The View from Section 109: The 2008 Season (Pt. 1)

This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write. This is more difficult than any press release, any newspaper story or city council meeting report for class. Just what do you say about a season that started with such hope (and a 4-1 record through one of the toughest recorded Septembers in Auburn history) and ended with just one more win in seven tries the rest of the way?

Last time I wrote on Auburn’s football season, I vowed to stick behind the coaches and strain through the growing pains of the new offense. There were bright spots here and there, and we seemed to have a different player step up when needed during the first five games. Then, we go to Vandy and run the ball down their throats three-straight drives to open the game and built a 13-0 lead (thanks to miscues in the redzone and an inability to hit a simple PAT). The unrest in the stands and the resentment of our fanbase became palpable when the spread produced nothing of value the rest of the game.

It was somewhere in the third quarter in Nashville that I had lost my patience with Tony Franklin. The guys were clearly confused, and you could not defend a single play call the last three quarters of that game. Quite honestly, it is amazing that our second-stringers and third-stringers on defense kept that game to only 14-13 as the Commodores celebrated what could quite possibly be the biggest win of the last half century for that program.

Yet, we remained in the rankings somehow and dismissed Franklin just over 72 hours prior to the Arkansas game. This was met with a lot of relief by most Auburn fans and we knew we could finally see a healthy dosage of Kodi Burns. The Hogs came into town with the Southeastern Conference’s worst record and a coach that many of AU’s board of trustees wished had been on our sidelines since the Iron Bowl in 2003. What Bobby Petrino did was show just how well he knew our tendencies on defense and just took it to us.

Burns was able to put us in position to win the game a couple of times in the fourth quarter (amazingly, running Franklin’s no-huddle spread attack – not out of the I) but his fourth-down pass was misjudged by Eric Smith (a true freshman running back) and he overthrew Robert Dunn (who made no effort whatsoever on the ball after he knew he wouldn’t be able to catch it) streaking across the middle. The pass ended up in the arms of a Razorback, and things hit the proverbial rock bottom. At that point, thousands exiting Jordan-Hare Stadium knew that Thomas H. Tuberville had possibly sealed his fate.

Never had I been more ready for an off-week while being an Auburn fan. This team was hurting, and it was hard to watch the season slip further down the drain. After a Saturday spent in Clemson, I felt better about our chances against West Virginia the following Thursday night. Yes, we were bad but we would still have a good shot at running away with the Atlantic Coast Conference, I thought. Since then, Georgia Tech found its identity and ended the regular season 9-3 while Clemson wrapped up a Gator Bowl berth with a resounding 31-14 win over South Carolina (which led to Bill Stewart 2.0 as far as coaching hires).

West Virginia is deserving of its own blog, which I promise is in the works. Never have I been more frustrated with a road crowd, and I have made assurances that I will not step foot in that town ever again. The game just compounded those feelings. Once again, we had power football build a 17-3 lead as we looked prepared for a rout. Then, just like against LSU, a deep pass changed the momentum, and we took a 17-10 lead into halftime. Those of us in the stands (Andrew, Frank Buttler, Jim “My dad was a WVU grad and almost made the trip with us wearing a coonskin hat,” Andy Shores and Matt Shores) could almost start to dread what the final was going to end up being. Thirty minutes of football later, we left the stadium to John Denver’s crooning lyrics with a 34-17 thrashing in the books.

Just like that, the schedule that looked to be so easy (with one ranked opponent between LSU and Georgia – that being Vandy) had turned into a 4-4 record with everyone up in arms. Where could things get turned around? Ole Miss did not seem to be a winnable game with Tuberville’s kryptonite Houston Nutt in control. I did not like our chances in this game before the season, and I sure didn’t feel good knowing that we were limping in on a three-game skid.

Somehow, Brad Gregg convinced me that we’d win the game, and I even dusted off the ole 2000 sideline polo after watching our game with the Rebels from that season. We figured we could channel the Tuberville of old – the one that Ole Miss fans really, really despised. Instead, he did not appear to even coach a single player on the sidelines and the only life we showed was on the first and last drives of the second half. Burns showed that we could get a good game from his arm if needed (just had to cut down on the turnovers inside the redzone).

There’s not much to say about a 37-20 win over Tennessee-Martin. It should have been a lot worse, but it could have gone either way looking at the drive charts and focusing on the mistakes. The Skyhawks turned the ball over four times in our redzone. The game was tied, and we could have realistically trailed in the third quarter if not for a Josh Bynes interception just shy of the goal line.

Kodi, from all accounts, took the team on his shoulders, and his post-game comments were of this nature: “We were sick of losing, and when we looked up at the scoreboard (after the game was tied), some of us had this look on our faces that said, ‘Oh no, not again.’ I wasn’t going to let that happen.” Sure, this was a Football Championship Subdivision school, and I know that it is harder to do this week in and week out against SEC opponents, but Kodi did deliver on his promise. For the first time in his young career, he put the team on his back and led them to a win.