kingfish

27 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

247sports.com

Miami transfer passrusher to visit Auburn next week

Nathan King

~4 minutes

Since Chris Roberts was named Auburn's president, I have wanted to sit down and talk with him about the state of college athletics. He's an engaging person with whom I was familiar because he was in charge of chemical engineering when my son was getting his undergraduate degree. My son holds him in extremely high regard.

Anyway, I thought now would be a good time to set up an interview. Honestly, I did not expect doing that to be an issue. In a sign of the times, I was wrong.

I contacted Janie Boles, assistant to the president, via email and asked if we could set something up. I told her I wanted to talk to President Roberts about his views of the state of college athletics and about his view of how things were going in the John Cohen-led Auburn athletic department. She responded and said she would check. In a later email, she asked me if I could tell her what questions I intended to ask. I told her I could not do that but repeated what I wanted to discuss.

And then came the email that essentially said not now but maybe later. She sent me the following:

"This is a busy time of year for President Roberts due to travel and other commitments, including the upcoming commencement ceremonies. As such, this does not represent a good time for him with regard to his schedule at the moment.

"Moreover, with the fluid state of college athletics nationally and the level of uncertainty in this area, President Roberts is continuing to study this very closely and would be able to provide more defined thoughts on the matter in the coming months. He will let me know his availability in the future and I hope you will understand his request for a short postponement at this time.

"With that being said, President Roberts is incredibly pleased with the state of AU Athletics under the leadership of John Cohen and the progress they continue to make."

So there you have it. There will be no interview with President Roberts, at least not by me, anytime soon. I'm disappointed, but please don't interpret what I write here as my saying that I was somehow mistreated. That's not the case. It's the unfortunate reality of where we are in my business.

Whether it's sports or politics or various other pursuits, important people want to control their messages. And they can't control those messages by having an unfiltered discussions with reporters or columnists.

Before the coming of the Internet and social media, we needed each other. They needed to get their message out, and they needed us to do that. We needed them in order to provide information to readers.

Today, they can simply make videos, post them online or, in the case of university, on their web sites. If they answer questions, those questions often come from someone on their organization's payroll.

I made it clear in my first email that I was not looking for controversy, and I certainly was not. Given the opportunity, I would have asked him about the impact of NIL, on his thoughts about athletes being paid by schools, his thoughts about the widespread belief that nonrevenue sports will be in danger.

I would have asked him about the astronomical salaries being paid to head football coaches at the highest level. I would have asked him his opinion of the importance of athletic success to the university as a whole.

Maybe, eventually, I will have an opportunity to ask those questions and get some answers that don't go through a public relations filter. Or maybe those days are gone for good.

Since the author made public in the text what specifically wanted to ask President Roberts, my question is why these issues not provided to President Roberts. 
IMHO Roberts request was reasonable.

CD coming back home is so encouraging. 

I couldn’t agree with you more. 
Eventually every knee shall bow. 

On 12/24/2023 at 4:53 PM, gr82be said:

Merry Christmas everyone. 

This is a beautiful spiritually rich post. Charles Schultz was a man with great depth in this presentation. 

21 hours ago, Hank2020 said:

Maybe good assumptions, maybe not. Best possible record is what they are all going for.

Depends on whether the best possible record focus is short term or long term. 

There is an accounting concept known as the cost benefit rule … benefit should exceed cost. I fully think Freeze is by far the most qualified person to determine how a limited amount of NIL dollars will most benefit the team in rebuilding our football program. Whether this involves spreading the NIL dollars around for more positions or a more limited number of positions, Freeze is the right one to make the decision. 

Thanks to you guys for posting score at various times. 
I tested positive for Covid, but actually don’t feel badly enough to have it. 
War Eagle for a great win. 

I’m sitting in waiting room for Dr visit. Would someone please post score periodically? Thanks!

On 12/5/2023 at 1:58 PM, aucanucktiger said:

I remember #4 Maryland & QB Boomer Esiason rolling into Auburn to play us at HOMECOMING in '83. They were very very good and we handled them very very thoroughly. 

We also had 3 RBs rushing for over 100 yards in that game … Bo, Lionel, and the 3rd RB escapes me bit it seems he might have been from Maplesville. 

I hope none of our commits or highly rated possible commits are reading this thread. I’m sure our rivals will be showing this negative minority dark side AU fans posts to them. 

