Possumblog

Earlier The Shadows Begin to Lengthen...

... and a certain crispness fills the air.

A great desolation departs, and FOOTBALL SEASON BEGINS AGAIN!!

GOOD AFTERNOON, SPORTS FANS, and welcome once again to Possumblog Sports Center, coming to you with all of the most important news about the greatest sport ever devised by human beings, as played by the greatest university named Auburn in the entire universe!

As usual, the sidelines will be stalked by Jimmy Neil and Clew--

--bringing you their own brand of exciting and fragrant sports talk. [LATE BREAKING UPDATE, 4:20 pm: Jimmy Neil was doing some websurfing and found a story that combines history, science, and football! Afterwards, he ate five entire cans of nacho cheese flavored Pringles, then tripped on a shoe and hit his head on the toilet. Look for more exciting things from the boys as the season progresses.]

And as usual, we will be delving into the Exxes and Oze to give you all you will need to know for the upcoming contest.

We begin with a rousing cry of "War Eagle!" and get right to discussing the first game of the year for the Auburn Tigers.

The Plainsmen start their 114th season undefeated, and will be stepping onto the behedged field of Jordan-Hare Stadium tomorrow evening at 6:45 Central Time with a #4 ranking in the Associated Press preseason Top 25 Poll (following Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Texas), and a number six in the USATODAY Coach's Poll. Heady stuff, but thank goodness it's not the kiss of death #1 ranking, either. #4 is bad enough. It's worth noting that Auburn has been ranked in the preseason top 10 fifteen times in its history, and in only one case have they ever improved upon their rank (1983, started out ranked 4th, wound up 3rd).

This year looks as though it's going to be a pretty good one, no matter what the rankings might say--at least on the offensive side of the ball. Defensively, the Tigers have lost five senior starters, and although there is great depth in all positions, it is still disconcerting. Maybe not as bad as it will be at the end of the season when 21 seniors (on both offense and defense) will be leaving.

In any case, even if every game turns out to be a boring snoozefest, there is one game toward the end of the season that I will predict right now will be one for the ages--right up there with "Punt, Bama, Punt!"--and that will be the scheduled closer against the Crimson Tide. Why this year?

This.

That one simple gesture--four upraised fingers, indicating that Auburn had swept to victory four consecutive years--caused more vituperation and weeping and gnashing of teeth amongst 'Bama fans than anything in memory. This year, though, Alabama is going to be good. Very good. And full of hatred and vengence and playing on home turf amongst bronzen statues of godlike former coaches. Auburn, on the OTHER HAND (heh) would like nothing better than to make good on the boasts last year of "Fear the Thumb," reminiscent of the Steeler's "One for the Thumb" Superbowl promise. Let's just hope it doesn't take the Tigers 26 years to make good on it.

We shall see--but I think it'll be a slobberknocker.

Enough of the far distant future--at least for now. The Tiger's leadoff opponent this year is another feline-mascotted team, the Cougars of Washington State of the Pac-10 Conference. Not to be unkind, but the Cougars aren't quite in the same strata as fellow conferencemates USC. Not that anyone is. But if nothing else, this should make it easier for the Tigers to secure a win. After all, WSU only has homely Butch T. Cougar. Which (or who) is pretty lame when compared to Official Mascot Hall of Famer and perpetual crowd favorite Aubie the Tiger!

And anyway, tigers are more dangerous than cougars any day of the week.

And I had a friend in high school who had a '75 Mercury Cougar and it was an utter piece of crap.

AND not only all of that, but Auburn has an eagle, too--and ITS name is Tiger, so we've got vicious beasts out the wazoo.

Which is ALSO a vicious beast.

Of course, I don't have to do too much convincing of our overwhelming superiority when it comes to unhinged fury--even the WSU fan sites are sounding a bit skittish.

ANYWAY, we haven't even touched (so to speak) the thing that truly is the measure of one team over another.

Cheerleaders.

This year Auburn has taken some steps forward, as well as some HIGHLY regrettable steps backward. In the good section, the main page for the squad FINALLY has individual pictures, which, although too small and too full of lumbering GUY cheerleaders, is still a welcome relief from last year's complete lack of views.

A slight technical problem surfaces, however, with people like me who have ancient computers run by ossified IT departments who refuse to update the system with newer version of Flash. I think I'm limping along with Version 4 or something, and the Photos pages now runs a spiffy slideshow that requires a much newer version of Flash. No, I can't download it--that's just CRAZY TALK! So that makes it much more difficult to tune in and see what can be seen. I wish people would get away from using Flash unless it's really, really necessary.

But the worst thing? NO MORE ALL GIRL SQUAD! Last year was the debut, and there were NO annoying guys in any of the pictures and it was much better. But apparently it was not to be for this year. ::sigh::

At least there are still the Tiger Paws. I'll be sorely disappointed it they start messing it up with guys in unitards and tap shoes.

AS FOR WSU (which does not stand for Weevil State University, by the way), well, bless their hearts for trying, but they just have one crappy page. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO WIN FOOTBALL GAMES LIKE THAT, PEOPLE!?

Having now exhausted all possible angles to our story this week, it is time ONCE AGAIN to bring in our staff of highly experienced scientists, statisticians, bus boys, and head trauma patients for our 2006 FIRST GAME OF THE SEASON INAUGURAL SCORE PREDICTION!

Leaving behind past unsuccesses, we look forward this year to providing the most accurate score predictions available anywhere, and to do this we have enlisted the kind help of one of the voices in my head, who predicts a final score of...




AUBURN-42 -- WASHINGTON STATE-9

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!

Some of you probably get tired with the emphasis on football and cheerleaders around here, so in an effort to shine a spotlight on other students who labor without as much recognition, this year we have instituted the POSSUMBLOG STUDENT ATHLETE OF THE WEEK!!

And this week's recipient is Ashley Milton of the National Championship Auburn Equestrian Team. A 5ft-10in tall sophomore from Prattville, Alabama, Miss Milton rides Western, and is the recipient of the College of Agriculture Stanford Hallman Memorial Scholarship.

Smart, tall, blonde, outdoorsy, and cuter than a box full of buttons--hard to top that for our first PSAotW!

Posted by Terry Oglesby at September 1, 2006 02:33 PM