Auctoritas

Man, this is rough.

So glad you're doing better! I totally missed this - my dad has been in the hospital for about a week and a half now because he had to have emergency back surgery to relieve a spinal epidural abscess and reverse some pretty severe septicemia. Long recovery ahead, but I think we all know that there ain't nobody tougher than an Auburn fan. We know how good life can be, and we know what misery is, so we're prepared to kick anythings butt. (I also used "how do we feel about Harsin" as a neuro check for awareness and his answer was a very derisive "potato head." The nurse was... confused.) Here's to swift recovery and long health!

I haven't seen word one about this kid. Anyone have any official note that he's signed? Absolute crickets as far as I can tell.

Hi everyone - my apologies. Work and life got the best of me over the last couple of weeks, and totally has prevented me from being able to do the bowl season extravaganza like I'd planned. I'm really bummed about it - I'm a bowl season fan anyway, but this would have been some icing on the cake. Sorry for not being able to follow through, but be on the lookout for the preseason picks thread come early August! Thanks again for everyone who participated throughout the year. You're all the best. War Eagle!

This is terrible packaging design. I thought the thing in the bottom right was telling me that these potatoes had hearts and bones in them. Edit: there are SO MANY JOKES that could be made, and I don't wanna hear none of em.

Well, everyone, it's been an amazing year. I've said it a bunch lately, but let me thank everyone for sticking around with this for the year. Auburn may not have ended up where we wanted it to be, but this really has helped keep my attention on CFB writ large more than it has the last couple of years. More than that, it's been great to see the community around it - a little trash talk, some congratulations. I really really appreciate everyone's good humor and patience as we worked through a few hiccups, but overall I think this went really well. Below, you'll find the preseason picks results. As a reminder, way back before the season, you picked the order of finish for both SEC East and West Divisions (the last time they will exist, to boot!). For every team in the right place, you got 5 points (so, if you guessed Alabama to be in first, Auburn in second, and LSU in third, you'd get 10 points for having Alabama and LSU in the right spots). We also had the big daddy extra points bonus - a correct guess for the number of Auburn touchdowns (41, as it turns out) would net you an additional 100 points (we had two AUFAMILY members get that right, so extra congrats to @provibe and @subterranean_jack for winning the Preseason and tying at 120 points. You'll also find the season leaderboard with those points counted in. This year's winner - maybe surprising nobody at this point - was @phillyeagle, who went wire to wire! This year's game had a grand prize - I'll be making a donation to AUFAMILY in their name. Phillyeagle was already a site donor at the Platinum level, so he gets to have an extra helping of the warm fuzzies that we get for supporting the site we all love. Didn't win this year? you can still make a donation! It's among the best money I've spent, personally, and every bit of it goes to keep this place running. The side benefits are no joke, too. Heck, makes a great holiday gift too. I hope you'll stick around for the Bowl Season Extravaganza - most people who participated in the last week answered that they'd participate for bragging rights. If you join that one, i'll see you there, and if not, then I hope you'll tune in again next year! Thanks again for everyone who played - even if you didn't last the entire year. -Auc Edit: sorry folks, as noted in the new reply, I'm not going to be able to do the bowl pick em this year. Hope to see you in the fall! Preseason Picks Place Leaderboard Provibe 120 1 phillyeagle 801 subterranean_jack 120 2 SMITTY4AU 777 dilligas 40 3 VicTree 770 Aux 35 4 Aux 763 aublaise 30 5 aublaise 746 AuburnEagle79 30 6 PikesEagle 737 AUGreen03 30 7 AUGreen03 735 I_M4_AU 30 8 I_M4_AU 734 vatz22au 30 9 DaddyBoyAU 731 WVR 30 10 alabastertiger 729 AKCWDE 25 11 CoffeeTiger 724 AuburnNTexas 25 12 weagle98 724 aucanucktiger 25 13 theweegler 722 CoffeeTiger 25 14 AuburnNTexas 717 ertrader 25 15 Auburnfan91 714 frozennugget 25 16 wareaglefan444 714 KansasTiger 25 17 vatz22au 713 rednilla 25 18 Trakem 712 SMITTY4AU 25 19 KTATLEagles 711 TeBoneAU 25 20 SumterAubie 708 Auburnfan91 20 21 mofaith 703 Auctoritas 20 22 Jgarrett7 700 Autime 20 23 aumarine 695 BornAU76 20 24 cctiger 695 cctiger 20 25 eulessau 693 Duder 20 26 toddc 683 Ellitor 20 27 TigerTale 682 Jgarrett7 20 28 AUbritt 681 jmthomas28 20 29 aucanucktiger 679 Norfolk 20 30 Duder 676 phillyeagle 20 31 C’viewTiger 675 SRBautigerfan 20 32 Auctoritas 670 SumterAubie 20 33 PKPTiger81 668 toddc 20 34 Shadow Tiger 662 VicTree 20 35 AUBwins 661 WDE_OxPx_2010 20 36 WVR 654 Weagle1787 20 37 ertrader 651 around4ever 15 38 FUZZYAUFAN 638 AUcivE09 15 39 AuburnEagle79 633 C’viewTiger 15 40 TeBoneAU 629 DaddyBoyAU 15 41 arein0 626 Hank2020 15 42 Hank2020 623 McFU 15 43 around4ever 621 Mickeyspano 15 44 abw0004 616 mofaith 15 45 rednilla 611 PikesEagle 15 46 GWillMac6 599 SirIsaac 15 47 Tiger 596 Tiger 15 48 Abbygpaw 595 ValleyTiger 15 49 Provibe 595 wareaglefan444 15 50 BornAU76 592 AUBwins 10 51 AubTigers 591 aucat 10 52 Zeek 587 aumarine 10 53 Ellitor 583 GWillMac6 10 54 RunInRed 583 KTATLEagles 10 55 dilligas 571 Lotto 10 56 ScotsAU 551 RunInRed 10 57 subterranean_jack 537 Shadow Tiger 10 58 ValleyTiger 534 Trakem 10 59 Weagle1787 524 WarEagle1983 10 60 Paladin 514 Zeek 10 61 WarTim 502 AUJete1112 5 62 Hopsing 478 FUZZYAUFAN 5 63 Autime 462 64 causeyjt 452 65 HAPvsOA 425 66 WDE_OxPx_2010 372 67 McFU 334 68 WarEagle1983 324 69 Bigaufanwhb 317 70 KansasTiger 281 71 GATiger81 255 72 PoetTiger 204 73 SRBautigerfan 173 74 Mickeyspano 167 75 Tigerpro2a 153 76 baccusm 146 77 AU120289 112 78 AUEAGLE 104 79 AKCWDE 68 80 AUJete1112 58 81 Heather_ishh 55 82 auburnpride99 53 83 frozennugget 25 84 jmthomas28 20 85 Norfolk 20 86 AUcivE09 15 87 SirIsaac 15 88 aucat 10 89 Lotto 10

