The Iron Bowl Gene Chizik

The Zookster has Illinois in this game, Cincinnati sure doesn’t look very special, or unbeatable. I guess we get spoiled with the speed, but the bearkats just look slow.

Well Cincinnati is pulling away with their street-ball offense. Can’t see that working at Notre Dame, though.

Not surprising Cinci looks slow given their recruiting rankings (in the Big East) over the past five years:

2005: 8
2006: 8
2007: 8
2008: 7
2009: 5 (and the only two four star players are in this class)

Kelley has coached them up though, their O looks unstoppable.

Alabama’s offense alone guarantees Auburn will be in this game. If Auburn can fluke into a couple TD’s, they can win.

I"m going to make a Bold Prediction and say that the refs will play a big, big part in deciding the winner in the bama/auburn game. Just my gut talking.

Tor’s gut is right..

I’m curious… are there any Texas fans here who believe Texas will likely lose to the UF/Alabama winner?

If so, what are your reasons for thinking that?

Likely? No. The offenses for neither Alabama or Florida are so impressive to me that I see any reason as a fan to think it likely.

I do think it would be a mild upset.

Heck, I feel like Florida was fortunate to play the lesser team in the national championship last year. This year the SEC gets the A team…assuming Texas beats Nebraska, a game they definitely should win.

I’ll tell you what. Find me an SEC homer who thinks that either Alabama or Florida would lose to Texas. That gives you a much larger pool to draw from. Texas fans went through this in 2005. It’s going to be highly enjoyable watching everyone pile on the SEC bandwagon. I don’t think this Texas team is as good as that one, but I don’t think Alabama/Florida is neither as good as that USC team, either.

Texas_Dawg – I’m just your everyday run of the mill moron so take what I say with a grain of salt. I think we stand at least a 50/50 chance against crimson-gator because we should be able to make either team one dimensional, especially the Tide. I’m not shaking in my boots when I think of facing either of them.
Give it a few minutes and ransom will be along to answer your question and tell you why we lose by 50..

I’d take Texas to cover against any SEC team, that’s for sure.

Chizik has a slavish dedication to shutting down the run.

That he does, and yet Auburn still ranks 10th in the SEC in run defense giving up just about 4.5 yards a pop. That’s why I am taking ’Bama to cover today.

Maybe I’m nuts, but TCU makes me more nervous than either Florida or Bama. I’d like our chances against any of the three, however.

How well does bama play from behind?

Bama loves it from behind.

Oh, my. Chizik is playing to win this one.

Eight plays in and—true to BC prediction — ‘Bama plays conservative and does nothing while Auburn hits the reverse home run. The Horns (thanks to Colt and the exceptional passing game) can overcome an early defensive letdown like the Aggy first score last night. Let’s see what the Tide does when it’s D doesn’t start dominant!

One thing about Bama playing from behind. It means that Ingram will probably get fewer hand offs.

“One thing about Bama playing from behind. It means that Ingram will probably get fewer hand offs.”

So, no reach-around then?

Me likey. Auburn 14 Bama 0

Ha Ha Ha Ha

Auburn has 114yds rushing in the first quarter with 5+ mins left? That’s outrageous. That SEC defense is just dominant.

Alabama loses today, then beats Florida next week. Texas and TCU go to the national championship and anyone who remembers the SWC spends a month in a daze.

Alabama loses today, then beats Florida next week.

Alabama won’t beat UF no matter what happens today.

MNC game will look pretty similar to last year’s game. UF offense isn’t great… but more than enough for that defense.

Your team sucks. Florida and Bama’s success has nothing to do with you or your school. It doesn’t reflect on you or your school. You’re the college football fan equivalent of a jock-sniffer.

And 2008 Florida was better than 2008 Bama by more than the difference this year and it was a game into the 4th. A Florida win over Bama is hardly a guarantee.

And last year you thought the same thing about the Oklahoma defense. They held Florida to fewer points than any SEC team could all year long.

That’s some bad QB throwing by Auburn there. Two plays in a row he totally whiffs on a wide open receiver.

Chris Todd cant hit the broad side of a barn.

Your team sucks. Florida and Bama’s success has nothing to do with you or your school. It doesn’t reflect on you or your school. You’re the college football fan equivalent of a jock-sniffer.

LOL. Huh?

Fwiw, I hate Florida and couldn’t care less if they win or lose. It’s just pretty obvious what will happen. Unlike you, I’m not partial to either team here.

