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.

I almost cried like a girlish actor

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.