Alabama - Birmingham (8/31)

When UAB decided to move up to Division 1-A in 1996, Auburn decided to add them to the schedule to help them out. Given that vicrories over 1-AA opponents don't count toward bowl game eligibility, playing a new 1-A team is a good strategy to ensure a "sure" win. UAB benefits by the revenue form a nearly sold-out Jordan Hare stadium. UAB proved to be a fairly strong opponent. Auburn's Jaret Holmes kicked 5 field goals in the first three quarters to give Auburn a 15-0 lead. Surprisingly, UAB kept Auburn out of the end zone until the 4th quarter. At the time of the game, Auburn's offense seemed to sputter, although an analysis shows that the intent was to show nothing to future opponents. The final score of 29-0 was a surprise, but a boost to the defense.

Fresno State (9/07)

This new entry to the WAC was supposed to pose at least some challenge to the Tigers. Auburn got off to a fast start and Fresno could never recover. Both sides of the ball, Auburn played top-notch football. Dameyune Craig had some excellent passes and his receivers responded with some nice catches. The running game also excelled. This game probably appeased the fans who had expected a blow-out the previous week.

Mississippi (9/14)

The Rebels showed they are a pretty good team, despite being devistated by probation. Auburn always brings a lot of fans to Oxford, so this road game is not all that intimidating. The defense was not as impressive as in previous weeks as the opposing quarterback, Paul Head, passed at will at times. In the end, the explosive offensive arsenal made the difference.

LSU (9/21)

I had the opportunity to attend this game in person. I will admit seeing an inferno just southeast of the stadium was a bit disheartening. Auburn seems to fall apart when they play LSU. This is one of those games where the Tigers won in everyway except the score. I don't intend to play sour grapes, however. LSU has a good football team. Good teams take advantage of the other team's mistakes and make few mistakes of their own. This is how the Bayou bengals won the game. Consider this: Auburn missed 3 field goals and an extra point. Making just one of those kicks could have changed the outcome of the game. In the previous 3 games, Holmes had been near perfect. He had an off night. I will add that the offensive line seemed to allow LSU a strong rush on his kicks. That might have been a factor. Also consider LSU's only offensive touchdown. It came after not one, but two offside penalties on LSU field goal attempts, the first of which was no good. We found out that Jon Cooley is a capable backup at quarterback. Despite a couple of ill-timed interceptions, he was responsible for both of Auburn's touchdowns. This is important, because I look for Craig to be forced to leave other games with minor injuries, given his propensity to scramble an take hard hits.

South Carolina (10/05)

If the LSU game was one we should have won, but didn't...possibly this one was the opposite. South Carolina played very well on both sides of the ball and led in every statistical category except the score. Auburn won because of a couple of big plays and a big turnover late in the game. I have not seen Auburn's running game stifled that way in a long time. The game was close the whole way and it was not settled until the last play of the game.

Mississippi State (10/12)

I was attending a wedding in Ohio and was therefore in a media blackout situation during this game. I have nothing to add beyond what I heard from the press. Apparently, Auburn played a great game on both sides of the ball and the two MSU scores came on a bomb and after a blocked punt. Jaret Holmes had problems with field goals once again with two misses.

Florida (10/19)

I had the privilege of attending this game in "The Swamp" where I saw probably the best team in the country put on quite an exhibition against Auburn. I would call this game a simple case of the better team winning the game. It's arguable that in the two recent Auburn wins in this series, this was not the case. Neither side of the ball worked for the Tigers. Craig did not show a lot of leadership on the field and his OL allowed immense pressure to get to him. The defense was porous and Florida seemed to always find an open man. One side note - after hearing bad reviews about the Gators fans, my fiancee and I found the fans to be cordial traffic into and out of the game was smooth. We found a ticket scalper immediately upon our exit off of I-75 (Exit 75 - Archer Ave) in front of Burger King in case you need to know for further reference. We saw other scalpers along North-South Blvd going into the stadium.

Arkansas (11/02)

This was a very good game for Auburn. I saw (as I shivered in the cold stadium) a well-balanced team on the field that really did not give Arkansas a lot of chances. The Hogs got an early score but Craig and the Tigers took control of the offense and the defense rebounded to pitch a shutout the rest of the way. This is the kind of attack we need to win our next two games, but we need to be even better to play with Alabama.

Northeast Louisiana (11/09)

This game was very close to being Auburn's all-time most humiliating defeat and especially on Homecoming. Auburn was outplayed, outcoached, outhustled and played with no heart. The youth of the team was evident.

Georgia (11/16)

Even though we lost - what an exciting game. Once again, we blew an early lead and this time our young defense was not able to recover. In overtime, the Dawgs pretty much had their way with us.

Alabama (11/23)

Just like in 1994, we spotted Alabama a lot of points in the first quarter and had to come back. I thought the team held together pretty well and Craig showed the most leadership I've seen all year. It was probably the most heart I've seen as well. We erased a 17 point defecit very quickly, but our failure in the second half was what lost the game. The ending was admittedly dramatic with Alabama winning the game for their retiring coach, Gene Stallings, on the last drive of the game.

Army (12/31) [Independence Bowl]

This game looked a lot like the Georgia game, except that Auburn seemed even more in control until the wheels came off in the fourth quarter. This defense has to mature and the whole team has to get more fire in the belly to be great next year. I have not seen, all year, that required killer instinct that wants to put an opponent out of the game early. Give Army some credit - they did not quit despite being down by 25 points near the end. I firmly believe that had the field goal been good they would have won in overtime.

NEXT YEAR - written January 1997

This one is hard to call. Several things fall into our favor next year, but I still am not convinced that Dameyune Craig is ready to lead this team into a major bowl game 1/1/98. This team should mature before next year, but I am hopeful that Terry Bowden and staff will put this team through a rigorous spring traiing and intense weight program over the off season. The missing elements of a championship year are leadership, desire, and conditioning. I am convinced their talent is similar to that of other top schools. The last few recruiting classes have been great and this year's is getting off to a good start. I might be inclined to let QB Ben Leard start seeing some action, such as Craig got to do in 1995. I am not convinced that he could not even beat out Craig for the top spot, but I would be surprised if the coaches would make the switch even if Leard was better in drills. The schedule looks very good for us. Florida and Alabama are home this year. Alabama has a new coach and the same QB which makes them beatable unless they realize that their best chance of winning is to run the ball with Riddle and the Alexanders 90% of the time. Florida is losing Wuerfull and some of the receivers and the defense. This could be a good time to beat Florida. We MUST get the LSU monkey off our back by going down to Baton Rouge and showing them who's the king of the Tigers. The rest of our SEC slate looks to be smooth. An early test will be the Virginia Cavaliers in Charlottesville. It is nice to see Auburn dropping a "sacrificial lamb" off their schedule and starting a 11 year agreement to play decent 4 ACC teams and one Big East team. They are playing Virginia in 97-98, Florida State in 99-00, Syracuse in 01-02, Georgia Tech in 03-05, and Clemson in 06-07.