Despite Saban's history in Jodan Hare, I have a feeling Bama steals one. Think a lot of it will hinge on the fact that an Auburn team who struggled to score points last season returns only one starting lineman. On the other side, Bama lost several key players from its defensive line rotation, including tackles Jeremy Clark, Dominic Lee and end Chris Harris. Another key part is Auburn has seven starters back on defense, and Bama returns 5 starters on the O line, but who's the running back? They lost Ken Darby and fullbacks Le'Ron McClain and Tim Castille. Junior Jimmy Johns, the most experienced runner coming back, was suspended during spring practice for academic reasons. Sophomore Terry Grant?? Read he was the most impressive back in the spring, running eight times for 47 yards in the spring game. Interesting note about Bama- Last year, their leading rusher, Darby, ran for 835 yards but never scored last season.
We have some problems on the DL. Dominic Lee never really became that dominate DL we wanted from him last season. Losses in the backfield I think McClain will be most missed and he was the most misused last season. Darby couldn't seem to find a hole to run through simply because opposing lines were already behind our OL a nanosecond after the ball was snapped. I feel bad about Darby having to run behind that OL. I feel bad that Darby never scored a TD last season but we scored so few TDs inside the red zone. I feel pretty good about us finding a running back out of the gang we have. I honestly don't think Johns will be the starter the whole if any of the season. On a side note, since Coach Bryant only Gene Stallings and Dennis Franchione beat Auburn their first year as HC and only Mike DuBose and Mike Shula have lost to LSU in their first year.
Yeah, I hadn't realized that before Terry had mentioned it a while back in reference to the coaching. Yikes! Maybe I should be more concerned about y'all stealing one from us.
While Casey Dick isn't as proven as say Russell was coming into last year, I can't say he's one of the worst QB's in SEC history. Hell, there wasn't much of a difference between him and Mustain last year...give or take 3 INT's Mustain threw.
He wasn't one of the worst LAST YEAR. Henig, Schaeffer, and Stafford all were overall much less effective than Dick last year, as was his own teammate, when you look at it on a per-play basis. Casey Dick is not good, and may be one of the worst this year, but he isn't nearly as bad as he is perceived to be. Outside of that horrendous LSU game, he really wasn't a bad QB last year.
Outside of Mississippi, the only thing the Egg Bowl could possibly mean is who goes to Shreveport. As for the original post, LSU/AU may decide it, but if with AU's schedule and Arkansas' habit of staying just inside the picture, the LSU/Arkansas game may be the Bush, oh, I mean the decider. ldskule:
Initial reaction is that the SEC West will be decided by the LSU - Auburn game as usual. Then I think that Bama's schedule is pretty nice and that there should be something of a positive Saban effect. But they lost like 4 straight to end last season, no reason to think that they can beat GA, Tenn and Ark. So I guess I lean to Ark, despite the turmoil, as being my dark horse candidate for the West.
