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How to navigate a weekend of college football through an Orange and Blue lens
Welcome back, Tiger fans! Boy wasn’t that BYE week something. Just a fine and lovely weekend to enjoy some extra time with the family, maybe take in a movie, and oh yeah...LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL @ Georgia. Ain’t nothin’ finer in the land than a drunk, obnoxious Georgia fan...being hit square in the jaw with the same reality 39 years running while the beginnings of a hangover start taking effect. There’s no limit on the joy I have had this week knowing that this, the year in which Kirby has more 5 stars than literally any other school in America, finding a way to BLOW IT against a far inferior opponent.
See, that’s what the Rootability Index is at its core. It’s deciding who we hate the most on any given weekend and how a team winning/losing helps Auburn. And we always hate Georgia and Alabama the most. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the weekend’s slate!
Auburn at Arkansas
It’s easy to hate the Bama’s and the Georgia’s. But it takes a true, battle-worn member of the Auburn family to understand why we hate Arkansas so much. The youth’s like Ryan just won’t ever fully understand. So let’s take a painful journey down the path to why we should hate Arkansas...
- Disrespecting Bo Jackson at his jersey retirement in 1992. This game was also a tie, meaning Pat Dye’s final team would not be selected for a bowl due to the pesky Hogs coming into Auburn and ruining an otherwise perfectly good day. This was also one of the first Auburn football games I remember attending.
- 1995. Pat Nix’s senior season would have, and should have, culminated in Auburn’s first birth in the SEC Championship game. Arkansas led 27-0 in the first half in Little Rock. Arkansas ended up beating Auburn that day 30-28 and went on to win the SEC West.
- 2002. Fred Talley. Still running through my nightmares, Fred Talley. Hey! Guess who won a share of the SEC West in 2002?!? AUBURN! Know who they shared it with? F****** Arkansas! Guess who didn’t get a second chance at a Georgia team who won in Auburn thanks to an uncalled offensive pass interference? AUBURN. No I’m not over it. No I never fully forgave Tommy Tuberville for it. Look relationships can be complicated, and when you lose to F****** Arkansas enough times when it costs you a chance at an SEC Championship you have a lot of mixed emotions about a person who otherwise did some wonderful things. Which leads me to...
- 2006. OH COME ON! WE WERE NUMBER TWO IN THESE UNITED STATES AND WE DON’T SHOW UP FOR A HOME GAME AN THE UNHOLY HOUR OF ELEVEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING AND GET SCHOOL BY SOME HIGH SCHOOL COACH RUNNING A GIMMICK OFFENSE WITH A TRUE FRESHMAN QUARTERBACK. Oh, wait, there’s more! Guess who won the SEC West that season?!? ARKANSAS. Again, just beating an Arkansas team that did not have nearly the talent of that Auburn team puts them in Atlanta, in a rematch against Florida with a legitimate shot at a national championship.
- 2008. What better time to fire an offensive coordinator who clearly wasn’t meshing with the staff than after losing to Vandy right before a bad Arkansas team comes into Auburn? This was supposed to be a “get right” game for a struggling team before a BYE week. Instead, Bobby Petrino hands us a 3-point loss and folks start to realize that maybe the Tuberville era is closing on the Plains.
- 2012. So you’re 1-3 Auburn, with losses to Clemson, Mississippi State, and LSU. What better way to “get right” than have a 1-4 Arkansas team come to Auburn coached by John L. Smith? How? Why? What? All valid questions to ask yourself after this continues to happen.
- Jimmy Sexton. Auburn let Jimmy Sexton play them twice. All thanks to some sort of hilariously misguided allure to the Natural State. Shame on us for the contracts that followed. Shame on Arkansas for existing and therefore letting this happen.
I despise this program. They’ve put me through more unnecessary pain and frustration than ever should be allowed. And for all of the negatives some folks like to find in Gus Malzahn, I for one am sure thankful to have a coach who takes great pride in slapping this program with the hand of God every chance he gets. Sure, it’s probably with a bit of restraint now without Bert on the other sideline and replaced by one of his friends, but make no mistake, this game is personal for Gus Malzahn. And you know what? It’s damn personal for me to. Let’s trick play their butt early and often. Then let’s run down their throat 55 times for 500 yards and find a real ground threat for Death Valley next weekend. Give me this again, for it gives me life...
Florida at South Carolina
My orange and blue lens really wants to pull for South Carolina. I want an upset or two this weekend. I’m extremely bitter over what happened two weeks ago. And Florida is an old rival, and I sat through many losses to Steve Spurrier in Jordan-Hare Stadium as a child. That being said, Go Gators. Look we need Florida to win here. What I would give to play that team again in Atlanta. Hell, what I would give to just see Florida in Atlanta for the hilarity of Georgia finding a way to screw this up beyond belief! So my long-term dreams outweigh my desire to laugh at Florida for losing to this guy...
Missouri at Vanderbilt
Stay healthy, Mizzou. Keep winning. You can’t win the SEC East because of some real stupid NCAA probation, but you can be good enough to spoil the dreams of the rest of your division. So yeah, don’t lose this game.
M-I-Z! Z-O-U!
Texas A&M at Ole Miss
No part of me feels like an Ole Miss win does anything to harm our chances against them in Auburn in a few weeks. This is a bad football team who is playing a lot better offensively with John Rhys Plumlee in at quarterback. They just aren’t as good as us. So...what could be more hilarious than Jimbo Fisher headed down a road straight to 6-6 town? You’d just hate to see it.
Hotty Toddy!
Kentucky at Georgia
Oh man. Surely there’s no way that Georgia could find a way to lose to a team with multiple quarterback injuries! Yeah, no way that could happen with all that talent in Athens.
When you prepare the right way, good things will happen. pic.twitter.com/AcPgn9oPpL
— Gamecock Football (@GamecockFB) October 15, 2019
With that in mind...C-A-T-S CATS! CATS! CATS!
(Also, once again, never forget that this happened...)
LSU at Mississippi State
I actually feel bad for Joe Moorhead. He deserves a better life than being in Starkville among folks that actively hate him for not being Dan Mullen despite also being a good, albeit overwhelmed, football coach. I hope he leaves for other pastures. I also hope his football team does some damage to LSU in a loss to the Bengal Tigers. Just show us some of LSU’s weaknesses, State. Play tough and give LSU some body blows going into next week. Hell, stay in the game for a while for all I care. Just find a way to lose. We don’t need this LSU team brought down to earth by anybody other than us. Let the heads that talk continue to fill everyone’s head on the Bayou with dreams of beating Alabama. And then sure, go beat Alabama...after losing to us.
Geaux Tigers.
Tennessee at Alabama
You know on one hand part of me wants to be on the “Fire Jeremy Pruitt” bandwagon because I just want something to go right in Knoxville so that maybe one day this series can get competitive again. And getting blasted by Alabama would theoretically move things in that direction. On the other hand, LOL nah to hell with Alabama. It’s a hopeless cause but I’m here for it anyway. At least I’m old enough to vividly remember the better, simpler days until Tennessee gets its act together again.
Go Vols!
Figured out how to root today? Get it? Got it? Good. War Eagle.
from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2019/10/19/20921834/rootability-index-vol-2
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