Posts Tagged ‘SEC’

So, I know you poor peeps are going through football withdrawal, so much so that you were probably like me on Saturday, laid out on your couch, watching to see if the U.S. could cure it’s four year-old case of Ghana rrhea. I even grabbed an unused transmission fluid funnel from the garage to make an impromptu vuvuzela that even McGruber, nee’ McGuiver, would have been proud of. It didn’t really sound like a pocket hornet’s nest in as much as it did a mini-megaphone, and with me not knowing any particular soccer cheers, I proceeded to play the first few notes of War Eagle time and time again, which only sounded like a slightly amplified version of me doing it with my lips. And if you’ve ever heard me play the simulated lip trumpet, it’s a pretty mean rendition and almost kazoo-sounding, I might add. For the record, a transmission fluid funnel can also be made to play Louie, Louie in a pinch.

Barbee realistic for 2010

Since he took over for Jeff Lebo in March as Auburn’s new basketball coach, Tony Barbee has repeatedly said that no one will have higher expectations for this stuck-in-the-mud program than himself.

But as he displayed Monday on the SEC basketball summer teleconference, it’s even tough for him to avoid pumping the brakes on this upcoming season.

The numbers simply aren’t in Auburn’s favor.

“We’re starting over,” Barbee said. “We’re going to be young. We’ve lost 80 percent of our scoring and 80 percent of our rebounding.

Members of Auburn’s facilities department didn’t exactly have to clear up much room in the trophy case this past season, as just one of the school’s teams (men’s swimming and diving) took home an SEC title in the past academic year.

Yet the Tigers athletic program continued to display that it’s one of the SEC’s premier institutions, ranking fifth in this year’s SEC’s all-sports rankings.

The following Opelika-Auburn News analysis shows a number of programs that reached new heights in 2009-10, a number that continued to live up to the lofty expectations its previous successes have set and a number that took a step back.

It’s going to be a busy spring for the city of Auburn in 2012.

The NCAA announced Friday that the university would host both the 2012 Women’s Swimming and Diving National Championships as well as an NCAA Division I Women’s Gymnastics Regional. The James E. Martin Aquatics Center will serve as the site for the swim meet, while the brand new Auburn Arena will host gymnastics.

Athletics director Jay Jacobs, of course, was thrilled at the news.

Those in the SEC are in the football beniss, and cousin, beniss is booming! With the recently concluded SEC spring meetings, it looks like the total take of the conference in revenue was $209 million last year and pay czar Mike Slive got to dole out $17.42M per school. As you may know, the SEC distributes it’s revenue equally per school, which has served it well over the years. The status quo is good, but the recent shakeup in the Big 12 may have repercussions even in stable conferences like the SEC. In FBS, where the move is to close the gap between the haves (BCS teams) and the have nots (mid-majors), a new brand of social injustice for CFB has apparently reared it’s head across the land–in the concept of the heavy-hitters of a conference now taking more of the lion’s share of the TV money. Oh, if we only had some form of ACORN for college football to right these wrongs.

Editor’s Note: This is the eighth in a series previewing Auburn’s 2010 football opponents. This week: LSU (Oct. 23). The series will run weekly.

Les Miles has won more games (51) in the past five years than any other coach in LSU history over the same amount of time.

He has a national championship ring on his finger and LSU boasts one of the best records against ranked opponents (13-11) among SEC schools since he took over for Nick Saban in 2005.

Despite all the accolades, which include a 51-14 record and four bowl victories in his first five seasons at LSU, Miles sits on the hottest seat in the SEC.

Two of Auburn’s top seniors were named to Watch Lists on Monday for two of the nation’s top individual awards.

Offensive lineman Lee Ziemba was named to the Outland Trophy watch list while linebacker Craig Stevens received early recognition from those behind the Bronko

The Nagurski Trophy is presented annually to the nation’s top defensive player, while the Outland Trophy goes to the nation’s top interior lineman on offense or defense.

For the first couple of months after his horrific neck injury, Zac Etheridge couldn’t look anywhere but straight ahead.

His head stabilized by a bulky, two-piece neck brace, Etheridge needed to shift his entire body just to look left or right. To peer behind, he had to do a complete 180-degree turn — a surprisingly difficult maneuver for a player who, months earlier, was smashing into running backs who started a play on the opposite side of the field.

So Etheridge stared forward, focused first on recovering all the strength he lost from months of inactivity and then on the improbable comeback to the football field he expects to make in the fall.

MONTGOMERY—The Auburn Board of Trustees this morning approved the immediate construction of a $16.5 million, 92,000-square-foot indoor practice facility that will help the Auburn football team keep up with its SEC counterparts not only on the practice field, but on the recruiting trail as well.

The building’s main attraction is a 100-yard football field, something that has been desired for years. Auburn will become the seventh school in the SEC to acquire a full-sized, indoor practice facility, joining Alabama, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Arkansas, LSU and Kentucky.

The Auburn board of trustees will vote today on the athletic department’s proposal to build a new, multipurpose indoor practice facility.

If the proposal is passed, planning and construction will commence immediately.

Auburn would become the seventh team in the SEC to have a full-sized, 100-yard indoor practice facility. Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky and LSU are the others, while South Carolina and Tennessee have similar, undersized buildings like Auburn. Florida, Georgia and Vanderbilt do not have any type of indoor practice facility.