And fwiw, I didn’t say anything about the OU defense last year. I actually argued against most SEC fans that B12 defenses were better than they looked last year, just facing very good offenses. I certainly took a lot of heat for the B12 South’s bowl performance last year. Total disaster outside of a last minute TD to break 20 by Texas.

From the inside.

Woody: To see my alma maters in the MNC would be a blast (as would the SWC flashback), but I still think the odds are too long. Of course, the odds they’d both be undefeated at this point were pretty long too.

Hook ’em and Go Frogs!

Trent Richardson is the best money Alabama spent last year.

Besides the onside kick, Auburn’s kicking game is really helping Bama.

Was that a Dre Kirkpatrick sighting on the punt?

TexasDawg, were you also arguing to your brethren how good the Mountain West was, and sagely lorded it over them after the Alabama, the creme de la conference de sud-est, got curbstomped by the Mountain West champ?

Does anybody hear agree with me that the Ohio State University would probably have multiple SEC titles? Their crappy offense would be the second coming of the Jim Kelly-run Houston gamblers in the SEC so the pressure would be off Tressell, and they traditionally have a very good defense. Combine that with Pryor, who is basically every SEC quarterback, just bigger, faster, and actually kind of good despite being a serial overthrower.

Colorado’s LB coach realy wears a lei and a skirt on the sidelines during every game? Really Hawkins? Really?

As bad as the D looked last night against TAMU, it’s hard to believe they could struggle the same way against the Huskers. They’re just awful. Like a Big 10 offense.

Does anybody hear agree with me that the Ohio State University would probably have multiple SEC titles?

No

Huh, Tim Brando just picked Nebraska to win the Big 12. Go figure.

After rereading this thread:

The Cynic’s Guide To The 2009 Heisman Race

I find Ingram’s performance today even more fulfilling.

My favorite quote from that thread is this one:

“Chizik is likely to stuff 9 in the box against Bama in an effort to stop the running game and not knowing any better way to do it. On top of that, Tebow and Ingram will split votes if Ingram continues to get the talk. I’d vote for McCoy, and without apology. Maybe you guys and Kurt Bohls see it another way, though.”

That is wizardry.

Anyone else waiting for the refs to make a terrible call.

Chris Todd is god awful down the middle. I think he has depth perception problems.

Saban will punch an asst coach if they do not pull this out..or he might just slap his kicker.

Not too many heisman candidates get benched in crunch time.

I think the refs take over in the 4th quarter and give it to ’bama. Are they going to take as much heat for scuffling against Auburn as Texas is for hanging 49 on TAMU? Of course not.

I don’t feel as bad about our ko coverage after this.

Wow

Man, Todd has made god awful decisions and throws

This Auburn crowd is the best 12rh Man I’ve seen in quite some time.

It’s all set up for Tigers.

Some terrible play calls for Auburn.

Those plays were Mackovic-esque.

I hope Alabama loses this on a blocked FG, to repay their karmic debt.

Was Ingram getting a handy?

Saban’s hubris.

Does this idiot know the clock is ticking? Go down, quit dancing like a fool.

Nice clock management Chizik.

Chizik’s clock management mentor?

Les Miles.

chizik went to the les miles school of clock management

That was awful. Is it THAT hard for these partial-qualifiers to call 2 plays at a time? The players could handle it.

And somehow this disgusting display of suckitude will not tarnish Alabama the way beating a$m has Texas.

I think Saban must have purchased Stoops’ contract with Satan.

Amen, TOR.

I’m turning it off in order to miss Tim Brando’s fat ass slobbering all over the collective SEC phallus.

Basically, Texas wins next week and then it’s put up or shut up.

Will there be any other SEC / Big XII bowl match ups?

Spencer Tillman – “this is the only rivalry game where you can throw out the record.” Eat sh!t Tillman, you sooner douchebag.

Tillman should know better. This just shows that in-state rivalry games, on the road anyway, are really tough games no matter how good your team. If your rival has nothing to lose, all the tougher.

I wish that everyone on this site and any other who has foolishly claimed that we were out-played last night would STHU. We weren’t out-played. We sucked out loud in many facets of the game and came in with a bad defensive game-plan. Out kick coverages and punts were horrendous. We suffered through a couple of stretches of desperate and dangerous play-calling and made a couple of really bad turnovers. On the road. Against a very talented offense that played 2-miles over its head. And we never once looked like we were going to lose. Because we are SUPREMELY talented.

We’ve all been spoiled this year. We haven’t had to block any last minute field goals or get any last minute sheap calls. We have won every game we played, and we haven’t looked like losing in the two close rivalry games. This is a really good football team having a special year. The haters should go manually masturbate bulls at TexAgs.

