Week 9: Texas A&M

Ben and I were back in Auburn this weekend for the Texas A&M game, which. was. a. DISASTER.  I mean, this was the lowest of low points I've ever experienced as an Auburn fan.  Ever.  I'll get the negative stuff out of the way first so I can move on to the good stuff and leave you with a nice positive feeling by the end.

 

Auburn just couldn't put anything together this week.  I think our offense actually played better than our defense for the first time this year, but that's not saying much.  They were both terrible.  A&M scored 21 unanswered points in the first quarter, 14 of them before we even got a first down.  The final score was 63-21, and honestly it would've been much worse had A&M not been reaching well into its depth chart for its second half personnel.  I don't think I've ever before wanted to leave a game before it was over, but I wanted to leave this game in the first quarter.  I didn't leave, mind you; I just wanted to.  I was there til the clock ran out, which is more than I can say for approximately 60,000 Auburn fans, including the entire student section.  People were leaving before halftime.  It was ridiculous.  That stadium was deathly quiet after the first quarter.  In a single season, I've managed to hear both the loudest (LSU) and quietest (TAMU) games I've ever experienced in Jordan-Hare Stadium.  I blame myself for part of the quiet as much as anyone else.  I kept trying to yell and cheer, but it was half-hearted at best, as I was basically numb after the first quarter.  I'm not proud of that, but unfortunately even super-fans like myself get off our games sometimes  :-)

 

Now on to the good stuff. 

 

We got to town mid-afternoon on Friday, in time to walk over to the Athletics Complex and do "Reverse Tiger Walk" (lining the players' path like the gameday Tiger Walk, but instead of lining their path to the stadium, we're lining their path to the buses they take to their out-of-town hotel).  After that, we took a walk across campus to Toomer's Corner.  This is the first time in YEARS I've gotten to Toomer's early enough to get some lemonade (Toomer's Drugs closes at 6:00, and we always just miss it).  Then we had dinner at Hamilton's on Magnolia, which is our go-to dinner hangout.

 

I'm pretty sure this stuff comes directly from the hand of God.

 

My cousin Caryn came to the game with her friend Brian, and they came to hang out with us for a couple of hours beforehand.  Caryn had a pretty sweet hat to keep her head warm.

 

 

It was Military Appreciation Day at the game on Saturday, so there were all kinds of cool things going on in pregame and at halftime.  We had an F-16 flyover in pregame, which was really cool.  I didn't get a picture of it because it happened too fast (that's kind of the nature of a pack of F-16s). 

 

The pregame eagle flight was AWESOME this weekend.  For the past several weeks (actually, I think, all season), our golden eagle Nova has been doing the pregame flight.  Nova had a run-in with one of the suite windows last season and has since been a little shell-shocked.  He pretty much just flies straight down from the top of the stadium to midfield without circling much.  This week our bald eagle, Spirit, did the flight; and he soared and circled and soared some more (including a jaunt outside the stadium behind the AUHD screen).  It was like he was saying, "Man, they NEVER let me do this shit!  I'm making the most of it!"  During the eagle flight, the crowd says "Waaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrr" as long as the eagle is in the air and yells "Eagle! Hey!" once he hits midfield.  I think the "Waaaaaaarrrrrrrrrr" lasted a good five minutes this weekend. 



Spirit in Flight

At halftime we had some Para-Commandos jump onto the field.  Pretty awesome stuff.

They also honored the veterans in the crowd by asking them to stand at one point, and there was an older man near us who stood and got pretty emotional when the crowd cheered.  I'd place him in the Korean War era, probably.  I'm not going to lie; I got choked up myself.  There are not many things more American than an SEC football game where the crowd honors the military. 

 

As I mentioned above, the game itself was pretty much a train wreck, but there were a couple of bright spots.  One Weagle this week goes to Jonathan Wallace, our Freshman quarterback, who got a lot of playing time in the second half and who did quite well.  By that time, he was playing against second or third string players on A&M's defense, so I'm not ready to say he's a superstar just yet, but he definitely gave me some hope for the future.  He also seems to have the right attitude, as his postgame quotes mention "never quitting" and "coming out on fire."  I think he could be the leadership this team needs in future seasons.  One Weagle this week also goes to C.J. Uzomah, who got his first start at tight end this weekend in the wake of Lutzie's unfortunate injury.  C.J. has some HUGE shoes to fill, but he got a decent start this weekend with three catches for 90 yards (which, unfortunately, was a big chunk of our offense).  Also one Weagle to Emory Blake, who (as always) made some difficult catches.  We can almost always count on Blake to pull the ball down if it's anywhere near him. 

 

Homecoming next week.  That should be a W, right?  Right?  WDE!