"That means our ninth game in a row would be the Alabama game, which would be tough," Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville said. "But there´s really no way around it. We´ll take what they give us. "We have a lot of people from the Florida area and around the Mobile area," said Auburn quarterback Jason Campbell, who is from Taylorsville, Miss. "You can feel what they´re going through. Their families will probably be evacuating. This is tough, because you wouldn´t want to play Georgia, LSU and Alabama back-to-back." BATON ROUGE — The LSU-Auburn game was postponed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. It survived a fire in 1996 as LSU burned Auburn. The game featured an earthquake of sorts in Tiger Stadium in 1988, when the crowd eruption to LSU´s winning touchdown registered on a campus seismograph. There was an explosion of interceptions and an LSU loss at Auburn in 1994. There was an eye-poking at the center of Tiger Stadium along with a near fight between an Auburn kicker and an LSU band member in 2001 when LSU won the league title. And there was cigar rage in 1999 when Auburn burned LSU back. And now, here comes a hurricane. The next game between No. 4 LSU (2-0) and No. 15 Auburn (2-0) is still on for 2:30 p.m. Saturday on CBS at Auburn´s Jordan-Hare Stadium, but Auburn and SEC officials were busy keeping an eye on Hurricane Ivan´s path in the Gulf of Mexico into the night Tuesday. "There has not been a decision made on the game," outgoing Auburn athletic director David Housel said Tuesday. "We are going to wait until the storm goes through, assess the damage and assess the number of people we can have here as far as police officers to help us put on the game. If we have enough people and the damage isn´t so severe where we still have power and the essentials, then we intend to play." Housel postponed an Auburn game against Mississippi State in 1995 because of the aftermath of Hurricane Opal. Auburn was supposed to play State in a Thursday ESPN game on Oct. 5 that year, but because of a lack of stadium personnel like police and the loss of power in the area, the game was moved to Saturday, Oct. 7. "We could play it," Housel said at the time. "But it won´t be a good experience for our fans." Auburn interim president Ed Richardson canceled classes for the remainder of the week on Tuesday. At 5 p.m. today, the American Red Cross will open a shelter for students, faculty, staff and the public at the Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum, where Auburn plays basketball. Should that fill, shelters will be opened at the Student Activities Building and, if necessary, at the Haley Center. A decision on the game could come as late as Friday morning. "The safety of our students is our number one priority," Richardson said. "We feel it is in the best interest to err on the side of caution." LSU has also canceled classes for today and Thursday and has opened shelters at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center and at the LSU Fieldhouse. Auburn has asked that those coming to Auburn for the game hold off on departures until a decision is made. Recreational vehicles, a staple of the strong-traveling LSU fans, have been banned by Auburn for this game to ease traffic and because of the threat of wind damage and flooding. "People will be inconvenienced, there´s no doubt about it," Housel said. "People will have to work together. But we intend to play the game if it´s playable and we can get the resources we need to do it." Should the game be postponed, both LSU and Auburn have an open date on Nov. 6. That date, on paper, does not look good for Auburn. It would mean Auburn would play nine straight without an open date with a difficult four-game stretch at Ole Miss on Oct. 30, LSU at home on Nov. 6, Georgia at home on Nov. 13 and at Alabama on Nov. 20. "That means our ninth game in a row would be the Alabama game, which would be tough," Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville said. "But there´s really no way around it. We´ll take what they give us. "We all would love to play a football game this week. But my understanding is the eye of the hurricane is going to be somewhere around our vicinity around noon on Thursday." A postponement looks better for LSU on paper. The Tigers would get to break up a stretch of three difficult road games in four weeks that takes them to Georgia on Oct. 2 and to Florida on Oct. 9 after an 11:30 a.m. home game against rebuilding Mississippi State on Sept. 25. LSU´s developing quarterback picture could be clear by Nov. 6 when LSU would go to Auburn after an open date on Oct. 16 and home games against Troy State on Oct. 23 and perennial weakling Vanderbilt on Oct. 30. "LSU has been most cooperative in this," Housel said. "All the rumors about them trying to force the conference to play on Nov. 6 are in my opinion, unfounded. The people I´ve talked to down there have said, `You just tell us when to play, we´ll be there.´" LSU remains with its original travel itinerary of flying out of Baton Rouge Friday at 4:15 p.m. with a 5:30 p.m. landing in Montgomery, Ala., which is 45 minutes west of Auburn. "We feel that the storm will have passed already and things will be getting back to normal by Saturday," LSU athletic director Skip Bertman said. A mandatory evacuation was called Tuesday for the Mobile, Ala., area, where LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell and defensive back Chevis Jackson are from along with Auburn wide receiver Anthony Mix. "We have a lot of people from the Florida area and around the Mobile area," said Auburn quarterback Jason Campbell, who is from Taylorsville, Miss. "You can feel what they´re going through. Their families will probably be evacuating. This is tough, because you wouldn´t want to play Georgia, LSU and Alabama back-to-back." http://www.dailyworld.com/html/EA958FAD-42CA-4764-9C6A-2774ABA50BDB.shtml
