136 bones...with room for more

A picture is sometimes worth more than a thousand words. But we'll start with just four letters - GATA!

Auburn's dumpster fire - what to look for

The key question for Auburn today is this: do the players truly believe in their coaches? Chizik (and staff) has been a dead man walking for about a month. Unless I'm mistaken though, it wasn't until this week that "real" rumors started to circulate about an actual search to replace him. (And kudos btw to the Auburn brass for not conducting said search in the dark of night on a Louisville tarmac.)

via

- So, do the Auburn players actually try and win the game? They're completely out-matched. Seriously, it's amazing how far they've fallen talent-wise in just two years. The only way they win this game is if they are completely invested in it. Which is a tall task for a 2-7 (0-6) SEC team.
- Actually, the only way Auburn wins this game is if we let them win it. Georgia's biggest key is to come out quick and take the crowd out of it. Once the Auburn fans are sitting on their hands, their team will follow suit.
- Auburn's run defense is terrible. Can Gurley get the 143 yards he needs to eclipse 1000 yards for the season? And I'd really like to see Keith Marshall get back into September form with a couple big runs. Tonight he should be able to get to that second level that he's missed the last few games. Once he gets into that amount of space, he's almost as good as gone.
- Get well on special teams. We've made some baby steps in PATs, kickoff coverage, punt coverage as well as our return game. But it's still an uneasy feeling whenever we prepare for any kind of kick. Time to nail these down before the stretch run towards the finish line.
- Protect the football. Again...protect the football.

Other than that, I'll be looking for expressions of sheer agony on the faces of Chizik and Trooper. It's the kind of thing that should stir quite well into my glass of bourbon.

Go Dawgs!

SEC Kickoff with Coach Dooley

Coach Dooley wraps up last week's games and previews this weekend's action.

Tennessee flirting with Petrino

Or maybe it's the opposite of actual flirting. Regardless, they really want a new coach. So much so that they're making some real concessions.

Friday Misery - bed checks...ALL IN!!

Wave your Chiz Rags barners! Trooper'll show you how after he's done slamming a case of Monster energy drinks and trimming Pat Dye's toenails. Rally around Jonna and create a "very powerful all-in movement"...to help load the moving trucks.

It's a family tradition
This is one of college football's richest historical series. Georgia and Auburn have shared alumni/players/coaches over the decades and the overall series is as tight as a virgin butthole during a routine prostate exam. Many feel that this game has long been a friendly rivalry. Some would even suggest to you that it is similar to a couple brothers playing a casual game of two-hand touch in a freshly mown backyard.

Horseshit.

I reject the notion that this series was or ever will be "friendly". Wholeheartedly reject it. Anyone who suggests otherwise has bounced too many times on Uncle Verne's knee. That or they really enjoy rooting for other SEC teams while singing Kum-Ba-Ya in their bath robe on a bed of daisies. "Go War Eagles!! Beat the Ducks! Oh yeh, SEC baby!"

Tra ain't got no broken wing!

Friggin' hippies...with your ridiculous harmonious solidarity. While y'all were eating mushrooms and blasting Mr. Mister out of Russell Hall's windows THEY WERE TURNING WATER HOSES ON US GODDAMMIT!! Years later they tried to kill Reggie Brown. Laid him out on the turf and then danced around his inanimate body like rejects from MC Hammer's "posse". Get your shit together dude. This isn't just a $cam and Fairley 2010 thing hombre. It cuts deeper. The lineage is twisted and gnarled. They're a schizophrenic step cousin-in-law at best. The kid your parents force you to play with at family reunions, but instead you leave them in the backyard after telling them to count to 500...by threes. "Voodoo magic..pppffpt!"

If you're STILL not convinced, ask yourself this: Was Tra battle just wanting bragging rights over little brother Brandon Cox in 2006? Was Michael Johnson just adding to the familial atmosphere when he WENT OFF on the barners in 2002? AND AGAIN in 2003!

Do me a favor and don't cheapen the storied series with your hand holding and your self-serving soliloquy about how nice they are. Don't say stupid shit like Nick Fairley is a hard nosed player and you love Trooper's energy level. They're Auburn...basically a bunch of cow herders with "diplomas".

Barn door semantics

We ARE Planesmen. We ARE Abuurn!

Many people were understandably taken in with Abuurn's new motto "All in!" a couple years ago. They were on the verge of a historic run towards an undefeated season. It had a sense of family and togetherness. Chizik seemed brilliant.

But now the truth comes to light. These people no more know what their actual mascot is than they know where their players are at 11:00pm on a Tuesday night. To borrow from Mr. Foxworthy, If you have to perform bed checks on a school night...you might be Coach Chizik! And if you have to hire a "security firm" to perform said bed check...you might be Jonna Chizik's wife.