30 minutes ago, AUpreacherman22 said:

maybe the boards will be more peaceful when people sober up.  🤷‍♂️

Sober up and grow up. 

1 hour ago, Mikey said:

This is a quote by AU's top rated player in the '24 class linebacker Demarcus Riddick.

 

"Riddick was most recently in Auburn to watch the Tigers take on the top-ranked team in the nation and the program he was previously committed to — Georgia. Although Auburn didn't come away with the upset victory, it was encouraging to see how competitive of a game it was, even with Auburn as heavy underdogs.

"I had fun because I know that Auburn’s good enough to compete with any team in the nation," Riddick said. "We competed with the No. 1 team in the nation, what do you think we’re gonna do with the rest of these teams we get ready to play?"

With what Riddick described as a "great" atmosphere inside Jordan Hare Stadium, he kept a close eye on how the defense operated, noting how the linebackers were "flying to the ball" and the defensive backs were "locking stuff up". It gives him a lot of confidence in the future of the defense.

"It just gives me the momentum of knowing that ‘Oh yeah, I’m gonna be able to do the things they’re doing," Riddick said."

The complete article is in a post by Paladin on the last page of the thread about Riddick. It looks like play on the field mattered to him.

To be encouraged does not imply that the play on the field is a make or break matter. You are looking at one side of a coin. The other side would be if play on the field had been terrible would it make him want to go somewhere else? IMO the answer is no because that only reinforces the need for better athletes and playing time for new recruits. 
The history of Freeze turning programs around has to have been communicated to all our recruits. 

With a new coaching safe, and having years of sub-recruiting years for the various positions of need, play on the field is not significant IMO. 

5 minutes ago, NewYrkTiger said:

It sure did. We were supposed to go back to NOLA for a second night, but ended up driving all the way back to AU as soon as the game was over. 

The long last drive LSU made against our defense really surprised me. I didn’t expect that they would take the ball that far the way they did. 
I was sitting on a low row in the opposite end zone so my depth perception wasn’t good, all I could tell was that ball was steadily getting further and further away from me. The roar LSU corndogs made was amazing. 
I don’t recall how long that last drive was but I seem to think it was in the area of 90 yards. It would be interesting if someone here could look it up and post. 

The “earthquake” game made for a long trip back home. 

Done

7 hours ago, gr82b4au said:

Of course it did, but so did our 4 fumbles. 

Not one of our 4 fumbles caused points, that should legitimately have been on the scoreboard, to be removed … which is   significant. These fumbles were not called by bad officiating. 

I’ll always take an ugly win or a pretty loss anytime, but is there really ever a pretty loss. 
Cal because of whistle stopping play were denied at TD which like cost them 4 points. There FG kicker missed FG that we at AU expect to make. 
From my point of view Cal leaving missing FGs and getting a bad call on Thorne’s fumble which was returned for what appeared to be a TD plus the missed FGs had a major impact on our getting the win. 
I feel great that we left with the win and so glad to have Freeze and all our new players. 
I’m expecting better play moving forward this year and most importantly over the following several years. 

6 hours ago, CameronCrazy said:

We once had a weekend where we had Kanaan Carlyle, Stephon Castle, & Isaiah Collier on campus the same day.

Holler at me when we’re actually able to close.

BP has gotten highly talented prospects to come to AU for a visit when no previous head coach could get highly ranked prospects to visit. 

Have a blessed Resurrection Sunday.

Great interview with Sir Charles. The weather interruptions on TV last night kept me from seeing this interview. 
Thank you for posting this link. 

Nick Fairley.

There was an incident involving Mickey Zofko when I was in school. He was riding one night with some fellows and threw a bucket of water on a fellow male student weighing about 160 lbs to Zofko’s 200 lbs. 

The fellow, Jim Bouchelon ???) would often go to NewOrleans and win some money in prize fights. He grabs Zofko out of the car and cleaned his plow. Zofko shows up on the drill field (ROTC in those days) wearing sunglasses. Captain Yarbrough immediately tells him to take the sunglasses off exposing two black eyes. 

May you see through her eyes the Heavenly joy she is experiencing now. In looking through your eyes it hurts terribly to lose your mom. 
May God’s presence be especially close and comforting to you and your family. 

In total agreement Titan!

Prayers for 100% successful surgery, comfort and peace for you and family with a fast track to recovery. Patience and motivation to correctly and regularly perform PT.