ABC/Saunders – “Alabama survives a scare, but it’s expected to be a scare in a rivalry game.” Of course.

Disappointed in Tillman, who does in fact, know better.

Interestingly, here, Bama never led until the final minute against an average in-state rival playing well at home. Texas, on the other hand, playing a strikingly similar opponent, trailed only in the first half of the first quarter; A&M never had the ball with a chance to take the lead. And somehow, it’s Texas that was on the tightrope?

On that last Bama drive, I kept flashing back to A&M 2006 and thinking “That’s our Gene!” Then came the time management, um, “issues” on Auburn’s last possession. Contrast that with our drives against tOSU last year and this year against the Ags.

Colt’s main competition for the Heisman is now TimTebow. If Colt can hit, say, 250 passing and 50 rushing against Nebraska, and if TimTebow averages, say, 150 yards passing and 50 yards running in his last two games, TimTebow wins going away. Especially if Florida wins those games.

OK, most of the time when watching these pundits, I manage to persuade myself that I’m just being paranoid and hypersensitive when I start detecting bias against Texas. But I’m growing ever more convinced that there are at least several who do, in fact, hate us. Off the top of my head: Tim Brando, Spencer Tillman and Lou Holtz. These guys – the latter especially – never have unqualified praise for us, and in fact often disparage us openly. I think John Saunders has some kind of problem with the Horns as well.

And the entire nation seems to be pouring its understandable BCS resentments on our heads this year. Maybe it’s because of our vocal protestations last year, or that media trope left over from 2004/5 about how Mack “lobbied” the Rose Bowl from California. Or maybe it’s lingering resentment over fucking up the narrative in 2005/06. But there sure as shit seems to be a hell of a lot of animosity towards the Horns floating around out there.

This SEC homerism, by the way, has got me on the verge of what I thought impossible, and that’s defending OU. Somehow these dorks have convinced themselves that last year’s BCSC game was some sort of blowout akin to the debacles with tOSU in the years previous. It was nothing of the sort. Clearly the Sooners got held far below their offensive averages – which is to be wholly expected in a BCS game against a team like Florida – but the Gators didn’t secure that shit until late, and that was with some significant Sooner screw-ups along the way.

I think you’re right on many levels, CJD. I know you’re right about some of it.

As far as fans hating on Texas, look, I can look at myself. I often despise really good programs irrationally for no good reason. I could easily see myself getting irritated by Mack Brown, and rooting against Texas every chance I got - as much as anything else, because he so often irritates me, too, and I’m a fan. I look at how many teams and coaches I root against, because that’s part of what makes following college football fun for me, and there’s little doubt Texas would be on that list if I was a fan of another college power.

I do know that Texas gets more than its fair share of coverage, so it goes both ways. Shoot, we all know that if Cincinnati, TCU, Boise State, and Texas go undefeated, Texas is the school going to the national championship game. And anyone cheering for one of those 3 teams - or as you alluded to, simply for the whole BCS formula to fall on its head - are going to resent Texas.

I do know I’m really sick and tired of all the excuse making for the SEC. Even if Texas somehow lost to Nebraska, I’d still root really hard for whoever wound up playing the SEC winner.

Let them hate us. It’s envy, really. There is no program in the nation which has things going better, has a better coaching staff, or better players. That goes for the character and class of the players and coaches as well. As for the fans, I can see where we might annoy some people. But fuck’em. Just win.

Fuck this bullshit. Go to CBS Sportsline: “IRON EFFICIENCY!” vs. “Texas ESCAPES!”

Fuck me. $EC homerdom knows no bounds. ’Specially with that big contract con el CB$.

They are laughing their ass off in Austin and Gainesville this morning. Without Trent Richardson Alabama loses by 6,578 points today to the worst team ever in college football history.

I agree, Alabama is the worst w/o Trent.

You guys are always messin’ with the readers minds-not fair.

I have seen Alabama play before and I think they’re talented. But I also find Auburn just as good. So I am torn.

Why would people be laughing their asses off? They aren’t without Trent. He has a uniform and everything.

I love how all the talk is about how TCU is furious that they can’t boost Texas’s seat in the BCS line. It is just assumed that ’Bama is entitled to its spot. Everyone has already forgotten blocking two field goals, one with time expiring, to beat a mediocre Tennessee team which is about the equivalent of the A & M team we played. Drives me crazy.

in my fantasy texas gets to the NC game and beats tebow & co by 40 going away. i’d love to see the spin and crow feast that would follow.

“Well fought battle in Pasadena, officiating conspiracy??…”