To best understand the meaning behind the phrase, picture a paranoid schizo that's been stuffing lithium tablets down his sock. So when they say "all in"...they mean every one of their mascots personalities: the tigers, the Troopers, the eagles, Aubie, the Eric Ramsey tape recorders, lil Terry Butterbean, the bagmen, the new church steeple, and plain assed men dressed accordingly.

In summary, these are the people that stole our Battle Hymn and bastardized it with their own lyrics. These are the people that cheer for a team that has spent more time under the clouds of NCAA scrutiny than Terry Bowden has spent eating fried pies and small children. They would love nothing more than to spoil our re-energized season.

That is if they can somehow hire an agency equipped to help them tie their cleats. All in! for second grade motor skills y'all! War Damn Tiglesmen!

Are we overconfident heading to Opelika?

I don't think so. At least I hope not. They aren't just a broken team, they are a broken program with a lame duck coach on his way out. It's a complete mess down there. And I haven't seen or read anything to tell me that we might be overlooking them. Because sometimes broken teams are very dangerous, especially at home...and at night.

Again, I sincerely hope we're not entering this game too casually. Because that's definitely how Auburn approached the 2006 game.

h/t prsonmike

Countdown to Kickoff - Auburn

Cecelia Cuaresma preview the next installment of the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry.

Swann song: opening chorus

In my opinion, Damian Swann has been just as instrumental in the defense's turnaround as Shawn Williams' words. Well, maybe almost as much.

But my point is that before he really burst on the scene our secondary seemed disinterested in engaging ball carriers and inept at covering would be receivers. We were lucky we didn't play more teams with a quarterback that could take full advantage of the gaping holes back there. Then Swann started making plays and seeing more snaps. Now everyone is rising to the level of the competition back there.

With that said, nice piece here on the sophomore cornerback and his nose for the football.

"Once I got here, I figured out the guys who would be in front of me and what role might open up this year," Swann said. "That's when I decided to get behind Boykin and learn as much as I could, because he had to leave and that job was going to be open. Boykin was the guy I studied a lot and learned almost everything from outside of what I was getting from the coaches."

Swann has done a little bit of everything this season, compiling 39 tackles, four pass deflections, 3.5 tackles for loss, two sacks, two interceptions, two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries. In the past two weeks alone, he has amassed two sacks, two fumble recoveries, a forced fumble and an interception.

"I've always thought Damian was a pretty good player and that it was just a matter of getting him some experience," defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said. "He plays a little bit where the action is, but he's got good awareness and good instincts, and he has a knack for understanding where the ball is going to go. I think he's done a really good job of coming in and filling in for Boykin after he left, and he's only going to get better."

War Damn Curfew

Personally, I think Coach Chizik lost control of his team back in August when he allowed them to look like this...

h/t Andrew

...as they prepared for their 2012 season. But they've clearly reached a new level of fail focus for this week's rivalry game with Georgia now that the head guy has instituted curfew checks during the week. He's so serious about it they've hired a security firm to handle the door knob twisting.

Stanley Dallas, the Auburn Regional Manager of the Event Operations Group, confirmed members of his staff are working in conjunction with members of Auburn’s football player development department to “enforce” player curfews throughout the week.

The Event Operations Group, Inc. is a “national full service event management, staffing, and security provider,” according to its website. The firm is used by facilities across the country, including at Auburn and other SEC schools such as Ole Miss and Mississippi State, to staff on-campus events in a variety of capacities including security, parking attendants and stadium ushers.... 

How many members of the EOG are used in the operation, their works hours, compensation and level of training is unclear. When called by the Advertiser for additional information, Dallas said he would have to check with his corporate office to see what he could disclose. 

It's clear they're saving money now that they aren't paying players. At least I hope they're not paying players with a 2-7 record. But since Trooper Taylor and Curtis Luper (supposedly) aren't on the road anymore, don't they have time for the bed checks? You know, save a little cash for whatever sperm $cam left on the plains.

Flashback - "Look at the Sugar falling out of the sky!"

Too often it seems, if we are going to achieve any type of SEC honor, it must be earned on the plains against Auburn. That will be the case on Saturday, just as it was in 1982 as top ranked Georgia and Herschel Walker squared off against Auburn and Bo Jackson.

Remembered for Munson's call, but also in that it propelled our star tailback to the front of the Heisman voting line as well as Georgia into the Sugar Bowl. To honor the coach, the team carried Dooley off the field. Meanwhile Munson got a faceful of bourbon. And yet he seemed honored by the sentiment.

Glory Glory!

h/t Dawg19

Jeff Sanchez's celebration after breaking up the Campbell pass in the endzone is classic. That is what it must feel like to have sugar rain down on you in Opelika. Hopefully our guys can achieve a similar result Saturday night. Go Dawgs!

Also, if you'd like to see the complete game replay Dawg19 has that uploaded as well.