem to do a good job of developing talent.
There’s always a Corch lurking about out there somewhere.
They know that Stetson Bennett IS Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence. Kirby just rode that 5 star first round qb talent to two titles like ole Dabo done!!
I mean its obvious ain’t it? Don’t ya get “it?”