AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2006 > September > 16
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Auburn looks like a champion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Auburn, Ala. — Two years ago the coach of an unbeaten team was forced to beg for votes that never came. Come this afternoon, the same coach will have all the votes he and his Auburn Tigers need. And this time Tommy Tuberville doesn’t have to say a word.
Asked Saturday his reaction to No. 2 Notre Dame’s crashing loss to Michigan, the coach of the nation’s No. 3 team said: “Tell me they didn’t [lose].” And then, prodded for a more incisive comment: “I can’t believe they lost.”
And then he smiled.
Funny how things work out. The 2004 Auburn Tigers couldn’t rise above No. 3 because Southern Cal and Oklahoma wouldn’t cooperate. Now Auburn is 3-0 and as good a bet as any team — Ohio State and Southern Cal included — to wind up No. 1. The Tigers’ epic victory over LSU, itself one of the nation’s five most talented teams, tells us all we need to know about this bunch.
The final score — Auburn 7, LSU 3 — looks unassuming. Looks deceive. “It was hard and physical, and that’s why it was 7-3,” Tuberville said. And then: “There was more speed in that game than I’ve seen in a long time.”
LSU plays great defense. Auburn played even better D Saturday. There being no Vince Young or Reggie Bush in college football this season, defense figures to settle the issue of who’s No. 1. If you can hold LSU without a touchdown, you can measure up against anybody anywhere. You can beat Florida and Georgia and Alabama, all of which remain on the Tigers’ schedule. You can win the SEC championship in the Georgia Dome. You can win in Arizona on Jan. 8.
What transpired here Saturday was a classic of the old-school strain. Auburn needed 19 minutes just to make a first down. LSU outgained its opponent by 127 yards but — forget about crossing the goal line — snapped the ball only once inside the Auburn 20. (And that play was nullified by a false start.) Said Auburn quarterback Brandon Cox: “The way our defense was playing, when we scored [on a sneak] I really thought [one touchdown] could win.”
One touchdown won, one touchdown and two huge plays by one strong safety. Eric Brock’s tip of JaMarcus Russell’s fourth-down pass inside the final three minutes caused officials to wave off the pass-interference penalty they’d assessed against teammate Zach Gilbert, and Brock’s thunderous tackle of Buster Davis drove the receiver to the turf at the Auburn 6 as time expired.
And that was that. LSU coach Les Miles was left to fuss about the refs, wondering why the interference call against Gilbert was overruled but a similar one against his side was allowed to stand. But that’s what a losing coach in a game of this magnitude does: He gripes about the officiating. (Meanwhile, Tuberville — who, as Mark Richt can attest, likes to give coaching advice — said of LSU’s final drive: “I’m surprised they didn’t throw it in the end zone a couple of times.”)
Miles might not be a championship coach. (His predecessor, Nick Saban, demonstrably was.) Tuberville, by way of contrast, seems destined for that exalted level. He and his assistants worked a lovely game Saturday, sticking with the run and the estimable Kenny Irons even when early returns weren’t promising. Irons finished with 70 yards rushing — “Like 150 on another day,” Tuberville said — and was the engine that powered the drive to the only touchdown.
That one touchdown stands to change the face of college football 2006. Auburn will surely be No. 2 in the new polls, and if you can stay No. 2 you’ll eventually get your shot at No. 1. Two years later, Tuberville and his Tigers are finally where they need to be.
Permalink | Comments (43) | Categories: Mark Bradley
Dogs need no Houdini escape this time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Athens — Usually, if somebody among the little guys of college football is on the verge of shocking one of the big boys, there is quick evidence of a slingshot. Well, David was only a figment of many people’s imaginations Saturday at Sanford Stadium. At least regarding this possible Goliath, with Georgia showing the only thing that could defeat Georgia on this sun-splattered afternoon was Georgia.
Certainly not UAB, a little guy that finally met its match after Georgia showed too much depth, too much running, too much special teams, too much defense, too much everything.
Georgia also showed too many errors against UAB before the Bulldogs did exactly what they needed to do, and that is, they returned from a sloppy first half to blow their overmatched visitors back across the Alabama state line with a 34-0 victory. It took awhile. Soon after Georgia sprinted to a 7-0 lead within the game’s opening three minutes, the Bulldogs looking as bored as those who bothered to show up (large sections of empty seats at kickoff) and leave early in the fourth quarter. There was UAB stuffing Georgia’s mighty running game on fourth-and-1 in the red zone. There was that drive for the Bulldogs that featured A.J. Bryant dropping an easy pass, freshman quarterback Matthew Stafford fumbling after getting smacked, and a bad snap leading to a Stafford sack.
In other words, the Georgia offense remains a work in progress, but the defense is already there. For instance: The good stuff came later in the game for Georgia, primarily triggered by a blocked punt that was returned for a touchdown and that defense that kept torturing what supposedly is a decent UAB offense. Not only is that consecutive shutouts for the 3-0 Bulldogs, but they’ve allowed their foes a combined 12 points.
So why was Georgia linebacker Danny Verdun Wheeler shaking his head in the aftermath? “Uh, the two shutouts? We’re just OK on defense,” he said, with the solid 6-foot-2, 248-pound senior daring anybody in his sight to disagree. “Not being bashful or nothing, I really think that we’re just OK. Not taking anything away from South Carolina or UAB, they’re great teams, but I really think we have to play a whole lot harder and a whole lot faster when we get into the SEC struggle.”
