FanHouse Auburn Tigers

The snubbed teams like St. Mary's, Creighton, San Diego State and Penn State will get their chance to make their argument that they were deserving of an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament over Arizona, Minnesota, and well... that's about it.

The top four seeds in the NIT are San Diego State, Auburn, Creighton and Florida. The SEC packed the second tier tournament with four teams.

The Volunteers bandwagon will be full for at least one day. Teams from Happy Valley, PA to Moraga, CA will be pulling for Tennessee. They will play Mississippi State for the SEC Tournament final. A Tennessee win, saves one last bubble spot for the teams that will be just happy to be there.

Tennessee was highly efficient on offense the entire game. They hit shots outside and the inside game opened up for them. Auburn just could not stop Tyler Smith and Wayne Chism. The Vols performed like the team many expected in the preseason. They just overwhelmed Auburn.

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No one saw this season coming from the Auburn Tigers. Not in the preseason, when most considered the Tigers to be a team somewhere in the bottom six teams. Instead with the win over LSU, Auburn is 10-6 in the SEC and 21-10 overall. Most importantly, Auburn has worked its way into the discussion for the NCAA Tournament.

Auburn has won eight of their last nine, beating Tennessee, Mississippi State and Ole Miss. Their RPI may be up around 70, but they have been the hottest team in the SEC. A decent run in the SEC Tournament, and they will be hard to keep out of the NCAA Tournament. In a year where the bubble is crowded with plenty of other teams that have missed their chances to get that final win, Auburn has been doing just that.

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It always sucks when your car is towed. Parking a few feet into a restricted zone. Unpaid tickets. DUI. Whatever the reason. Seeing your car stuck on the other side of a chain link fence is a frustrating feeling. Just ask Auburn's senior guard Frank Tolbert. Last week he had his '95 Chevy Tahoe towed and just , uh, snapped.

Sometime between 11:30 p.m. Thursday and 3:15 a.m. Friday, he jumped a fence at United Auto Collision on Opelika Road and drove his car through the gate, Holder said, adding that a metal fence and posts valued at $1,500 were damaged.

"Drove his car through the gate." His SUV had been towed because it was improperly parked at an apartment building. He really didn't want to pay to get it back. It was reasonably easy to guess who took the SUV, though. Even easier, to find Tolbert who was pulled over the next day driving it. He was charged with 3d degree criminal mischief (a class B Misdemeanor -- punishable by up to 6 months and/or $1000 fine). Considering the damage exceeded $500, it's not clear why he wasn't charged with 2d degree criminal mischief.

Tolbert was considered one of the team's leaders and was the 3d leading scorer last year. So far Auburn and Auburn head coach Jeff Lebo aren't commenting. Not even a "we will let the judicial process take its course," statement.

Arkansas Athletic Director Frank Broyles is expected to step down this week. His departure is yet another symbol of the passing of one of college football's greatest generations, the great coaches who presided over the game from 1960 or so until the mid to late 1970's. Broyles coached the Razorbacks from 1958 to 1976 helping them win a championship and competing nationally in a great era against powers like Alabama, USC, Notre Dame and Michigan.

Another giant of his time has left us in the mortal sense: Bo Schembechler. Schembechler coached Michigan from 1969 to 1989 becoming the face of the program until his death just before the Michigan/Ohio State game last year.

The only giants of that era still with us are Broyles, former Texas coach Darrell Royal (1957-1976) and former Notre Dame coach Ara Paraseghian (1964-1974).

Among the magnificent but dead is Alabama's Bear Bryant (1958-1982) who retired at the end of the 1982 season and promptly checked out of mortal existence. Ohio State's Woody Hayes (1951-1978) hung around until his death in 1987. Nebraska's Bob Devaney (1962-1972) checked out in 1997 and USC's comedic John McKay (1960-1975) lasted a little longer, passing away in 2001.

All those giants left the coaching ranks long ago, but each stewarded elite programs for a decade or more. To this day most of them remain the standard for which current coaches aspire to at each of their programs. Schembechler's death and Broyles' departure signal the end of their collective direct involvement in the college game.

As that great generation fades further into memory we must now also begin to take stock of the succeeding generation of coaches. I'm talking about guys like Bobby Bowden, Joe Paterno, Tom Osborne, John Robinson, Vince Dooley, Don James, Hayden Fry, Pat Dye, Lou Holtz, Lavell Edwards and Barry Switzer here.

They are the ones who were the game's caretakes from the mid to late 1970's until the late 1980's, an era of great transition and upheaval due to parity measures such as scholarship limits, the completion of racial integration and the rapid and dramatic death of plodding, run-heavy conventional offenses such as USC's "Student Body Right/Student Body Left" approach.

We'll save that analysis for another day, another time. Until then it's one final embrace of perhaps college football's "greatest generation" of coaches. Thanks for the memories, fellas.

In the immortal words of the late, great Jim Fyffe, my time is up and I thank you for yours. This will be my final post for AOL's FanHouse. The company has decided to go another direction and cover college football with a wider net, doing away with the individual school writers.

In the future, FanHouse will continue to cover college football, but will do it with a smaller group of writers who will cover college football in general. You can be assured that if Auburn has breaking news, it will be covered here.

It was a business decision on AOL's part and you have to respect that. It has been an honor for me to be part of the FanHouse family this season. I want to thank Jamie Mottram, the mastermind behind the FanHouse concept. He has built an incredible gathering place for fans to visit and share their views. I wish him nothing but luck in the future. I'll continue to visit every day.

