Possumblog

Bird bird bird, bird is the word...

That's right, "bird," as in the perky cardinal, as in the rough and ready ::chuckle:: Cardinals of Ball State University (0-2), who will be fluttering down from their perches in beautiful Muncie, Indiana (a city justly famed for its contribution to automobiledom as the birthplace of General Motors' famed Muncie M-22 "Rockcrusher" four-speed tranny) to take on the still-not-firing-on-all-cylinders, (1-1, 1-0 SEC) Tigers of Auburn University.

The Plainsmen did score a solid win last week against one of those Mississippi teams, a methodical game with no points scored against them, but they still seem to be having trouble maintaining that consistency throughout an entire game. When they're on, they look like the boys from last year--when they're not on, well, it's a mess. Hewitt-Trussville alum Brandon Cox is still trying to settle down at quarterback, and his occasional (and understandable) lack of judgement and poise led to several turnovers in the GaTech game. He did much better last week, but he's still not quite at that point where he can react well to heavy defensive pressure.

Not that he should have to worry this week. Ball State, bless their hearts, are like so many schools trying to build their program, and have to play above their weight in order to improve. They don't really have a great chance of pulling an upset, but they come on and play anyway because to be able to play a better team makes your players better themselves. Of course, nobody seems to have told Vanderbilt this, but that's a story for another day.

Then we get into the truest test--one must give a great deal of respect to Ball State for having individual cheerleader pictures, something that Auburn has been sadly lacking for years, but Auburn DOES have the advantage of having full-squad photos, and the cheerleading website has had continual improvements in the past two years, and has a very good selection of high-resolution game-day candid photos. They still need to work some on cropping out the guys, though, although I guess you girls want to look at them. Hmm? No, I am NOT jealous of the guys! You just shut up! I mean, just because they're all full of biceps and have the best view of the game doesn't mean I'm jealous. 'Cause I'm not.

THEN, moving on to mascots--oh, come on! It's a pretty red bird--who's scared of that!? Auburn's mascot is a ferocious jungle animal who wouldn't even LOOK at a cardinal, even if he was starving to death! And not only that, we have our own bird of prey that we send out before games to rid the stadium of any possible bird-poop-producers. Poor silly cardinals.

I will say that Auburn doesn't have any graduates who have their own late-night talk shows, although when he's not hitting people, Charles Barkley DOES talk a lot.

ANYWAY, down to the most important part of the post, the prediction of the score! Let's bring in Possumblog Sport Center's newest Football Pickin' Chicken, Lil' Joe Biden, and see what he has to say.

Chet the E-Mail boy has just released him--Lil' Joe Biden is walking slowly across the floor to the array of bingo cards in front of him. He's looking, he's looking--there he goes! He just pecked at his choices, and it appears as though it's going to be Auburn 38 - Ball State 3.

Let's hope Lil' Joe Biden is right, because if he's not, well, there's a REASON there's been TWO Football Pickin' Chickens...

Posted by Terry Oglesby at September 16, 2005 10:33 AM