Pete Fiutak has one of the more curious defenses of Auburn’s 2011 season I’ve seen:
While 8-5 might seem like a dud of a campaign coming off a championship, the losses came to ACC champion Clemson, Arkansas, LSU and Georgia on the road and at home to Alabama. There might not have been five more forgivable losses in college football, even if all of them were ugly blowouts.
Spoken by someone who sounds like he didn’t watch a single one of those games. It’s one thing for Auburn to lose, even big; it’s another to look totally outclassed repeatedly. Yeah, those personnel losses were considerable, but still…
I’m not even sure I’d call the Clemson game a blowout. Auburn wound up gaining almost seven yards per play on offense, but the defense couldn’t get off the field (Clemson ran 92 plays to Auburn’s 63). But those other four? Man, Auburn stunk up the joint. Here’s the spread on average yards per play in those games:
- Arkansas: -1.41
- LSU: -2.38
- Georgia: -3.08
- Alabama: -4.29
That’s a pretty disturbing trend line if you’re Gene Chizik. As far as forgiveness goes, I don’t think Ted Roof received any.
Get The Picture 
I totally forgive Auburn for losing to UGA in 2011, and I assure all my stump jumpin’ friends from Lee County that I am prepared to offer the friendly hand of forgiveness again this year after we blow though that dump of a stadium like a red and black tornado.
I’m exempting the world’s most annoying PA announcer and the marketing weasels who make every blessed second the ball’s not in play an assault on one’s innocent eardrums. Those guys better have their heads on a swivel if I ever see any of them in a crosswalk. I’m just sayin’.
the rest of you barners? Total amnesty for all losses to UGA!
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The money ran out?
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Where was Auburn’s impressive win, though? What was it about Auburn 2011 that makes Fiutak think things weren’t so bad?
Oh yeah, that’s right. South Carolina. Ha Ha, Gamecocks!
Seriously, though, Auburn was terrible last year outside of the blessed South Carolina fluke.
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Vandy fared better against AR, Bama & UGA than Awburn … so Vandy > than Barners
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If I were an Auburn fan, I’d be mightily disturbed by the Georgia loss.
All last season, our Dawgs didn’t respond well to a punch in the mouf and lost against any legit teams we faced. Put another way, Auburn couldn’t muster the amount of spirit displayed by an average as grits USC or a corn-fed sun burnt Big Integer team.
Auburn couldn’t hurl a spit ball to the back of our head in that game. We looked like the 85 Bears.
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Where was Georgia’s big win? Be careful busting Auburn for not beating anybody. Cause that dog biting them might be barking at us.
South Carolina blew it.
After beating the brakes off Auburn, Georgia needed for Carolina to lose to them. It happened and Georgia got embarrassed in Atlanta. What program is trending better, Carolina or Georgia? I really don’t know, and that in itself says volumes of where Georgia is in the SEC. The powers in the west are blowing the doors off the east.
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Get your timeline straight. Carolina lost to Auburn on 10/1. Georgia beat Auburn on 11/12.
By the way, I wasn’t busting Auburn for not beating anybody. I was pointing out the Tigers got slaughtered in four conference games, by increasingly worse margins. Perhaps you can point how Georgia’s season was just as bad. (Not that my post was about that.)
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I was at that AU-CU game, and it was a blowout by any definition of the word. AU jumped to an early lead, but by mid-way through the 3rd it was clear they were cooked. They had no clue how to stop Clemson – Dabo just put the brakes on eventually.
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8-5 ain’t the best season but it ain’t the worst either. The year before they won a crystal football. The year before we were 6-7 and lost to a C-USA team in a bowl. The attitude of superiority here is a little misplaced.
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I thought Chizik did a good job last year, considering he had no QB and Ted Roof to work around.
Again, point isn’t so much that Auburn sucked as it is Fiutak’s excuse making.
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This guy must not have watched the Auburn game, we beat them that bad taking our foot off the gas for most of the second half! I won a six pack of Blue Moon off an Auburn friend, and told him, we are going to beat the snot out of you for what ya’ll did to Murray last year with Fairley’s cheap tactics. I wish we hadn’t let up last year, but the score could have been much worse.
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Your first mistake was having an Auburn friend. Your second mistake was wagering on Blue Moon. So much better craft quality out there these days. Although, I’m not sure an Auburn man could figure that out either, so you probably did the best you could. 🙂
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