Arkansas
Review First and foremost, if you see a Kentucky fan, kick him in the face, don’t hit the Blue ladies though, we aren’t LSU fans. If you have seen me since the game Saturday, I have probably ranted to you how furious I am about Kentucky stealing our glory, most likely out of context. Here’s an example: Friend: Hey, how did you do on that exam Friday? Ryan: THAT WAS OUR GAME TO WIN! Friend: What? Ryan: I CALLED IT FROM THE VERY BEGINNING THAT THEY WERE RIPE FOR THE PICKING AND THEY WERE NEXT IN LINE TO GET PICKED OFF! Friend: Are you alright? You’re not making any sense. Ryan: YOU CALL YOURSELF MY FRIEND?!? Formerly Ryan’s Friend: Well if you are going to act this way, I guess not. Ryan: NOW WE ARE GOING TO PLAY A PISSED OFF #5 LSU RATHER THAN A COMPLACENT AND ARROGANT LSU! WE ARE GOING TO GET LESS CREDIT FOR PLAYING A HARDER TEAM! Formerly Ryan’s Friend: I don’t think it really is going to make that much difference; your theory seems a bit specious. Ryan: WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN!?! Each conversation would go on for about 20 minutes, but that pretty much sums up each conversation I’ve had with anyone over the past 24 hours, starting arbitrarily and ending with me looking like a superstitious maniac and my opponent (former friend) using words to describe me that I don’t know the meaning to. Regardless, I feel like I have been betrayed. Kentucky has just made their way all the way to the top of my hate list, currently even surpassing Tennessee and Alabama (They’ll work their way back in soon, fear not). This is unforgivable. As if it was hard enough to go into Death Valley and win against LSU as it was, now they don’t just have revenge on their mind, but MULTIPLE CASES of revenge! AND WE DON’T GET TO WEAR WHITE! The hardest game of the season just got harder for Auburn, and winning it will bear less reward than before. On top of everything, I had a pretty impressive conspiracy theory assuming that ESPN would use their pull on the AP to make Auburn get a curiously large jump in the AP polls to increase ratings for the LSU-Auburn game. NOW WE’LL NEVER KNOW IF I WAS RIGHT! The rankings are close enough now that a jump in rankings is unnecessary. ESPN will continue their charade… for now… Now
I’m not saying by a long shot that Auburn will lose this game.
Auburn means freakin’ business, and if LSU brings anything
less than their A game, they will get smoked. I’m just thoroughly
predicting that they are going to bring their A game and maybe answer
a few odd questions about the teacher near the end of the test for
extra credit. I’ll get to picking LSU apart later in the week,
but I still think that Auburn has what it takes to pull the upset.
My main reason? Will Muschamp eats Heisman Candidates for breakfast. Let’s just say our defense is monstrous, and we don’t even have 2 of our biggest defensive playmakers. As expected, that stupid picture took way too much time to make, and now I’m tired. Let’s rush through the rest of this. The more I think about Auburn’s performance against Arkansas, the better I feel about it. Every year, Auburn knows that Arkansas will be bringing it. This year was no different. Arkansas played better against Auburn then they had against anyone else so far this year (as far as I’ve seen). And Auburn somehow managed to completely shut down McFadden and Jones, which I was not prepared for Auburn to do. There were a couple of scary recurrences of Auburn from the beginning of the season, such as fumbling the ball in the red zone and dropped passes that left me uncomfortable, but plays were made when they needed to be… almost too easily. I’m confident that an “opened up” Auburn offense will surprise LSU next week, fear not. I’m also fairly confident that LSU won’t score more than two touchdowns next week. The game against LSU will be a tough defensive battle and Auburn has the better running game, which produced 189 yards when the league’s best rushing team could only pump out 67 total. If you watched the post-game conference with Tubs, he mentioned that we kept the offense conservative due to the fact that we were completely shutting Arkansas down. There are things I like and dislike about that statement. I loved his confidence in our defense, and the fact that our conservative offense may have in fact won us the game, as a costly turnover could have made the difference and our running game ate the clock up. I did not care much for taking the risk of not attempting to get a more comfortable lead when there are two Heisman-worthy runningbacks on the other side of the ball, at this rate I’ll have a heart attack by age 30. I do however like the fact that Tubs said we never “opened up” our offense against Arkansas. At first I was curious if he was bluffing, but if you look at the play selection by Auburn and saw the game, he obviously wasn’t. Tubs got through this game putting on a poker face for LSU, giving them little to scout, while LSU had to pull out all the stops in a valiant loss against a better (for that night at least, which is all that matters) Kentucky team. I also credit Arkansas more for being very aggressive and playing great defense than Auburn looking terrible on offense. Them Hawgs were daggum ev’rywhurr daggummit! Don’t ask me why I randomly became a redneck. I’m going
to miss Houston Nutt. The guy pulled off a miracle last year and
won the SEC West and this season everyone in Fayetteville is calling
for his head, and I don’t think they’re bluffing. Houston
Nutt, followed closely by Ed Orgeron, is my favorite SEC head coach
outside of Tubs. The guy is the perfect combination of brilliance
and insanity that is required to make a great SEC coach. Coaches
like Nutt are the reason why the SEC is the greatest conference
in football, he has personality. Coaches like Houston Nutt, along
with Fulmer, Orgeron, Spurrier, and heck, even Saban and Meyer have
the perfect blend of evil and genius to make perfect rivals (Muschamp
would make an AMAZING SEC head coach). You love to hate them. Houston
Nutt was one of Auburn’s fiercest rivals over the past few
years, always bringing their very best against Auburn regardless
of how they’d been playing in other games that season. The
same way Superman must respect Lex Luthor, Auburn should respect
Houston Nutt and will miss him. Here’s hoping he finds a way
to win out so we can keep him here in the SEC. War
Eagle! |
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