The brain trust at the Capstone Report have labeled us demagogues. It feels really good. And they typed “impuissance.”
Million dollar coach, million dollar band, million dollar word (used incorrectly) – Bama fans be rollin‘… out of the woodwork and into our comments! Hit after hit, comment after comment. You’d think we were giving away Sabanphetamine.
All because I said Nick Saban was their coach.
Nothing has ever generated more response.
I mean, I told them we hated them, but like ‘rtr’ pointed out, duh.
I told them that they would be cool with Nick Saban’s particular style of icing a kicker.* And they are.
I told them that they would be cool with the announcement that Nick Saban cursed his players for not running up the score enough to satisfy his ‘f—ing hatred’ of Auburn. And they are.
So what’s the big deal?
I hit ‘publish’ about 15 minutes after the game, which sadly means I had known we were going to lose for an hour or more.
Still, that post was not some teary-eyed hissy fit. (The difference between Auburn fans and Alabama fans is that we cry when we win and y’all cry when you lose. And throw bottles. And try to kill your children.)
I mean, did you read the first part?
I said Bama won. I said that it was the worst game I’d ever seen Auburn play (which is saying a lot, considering this impuissant season). It shouldn’t have been, but it was: a slaughter.
Bama fans – you won!
I didn’t expect it. It was a blow-out. 36-0.
I even told you roll tide!
So why comments like this:
hmmmm…can you say SORE LOSER! What a bunch of baloney! Give me a break, you guys win for six years in a row, can’t you just be proud of that and move on. I mean granted you haven’t won nine in a row like we did but you probably didn’t know that we won nine in a row because fans nor coaches went around holding nine fingers up, making a huge deal about it (THATS CALLED CLASS) So you had a crappy season, it happens to everybody. Yes you lost, yes you got SHUT OUT by Bama 36-0 but don’t start the mud slinging about Nick…I’m sure your wonderful Tuberville has never been obnoxious or cursed at the players or said he hated Alabama…nooooo surely not. Grow up! I don’t agree with the use of the wording he used but I’m sure he got carried away and was trying to pump his team up. But just remember this…when you lose, show your class
Pam Todd**
I’ve never been able to figure out if the lack of discernment and appreciation for context is more of a gene thing, or if checking your brain at your cheeks is just necessary to enter the cult. I suppose it doesn’t matter.
Let’s break it down.
Pam “Roll” Todd, I am not a sore loser. Sore losers go with the bottles and guns of above. After publicly ridiculing your opponent, sore losers refuse to shake the hand that blocked the punts. In response to beat downs, sore losers say Brodie things, like “if you take away that one quarter…”
And Pam, what exactly about that post is baloney? Again — Bama won. Check. Nick Saban is your coach. Check. You don’t condone ‘the use of the wording he used,’ but you’re cool with the sentiment it expressed. Check.
So where’s your beef? I’m not sure …
But thanks for your concern: I am proud of our streak. Six fingers proud. And I’m glad you bring that up, because the thumb’n'fingers raping of the Crimson “soul” lo these many years is something I’ve meant to explain since this blog began.
Alabama fans started it.
Doused-yourselves-in-gasoline-struck the match-and-called-the-flames-classless started it.
This might take a second.
I was at the 2005 Iron Bowl. Ground zero. Ground into the dirt 11 times. I didn’t see Tommy Tuberville hold up four fingers – to Auburn fans – on the way into the stadium. I was at Tiger Walk, but I didn’t see him. Neither did 99 percent of the people there. But on that first touch down, I shot four fingers up in the air without thinking. And when the 3rd quarter ticked 3-2-1, I did the same. So did all the Auburn fans around me. We smiled at each other, because this time it meant something more. “Four, four, get’em up.” We kept them up on the way out.
It wasn’t orders, it was natural.
And it was nothing new. Flip through any commemorative “First Time in Jordan-Hare” book, and you’ll see photos of the same. Before the ’89 game, after the ’89 game.
What Pam and her fellows may not realize is that “four” has special significance in the numerology of college football. Four quarters, four downs, four years (in theory) as a player*.
(You’ll note that this did not occur in, funnily enough, ’04. Three fingers would have been weird.)
Winning the 2005 game meant an entire senior class never losing to Alabama – four in a row, then still rarefied Iron Bowl air. The last time that happened was a mini-golden era for Auburn football. Holding up four fingers at the end of that game’s third quarter was a non-verbal pun for victory. It meant something deeper.
