Stars align for Auburn this season

[DKW 86 7,419]

http://www.al.com/sports/mobileregister/nm....xml&coll=3

Stars align for Auburn this season

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

In late October 1991, a confluence of weather conditions in the North Atlantic combined to form a killer storm. Hurricane Grace was dying out in the Atlantic. At the same time, a massive energy was crossing the Great Lakes and a large frontal system was creating havoc in New England.

The Andrea Gale, a Gloucester, Mass.-based fishing boat, was headed for the North Atlantic's fishing grounds at the same time. Two weeks after the boat left port, it met up with the unnamed storm and the entire crew lost their lives.

Nine years later, an account of that crew's final trip was turned into a movie. "The Perfect Storm," featuring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, was a hit at the box office in part because of its origins in real life.

Today, another perfect storm seems to be brewing, though this one has nothing to do with meteorology and everything to do with a strange confluence of events in college football.

Auburn will open the season ranked No. 6 in the USA Today coaches' poll and likely a spot higher -- due to the dismissal of Oklahoma quarterback Rhett Bomar -- in The Associated Press Top 25. Two of the four teams ranked above the Tigers -- Ohio State, Texas, Southern California and Notre Dame -- are assured of at least one loss since the Buckeyes travel to Austin next month and the Irish make the trip to Los Angeles in October.

Auburn's non-conference schedule is a walk in the park, and so is three-fourths of the Tigers' SEC road schedule. Alabama is the one difficult road trip facing the Tigers this season, and even the most ardent Crimson Tide fan would have to begrudgingly admit that a win by the home team in November would be an upset.

Auburn's toughest SEC opponents -- LSU, Florida and Georgia -- have to make the trip to Jordan-Hare Stadium, a site where Tommy Tuberville's teams have been pretty good in recent years.

Just last week, College Football News predicted that Auburn would face Southern Cal in the BCS Championship Game in Glendale, Ariz. That prediction, for all of the aforementioned reasons, isn't that far-fetched.

For Auburn, it could well be the perfect storm, a combination of events that may never be strung together again. Future Tiger teams could be better than this one, but the atmosphere may never again be this ripe.

For example, Alabama's getting better rapidly. Mike Shula has brought stability to the program and Tuberville's days of dominating in-state recruiting appear to be ending. The falloff from Nick Saban to Les Miles at LSU wasn't as drastic as many predicted. Arkansas is as committed to football as ever, and Mississippi State and Ole Miss aren't going to be this bad for long.

Auburn may never again catch Georgia forced to play either a pedestrian senior or a green freshman at quarterback. The next time Auburn plays Florida, Urban Meyer's system is going to be locked in place. Tennessee will either improve dramatically or make major changes, and Steve Spurrier has won at every collegiate stop he's made.

In other words, this just might be Auburn's best chance for that elusive national championship, a possible last best chance for Tiger fans to have an answer to those "Got Twelve?" T-shirts.

Will the storm develop so perfectly for Auburn or will one element fade out? Can the Tigers handle the lofty expectations? Did Tuberville learn anything from the disastrous 2003 season, the last time Auburn was saddled with this much hype?

As another college football season approaches, there are few if any storylines more compelling. It could make a great movie. George Clooney as Tommy Tuberville?

[Longtrainn 2]

I find the middle part of the article to be rather short-sighted. Let me address each one of the statements individually (this may be a bit verbose):

"For example, Alabama's getting better rapidly. Mike Shula has brought stability to the program and Tuberville's days of dominating in-state recruiting appear to be ending."

- Tuberville has never "dominated" in-state recruiting, and there's really no evidence that Alabama is getting better rapidly. They have a 10-win season every 3 years, but always have a dropoff. Last year could have and probably should have been worse for them. I'm not convinced he's the long-term answer at Bama. Still, a whole 4 years coaching at Alabama is something rare these days, so he's on the right track there.

"The falloff from Nick Saban to Les Miles at LSU wasn't as drastic as many predicted."

- That was ONE YEAR, man. Terry Bowden went undefeated his first year with Dye's players. You can't seriously say the jury's not still out on him.

"Arkansas is as committed to football as ever"

- Weak. Just a weak statement. What does that even mean?

"Mississippi State and Ole Miss aren't going to be this bad for long."

- If you ONLY watched SEC football from 1996-2003, you expect one of those two programs to be good some of the time. Well, in statistics, that would be called an anomaly. In reality, what we're witnessing now is the norm. Auburn, LSU, Alabama, and sometimes Arkansas should compete for the West every year. Nobody's losing sleep over the Mississippi schools.

"Auburn may never again catch Georgia forced to play either a pedestrian senior or a green freshman at quarterback."

- "Never again" is an awfully bold statement. Anyway, Georgia's always going to be tough, but historically we'll beat them half the time.

"The next time Auburn plays Florida, Urban Meyer's system is going to be locked in place."

- Which means what, exactly? What if it's in place.... and it fails horribly? Again, he's jumping to conclusions.

"Tennessee will either improve dramatically or make major changes"

- Tuberville embarassed the Great Pumpkin thrice in 2 years. Just like Florida, we don't play them every year, and like Georgia, historically we'll beat them every other time.

"Steve Spurrier has won at every collegiate stop he's made."

- True, but they rotate off the schedule this year, and who knows if he'll even still be the coach there when they rotate back on? He's got some stiff competition in the East.

With the state of the program as is, this will not be our only chance for greatness. Truth be told, we already achieved it in 2004. We did more than the 03 LSU Tigers or the 96 Gators (two excellent teams) did, and that's go undefeated. I just don't buy that this year is our only chance.

[quietfan 233]

"Mississippi State and Ole Miss aren't going to be this bad for long."

- If you ONLY watched SEC football from 1996-2003, you expect one of those two programs to be good some of the time. Well, in statistics, that would be called an anomaly. In reality, what we're witnessing now is the norm. Auburn, LSU, Alabama, and sometimes Arkansas should compete for the West every year. Nobody's losing sleep over the Mississippi schools.

I don't have much problem with most of your comments, BUT:

IF Orgeron continues to recruit as well as he has so far, and,

IF he can translate success in that area to sucess on the field, and,

IF he doesn't get caught with his fingers in the cookie jar by the NCAA,

then Ole Miss has a chance to challenge Arkansas as the best "Also Ran" in the West on a regular basis.

[lca408 366]

Auburn hasn't dominated recruiting in Alabama. Auburn has compiled a very talented group of players from Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and a few other states and made an excellent team. Just because the Auburn program has been very successful over the last several years and Alabama has had a slump, doesn't necessarily mean that we're getting the recruits that they should've had. We've seen that time and again on this forum that Auburn gets its guys and Alabama gets its guys, more or less regardless of the state of the programs. Think about 2001. Auburn had a very up and down year, ending with a loss to Alabama and LSU, as well as a loss to North Carolina in the Peach Bowl. Auburn still ended up with Brandon Cox, a highly recruited quarterback from Trussville, "mister football" from Alabama. Tommy Tuberville and the coaching staff are excellent recruiters, and I think that as long as they are there, we will do a superb job in getting the good prospects.

Now, as far as Georgia is concerned, did this guy watch last year's game? Did he see the year before? How bout that overall record? Auburn leads the series by a couple of games if I'm not mistaken. As far as the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry is concerned, I don't think it matters whether or not one team is at a disadvantage. The dawgs may have some problems at quarterback, but you can bet your a$$ they're gonna show up to play for that game.

Ryan