Do you know what's really so funny about all of this ... Tubby is so ****ing stupid that he can't see the forest for the trees ... Pete Finney has some excellent points ... Tubby with his 10-cent head never saw it this way http://www.nola.com/lsu/t-p/football/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1095225905121450.xml Wednesday, September 15, 2004 Peter Finney BATON ROUGE -- So it's all in Ivan's hands. If a hurricane blows LSU's visit to Auburn from one Saturday to another, from Sept. 18 to Nov. 6, there's an obvious question: Which team does it favor? Ask the question and you'll get all kinds of answers. My guess: A shift would favor LSU. Why? Simply because Nick Saban's Tigers would be more settled at the quarterback position, where at the moment more experienced Marcus Randall and more talented JaMarcus Russell are locked in friendly combat for playing time. Having said this, there's a flip side to consider: If Auburn and LSU play Nov. 6, the schedule tells us Auburn has the better chance to go into the game unbeaten than the defending national champion. By Nov. 6, LSU will have played Georgia and Florida, back-to-back, on the road, the toughest assignment facing any SEC contender. By Nov. 6, Auburn will have sandwiched a visit to Tennessee with home dates against The Citadel, Louisiana Tech, Arkansas, and Kentucky, along with a road date with Ole Miss. Which says: By Nov. 6, Tommy Tuberville's Tigers, not Nick Saban's Tigers, could be in the hunt for a national championship. Talk about motivation. As we speak, with Ivan approaching, when it comes to the opposing coaches, a case can be made there is more pressure on Saban, in charge of a defending champion with a current No. 5 ranking, than there is on Tommy Tuberville, whose 2-0 Tigers are No. 14 in the polls. I disagree. If you asked Tuberville, no one has more to prove, not only to himself but to the university that employs him, than Auburn's football boss. Consider: Before the 2003 season, Tuberville's team was given a far better shot than LSU to finish No. 1. Auburn not only underachieved, but by the end of the season, the school president, accompanied by the athletic director, had made a cloak-and-dagger trip to Louisville to offer Tuberville's job to Bobby Petrino, the coach of the Cardinals. It was a Hall of Fame embarrassment. Tuberville not only overcame an 8-5 season, climaxed by a bowl victory over Wisconsin, he dug in and began 2004 surrounded by much of the cast that made the Auburn of '03 a No. 1 contender. It's a cast headed by the No. 2 and No. 4 rushers in the SEC, Cadillac Williams and Ronnie Brown, as good a 1-2 punch as you'll find. Along with a punishing running game, Auburn is blessed with the kind of schedule that could work magic for a coach still in search of his first conference championship. A year ago, after losses to Southern Cal and Georgia Tech, Tuberville pulled things together with five straight victories, only to come in to Tiger Stadium and watch his troops absorb a 31-7 whipping that was history after a 21-0 first quarter. Two weeks earlier, LSU had suffered its only loss of the season, 19-7 to Florida, followed by a 33-7 victory at South Carolina. "That's when I thought we might have a chance to be something special," Saban said of the way his team rebounded from an embarrassing defeat in Tiger Stadium. "We showed a character and toughness and became a team that continued to improve." Saban was suggesting he had no genuine "feel" for his 2003 team until the seventh game of the season. After a 2-0 start in 2004, a game he was fortunate to win and a game against an outclassed opponent, he still has no idea what kind of team he has. When Boise State scored 53 points against Oregon State in 60 minutes a week after LSU could manage a meager 15 (before winning in overtime), there were opinions the No. 5 Tigers could be the most overrated among college football's top 10. We know this: Whether LSU plays Auburn in September or November, it will be a case of sooner or later. Saban's defense will have to tackle Williams and Brown -- that is, sooner rather than later. :dis: :dis: :dis: :dis: :dis: :dis: :dis: :dis: :dis: :dis: :dis: 5-3 in SEC play ... it's coming ... LSU is ready to play Saturday and has had extra practice and film time without classes ... either way it pans out ... but with the latest Hurricane turn ... Mobile and the entire state of Alabama look to be savaged by this thing ... My My My ... how the worm has turned for Tubby :dis:
More and more, the models suggest the storm will make landfall west of Auburn, curve to the northeast, then east, and meander around for a full 36-48 hours in and around Alabama. What does this mean? Rain. A whole hell of a lot of rain on Thursday and Friday (maybe even Saturday). I don't know if it's feasible to play under those conditions. Here's an interesting question: Are any other Alabama schools playing on Saturday at home discussing cancellation? The answer is yes. Alabama will "reassess our situation early Friday morning". UAB plays at Fla. St and Troy St. is also on the road. PS-The projected forecast for Auburn Thrus and Fri isn't really all that helpful in terms of rainfall projections. For example, Thurs calls for rain in excess of "two inches", but the forecast for Biloxi, which most certainly will be much, much closer to the storm's center at landfall, also currently calls for "two inches" and more. In short, just because it doesn't specifically say "a whole buttload of rain" at the moment doesn't mean it won't happen over the next two-three days.
I hadn't considered that a rescheduled game probably/possibly means an undefeated Auburn come Nov. 6. Good. I know the computers have been watered down in the new BCS, but consider this: LSU is nearly guaranteed to face a #3 Georgia in 2.5 weeks, (if undefeated) a top 10 Florida team and, if undefeated come Nov. 6, at least a top 7 Auburn team. You win all three, spread out over 5 weeks instead of 4, and that "someone knocking at the door" of the top 2 in the BCS will be the guys wearing the LSU hats, no question about it. That said, playing *nine* straight and three straight against LSU, Ga and Ala. really, really sucks, but it looks more and more likely that it will come to pass.
My point Until Friday ... there will be hurricane force winds ... 75+ mph ... whipping the living **** out of the entire state of Alabama ... winds taking down trees, power ... roads will be impassable ... airports closed ... tornados will fly off this big bad mother like Auburn tacklers flying off Justin Vincent on his way to 150+ yards torrential rains and flash flooding round Auburn ... dog's life Alabama is not a place you want to be for the next few days. :dis:
I am kinda worried about playing Auburn this weekend, especially if we do it relatively closely following Ivan. If we do that means the field will be wet and nasty.....I hope as much as anyone that our crappy performance against OSU was a fluke but I can't help but compare that performance to what would happen against Auburn if we played in similar conditions.