Verdun Wheeler actually speaks the truth, especially since Tennessee sits a mediocre Colorado and an average Ole Miss away on Georgia’s schedule. Then again, given recent history, the Blazers would qualify as a pretty good Ole Miss if they played in the SEC instead of Conference USA. During the season’s first week, UAB nearly shocked Oklahoma on the road. The Blazers upset LSU and Mississippi State within the past six years, and they almost handled Tennessee, Pitt, Kansas and even Georgia during their last trip to town.
That was three years ago, when Georgia escaped with a 16-13 victory, and when running back Thomas Brown watched from his home in Tucker. “I was still in high school, and I really didn’t know much about UAB, and I was pretty much like most fans were by saying, ‘Oh, they should blow them out,’ ” said Brown, among those who helped Georgia do just that this time. He joined Kregg Lumpkin and Danny Ware as an efficient three-cogged machine that chewed through UAB’s defense on the ground for 146 yards and two touchdowns.
Georgia passed only when necessary for a couple of reasons. First, with Stafford making his first collegiate start, Bulldogs coach Mark Richt preferred a mostly vanilla game plan on offense. Second, despite UAB’s history of scaring folks, we’re still talking about UAB, which means Richt is saving his tutti-frutti stuff for the likes of Tennessee, Florida or Auburn.
Added Verdun Wheeler, reflecting on UAB again, “I mean, it’s almost impossible for somebody to come out and try to take those guys lightly. They were good. Maybe [fans and outsiders] may not have seen that, but just being on the field, you can ask anybody in this [locker] room, and they’ll tell you that their offense is really good.” So good that it didn’t score. Or maybe Georgia’s defense is so great.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
Overmatched Troy never quit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
These Trojans came without enough horses, but they brought one helluva band. Now, to get back to football, it must be said that the men of Troy University, sandwiching Georgia Tech in between Florida State and Nebraska, found that the Yellow Jackets were not exactly their kind of meat. But it took awhile before the bumbling hosts brought about enough offensive muscle to lessen the discomfort of the occupants of the pews at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
Matter of fact, the Trojans made an issue out of it into the fourth quarter. You check the score and you might get the impression that it was a rout. The truth is, going into the final quarter, the score was tied 14-14 and those gourmands who feed on upsets were rubbing their hands with glee. But not for long. On the third play, fourth-and-1 and a yard away from the end zone, Reggie Ball flipped a short pass for the man who usually blocks for him, fullback Mike Cox, and you could almost hear a huge sigh of relief rise above this arena, or at least the nervous Georgia Tech devotees among the 45,637.
The margin would expand to 35-20, but as the shadows fell across this hallowed old corner of North Avenue and Techwood, Chan Gailey was holding auditions once he got comfortable. The Trojans had come to town with their six-shooters armed and ready. After all, once you have spent a Saturday night in Tallahassee as the intended appetizer, why should a sunshiney afternoon in highly civilized Atlanta unnerve you?
The Trojans had little chance to exercise their bravado early on. Ball cranked up the offense early, and by the time he directed another one of those reverses, with Rashaun Grant circling addled Trojans on a 26-yard haul into the end zone untouched, Troy had managed to get off only two offensive series. Tech made it 14-0 in the second quarter, and this was beginning to look easy.
But not so fast, my friend, as the coach-turned-pundit Lee Corso is wont to say. Omar Haugabook, the Trojans’ quarterback, finally got some air in the ball and by halftime cut the margin to 14-7. And the rest, by this time, is history.
It had been the guess of many, I’d suppose, that any team that could hold Florida State to 45 yards afoot might be a serious problem to solve. And in ways they were.
Get this: Can you imagine a team holding Calvin Johnson to 9 yards on two catches and losing and Tech wins? Can you imagine that the same Ball you saw against Notre Dame would set an all-time Tech record for rushing quarterbacks, 130 yards against Gary Hardie’s 122 yards against Tulane in 1977?
And if you were waiting for Tashard Choice to move into P.J. Daniels’ vacated shoes, this would be the day. He doesn’t have Daniels’ bullish power, but give him some daylight and he’ll give you some yards.
With the lead in hand, Gailey began testing the depth of this crop. Several fresh and unsullied uniforms began to appear on the field, and some of these names might be filed away for future reference.
Greg Smith, a freshman, caught a couple of passes. Jamaal Evans, another freshman, picked up 40 yards after Choice took a rest. Another freshman who isn’t even in the book, Tyler Evans, got considerable action on special teams. He was a late walk-on from Kennesaw. And junior Gary Guyton intercepted a pass, and on it went.
But say this for the Trojans: They never quit. Once they saw an opening they still were landing punches. Say this, most of us were expecting something tough and ugly. Troy probably expected its chances were limited against a team that lost to Notre Dame by only four points, but you’ll never find out until you throw everything you’ve got at ‘em.
And if anybody was keeping score in the band division, the Trojans, silver helmets glistening under the sun, won in a wipeout. Unfortunately for Troy, score is kept only on the grass.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