I also want to thank all the FanHouse writers I've gotten to know this year. It has been a blast sharing stories with you all season. AOL has some of the most talented writers around; and where they find some of these stories is beyond me. They just get better and better.

Finally, I want to thank all my readers. You made Auburn FanHouse one of the most visited (if not the most visited) college site on the FanHouse portal. Where many schools were measuring readers by the hundreds, you pushed our numbers to more than 40,000 just in the last month at Auburn FanHouse. Incredible.

Your comments were awesome. Your defense of Auburn was admirable. I'll miss all of my regular contributors. And yes, strangely enough, I'll even miss Jake. Anybody that loves SEC football enough to get punished on a daily basis is OK in my book. Keep your head up Jake. Your children may one day see Alabama beat Auburn.

While I may be leaving AOL, I'm not going anywhere. Just as I did before my FanHouse gig, I'll be returning to my blog in the Summer. I'm going to take a few months off and then resume with Football Saturday In The South. I hope you'll stop by as we get closer to the start of the season.

I'll close by talking about Auburn. For somebody who grew up loving Pat Dye, I have to say that Auburn is in its glory days now. Tommy Tuberville has a chance to be better than Shug and Pat. And that's obviously saying a lot. We are about to conclude the best recruiting class since Tuberville arrived.

Everything is in place. Next year will be a transition time. But look out in 2008. It has the potential to be very special. War Eagle and God Bless!

It appears that Auburn finally has its season opening opponent for 2007. The Manhattan (KS) Mercury is reporting tonight that Kansas State has reached an agreement with Auburn to travel to Jordan-Hare Stadium for the Tigers 2007 season opener.

There have been rumors flying around all day on the internet. The Mercury is the first to confirm the story. The opener will be played on September 1st and televised by ESPN. There was no mention of a return trip by Auburn. This has been a sticking point for the Auburn administration in trying to schedule a BCS conference caliber opponent. You would have to assume that they'll be no return trip to Manhattan, Kansas.

This will not be the first time the two schools have met in the season opener. Auburn opened with Kansas State to start the 1979 season. The game was won by the Tigers 26-18 at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

The Reggie Bush saga in Southern California is unraveling faster than a New England Patriots lead. The news out of Los Angeles is getting worse by the day. Recent news of audio tapes confirming that Bush and his family were "on the take" while still in college raises some very interesting questions.

Will Bush be stripped of his Heisman Trophy? Will USC lose its national championship? The likelihood of either happening is looking pretty good. The NCAA will certainly be pushed into action if these tapes are authenticated.

The results could be historic. What will the BCS do? If the NCAA takes away the Trojans victories from 2004, the BCS will have little option but to take back its championship. The same will hold true for the Associated Press. They will be left with two options. One would be to vacate the title and leave that way. The other would be to crown the second ranked team that season as its national champion.

That of course, is Auburn. Wouldn't it be ironic if Auburn, after being screwed by the BCS, ended up as national champions? There's no question that in hindsight, the 2004 squad would have given USC a run for its money and have had a good chance of winning (see Florida 2006).

Two months ago, I would have said this was a pipe dream. Today, I think it's very possible. Maybe we can get the BCS and AP to present the trophy during halftime of the Auburn-Alabama game at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Too little too late you say? Not me, I'll take it. Finders keepers.

How bad do you miss Auburn football? For me, it's gotten really bad. I actually watched today's practice session at the Senior Bowl carried by the NFL Network.

And you know what? I really enjoyed it. OK, so maybe I have issues. I think its called withdrawals. For the three of you who actually get that channel, the network will be carrying tomorrow and Thursday's practice sessions starting at 4:00 p.m. CT.

When the game kicks off Saturday, it will feature five former Auburn players, including running back Kenny Irons, defensive back David Irons, offensive linemen Ben Grubbs and Tim Duckworth and wide receiver Courtney Taylor.

Irons looked really good in practice today. He caught the eye of more than one NFL coach.

But the one they were talking about most was Grubbs. He's projected by many to be the first guard taken in April's NFL draft. They were also giving a lot of love to Duckworth. When you see both of them working out for scouts, it hits you just how bad they are going to be missed.

The Auburn offensive line has huge holes to fill. Thankfully, Hugh Nall has gone out and found some talented high school linemen. Unfortunately, it looks like too many of them will get a chance to play next year.

The South squad is coached this year by San Francisco 49ers head coach Mike Nolan and the North squad is led by Tampa Bay head coach Jon Gruden. Saturday's contest will be carried on the NFL Network and starts at 3:00 p.m. CT.

Thousands of fans will spill into Beard-Eaves Coliseum tonight for the nationally televised basketball game between Auburn and Alabama. Of course they won't be there for basketball. Everyone knows that round-ball is an after thought on the Plains.

The real reason fans will be there will be to celebrate the school's Iron Bowl victory over Alabama back in November. That's right. Tradition says the winning team celebrates its football victory during halftime of its home basketball game with the other school.

Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville, along with some of his players will be presented the Iron Bowl trophy by none other than the Alabama Student Government Association. It's a tradition that was started back when Alabama was still competitive in football.

Tonight, those brave students from Tuscaloosa will make their fifth consecutive visit to Auburn to present the trophy. It's always a sight to see. And even after five in a row, it still doesn't get old.

For Tigers basketball coach Jeff Lebo, it's a chance to "(see) what it's like to be at North Carolina and to play the likes of Duke or Maryland," says Birmingham News columnist Ray Melick in today's paper.

A sellout crowd is expected tonight. However, there are still plenty of good seats available for Auburn's next home game with top-ranked Florida on Saturday.