The most egregious thing to me was the spy. Might as well have rushed 3. Still probably wouldn't have worked but that guy was just... standing there. The guy has to go 31 yards, I bet some of the defense would have been able to make it to tackle. Called a timeout just to come up with that plan. Really could have used that one.

This is the thing that pisses me off more than anything. How many times have we seen a defender running to where the opposing QB or RB or WR is right then, vs where they're going. So many players running at full speed and then making a J instead of an I. It's like...yo, coach, maybe take them trap shooting or something so they know how to lead their target?

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/38880082/jimbo-fisher-expected-fired-texas-sources-confirm

Considering that we were losing to those (at least comparable) bottom feeders, this by definition is improvement. Is it enough? Maybe, maybe not. But we have equalled our win total from last year, a total, I will remind you, that included a total gift of a win vs Mizzou. We will be at least 1 game better, arguably 2, and potentially 3 with a bowl. It's okay to want more improvement, but incremental gains are gains nonetheless. Not saying you have to enjoy them, but at least acknowledge them. Edit to add: I'm not saying it's not marginal improvement. It's like...step 2 of 10.

All I knowis that the last two games there were 2012 and 2008. We are 9-0 at home, and 7-12 there or at a neutral site. https://auburntigers.com/sports/football/opponent-history/vanderbilt-university/164

This guy gets it.

Not to mention that playing at Vandy seems to be a house of horrors for AU. Interesting stat, though - this game is going to be absolutely dead. Vandy had a small stadium anyway, but they're renovating it and can only seat like 28.5K. It is likely to be the least number of people AU has played in front of since 1980 at TCU (not counting COVID years). It's the smallest capacity stadium since 1958 when AU used to play UGA at Memorial Stadium in Columbus, GA.

No matter what, he's a dark horse! Them's the rules! https://flywareagle.com/2021/04/17/auburn-football-twitter-aday-meme/

I love these kinds of formats for articles, and I think this was well done and interesting. For as long as there's been college football, coaches have been getting fired. The annual discussions about who's on the hot seat is as much a part of the game as a depth chart. But in the history of the sport -- perhaps the history of employment -- only one man's termination is universally recalled with just a single word: "Tarmac." It's been 10 years since Lane Kiffin was fired as USC's coach, supposedly on the tarmac at LAX. The truth of what happened in the early-morning hours of Sept. 29, 2013, is, like so many things with Kiffin, a bit more complicated. ESPN spoke to nearly two dozen people who witnessed Kiffin's tenure at USC, as well as his unlikely second act as one of college football's most colorful characters and brilliant offensive minds, in an effort to find out what really happened that night and how it changed the rest of his career. Worth the read at https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/38496935/usc-lane-kiffin-fired-tarmac-10-years-ago-oral-history