My gameday meltdown, as chronicled by Twitter

Before you read the details about my emotional roller coaster ride this past Saturday, let me first share what my thoughts were regarding Auburn’s chances coming into this season. In a nutshell, when you lose more starters than ANY other team in the nation, including the Heisman AND Lombardi winners, things aren’t going to be altogether smooth the following year.

So I knew full well going into Auburn’s opening day tilt with Utah State that the team would experience some growing pains in 2011. Still, I thought there would be enough juice to beat the Aggies by, oh, 17ish points to start the campaign off on the right foot.

As we all know now, I was horribly wrong. But a few minutes into the game, before the upset alert was sounded, I was still pretty damn calm and rational. I can prove it because not even an Auburn game can make me give up my addiction to Twitter:

I didn’t get that upset when Utah State went up 7-0. That’s because Auburn answered with a nifty 56-yard catch and run by Emory Blake to knot it up. But then Utah State tacked on two straight scores to go up 21-7. Keep in mind they were doing so with the aforementioned true freshman, Chuckie Keeton, making his first start at quarterback.  If you were on Twitter, you could actually read my discomfort starting to set in:

Now let me point out the fact that I usually strive to be an enlightened sports fan who doesn’t let the trials and tribulations of my team get the best of me. Usually. You see, despite my resisting it, even I can become that surly bastard who starts looking for someone to blame:

The tweets above were me blaming the defense. Here’s the part where I started getting irked with the offensive coordinator who happens to be coming off of a season in which he won the Broyles Award:

Yup, a shaky season opening half from Auburn against a WAC team is apparently all it takes for me to start channeling my inner asshole.  And my shenanigans kept on going in the third quarter, despite Auburn having come back to take a 28-24 lead:

At that point in the game I had blamed players and coaches, so shit, why not start blaming other people on Twitter?:

So how did I take it when Auburn’s lead dissipated in the 4th quarter?  Naturally my irritation shifted to desperation, and people actually started worrying about me:

Hey, that’s a funny joke @IdrinkJAGER made right there.  But I was too despondent to laugh:

So let’s again run down the people I had blamed up to the point where Utah State took a 38-28 lead with a scant 4 minutes left in the game: Auburn players, Auburn coaches, assholes on Twitter.  That’s when I added God to the list:

That last one makes me guilty because right when it seemed like all hope was lost, God intervened.  How else do you explain Barrett Trotter leading Auburn straight down the field to cut it to 38-35, the subsequent onside kick being perfectly executed and Michael Dyer punching in the winning score with :45 seconds left?

Talk about a wild ride.  So how did I process yet another Auburn comeback?  With vulgarity, naturally:

As for the rest of the season, I’m sure it will result in me bottoming out several more times.  But you can take pleasure in my pain by following me on Twitter.  That’s because even when I sink to my lowest depths, I’m still good for a dick joke or three.

Five reasons why June Jones is friggin’ BLESSED

June Jones is a lot more awesome than you’ve ever given him credit for. Look, I’m not implying that you’re an asshole for not having grasped this concept before now. On the contrary, you’re actually taking the time to read my site, so in my estimation you’re like the exact opposite of an asshole (whatever that may be).

So don’t get defensive, I’m just singing the praises of a guy for whom more praise should’ve been sung a long time ago. Here’s why:

1. This glorious picture

In the pantheon of great hair/goatee combos, June Jones’ statue should be right beside that of Kenny Powers:

I suspect that back in 1979, when that glorious picture was taken, Jones was frequently mistaken for being a member of Electric Light Orchestra.  It’s only fitting that he spent his NFL career being a backup quarterback because having to don a helmet would’ve ruined his entire look.

3. Dude got in Jeff George’s face

Let’s be brutally honest, Jeff George might have been the biggest insufferable shit the NFL has ever seen (well, in the non-Bill Romanowski Division, at least).  After being drafted first overall by Indianapolis in 1990 he spent the next four seasons leading that franchise to a 14-35 record.

After that, it was June Jones who picked George up off the scrap heap and put him in charge of his Run and Shoot offense in Atlanta.  The result?  George was able to revive a dying career with a 3,734 yard/23 TD effort in 1994 followed up by a 4,143 yard/24 TD showing in 1995.

So how did George see fit to repay Jones?  By arguing with him on the sidelines during a 33-18 loss to the Eagles on September 22, 1996.  That’s right, in full view of a nation full of football fans.  Jones reacted by suspending his ass for the rest of the season.  In my book, any guy who forced George to sit out nearly a whole season is a great American.

3. The guy came back from nearly being killed

While coaching Hawaii in 2001, Jones wrapped his car around a concrete pillar near the Honolulu International Airport.  He suffered head injuries, internal bleeding, a bruised liver and, get this, a TORN AORTA.  How ugly was that crash?  Bad enough that news outlets were writing his obituary:

Meanwhile, the two local papers prepared for the worst. “Everybody was getting together special sections because they thought he had died,” says UH beat reporter Stephen Tsai of the Honolulu Advertiser. (ESPN the Magazine; October 1, 2001)

In the decade since he nearly lost his life, Jones has fashioned an 80-51 record at two non-BCS stops (Hawaii and SMU), and keep in mind that includes a 1-11 record when he took his lumps during his first season at SMU.  Now that is friggin’ coming back strong.

4. He took Hawaii to a BCS bowl

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can already predict your reaction, which is something along the lines of Hawaii having been about as deserving of a BCS bowl bid in 2007 as I am of winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2011.  But whether that team was worthy or not is kinda beside the point in this context.

This is Hawaii, a school with a thin local recruiting base that’s stuck out in the middle of the Pacific.  In the three seasons before Jones arrived, the program had a combined record of 5-31.  So you see that with all things considered that Sugar Bowl appearance was pretty damn impressive.

5. He put the paddles on the chest of SMU football

By now, even the youngest of bucks who were born in the early 90’s has seen the “30 For 30″ feature on SMU and knows the program went belly up in the 80’s.  So with that you cats who just became legal drinkers finally had a back story as to why SMU became such a woeful afterthought in college football.

But seeing Mustang football die like that was strange to those of us who actually witnessed the program’s Pony Express glory days.  It really was a death penalty in every sense of the term.  Since football returned to SMU in 1989, the program has had SEVEN seasons of one or fewer wins.

Jones was responsible for one of those 1-win seasons after he took over for Phil Bennett in 2008.  But since then he’s done the unthinkable in leading SMU to three postseason appearances (two bowls and one C-USA title game).  Folks, this is a reclamation project on par with what Bill Snyder engineered at K-State back in the 90’s.   How blessed is that?