Tuberville did it because the fans were doing it. It was a salute, a high five (literally, the next year), and as classless as an index finger “#1,” which is to say, not at all.
It was chummed into scandal by Bama fan extraordinaire Paul Finebaum, and the internet, a fact I noted at the time in a story I wrote on the emerging influence of football blogs (I interviewed some dude named Orson Swindle, and this Jay Coulter guy, and there was this Auburner thing…).
The slogan “Fear The Thumb” was not pre-printed. It did not become the phenomenon we know today overnight. It was born several days after the 2005 Iron Bowl in unique reaction to the feminine hysterics elicited from Bama fans by Finebaum … and Tiger Rags pounced.
But the resulting t-shirt, now a collectors item, was not a unprovoked taunt. It was a message, a proportional response to Bama fans saying Tuberville holding up four fingers (to Auburn fans) was classless (because Paul Finebaum said it was classless). It was advice: Don’t worry about that, don’t worry about four fingers. Worry about next year. Worry about the thumb.
I have only seen Tommy Tuberville hold up four fingers, five fingers, six fingers, or seven fingers to Auburn fans, and even then, only when asked. I have never seen him or heard of him holding up four fingers, five fingers, six fingers or seven fingers to Alabama fans, except when asked to… by a (classless?) Bama fan stationed in Iraq.
So from the description of this picture, I was expecting to see a seven finger pantsing of Terrence Cody. Instead, I see only Auburn fans. You know why? Because it’s at Tiger Walk. Not midfield. Not the Bama bench. (Should he have shouted ‘we’re going to lose!?’).
Alright, that’s settled. Back to Pam.
Mudslinging? There is no mudslinging when it comes to Saban. It’s already all over the place. And there was no mudslinging in that post. Again, you’re cool with the icing technique, and that’s fine, and you’re cool with Nick Saban’s special way of “trying to pump his team up,” and that’s fine, too.
It’s just why we hate you.
I wasn’t listening to it. Gary “let them play” Danielson is a joke. I think Eli Gold would have been more objective. But my wife couldn’t stand having it muted, so she listened. I paced and blocked it out, but then, you know, she’s like “Oh my God…” and I’m like “what” and she’s like, “did you hear that?” and I’m like, “no, what?” and so she rewinds it. And she plays it. And I sit down. We play it again.
I know it was a “semi-private conversation.” I know he didn’t think anyone was listening – that’s part of what makes it so sonofamother… – though of course Tracy Wolfson said it was the loudest she’s ever heard him. And she’s been hearing him for five years.
Here’s the deal:
It’s not the implications that he was running up the score. We wouldn’t expect anything less.
It’s not that he cussed. Damn right – I loved it when Muschamp boomed! it so loud the camera mics cought it.
It’s not even that he said he cussing hated us. I doubt most coaches would have admitted that to their players, even were they to feel that way. But it’s not that.
It’s the “because.”
It’s the if / then.
It’s him cussing exhorting his players to cussing “keep playing” at 29-0 … not for themselves, not for BCS style points, not for the fun or the love of the game… but because don’t they understand how much he fucking hates us.
That’s not a motivational technique. That’s a revelation.
We’ve always known it was us against them. We’ve always known it was good vs. evil. Our way vs. their way. Right vs. wrong. But to here it so starkly articulated was genuinely chilling.
We’re different Pam, you and me. That’s all I’m saying.
See ya’ next year.
* All I could think Karate Kid 2, Karate Kid 2 – the crain kick of Florida ’07 didn’t work twice. But that meant we were going to win. Mystic drum move! It didn’t happen (but the Kodi kata of ’09!). And speaking of Karate Kid – tell me who would play Kreese, Saban or Tuberville. Exactly! That’s my whole point, Bama fans! Your coach is the bad guy in every movie! I know it, you know it, Jerry knows it. And speaking of Jerry, I honestly didn’t even see the cut block or chop block or whatever block it was during the game – must have been pacing – so I’ll let him handle damage control. But again, the thing is, with Auburn, we see that – by a player – and we go, ‘oh, no, no, no.’ Meanwhile, you see crap — from your coach — and you go ‘hell, yeah.’ If it’s a player, it’s rejectable, correctable, typically isolated. If it’s the coach, it’s systemic. You have to get on board. And you do.
** Pam was one of the first. I started with her. But then like, 15 more came, and I even deleted some… but I stuck with Pam… thanks Pam.
*** We all know the legend of Brandon Cox, but who is the “one player to ever beat Auburn” lil’ Nicky fact dropped on his way off the field? What is that — a 7th year senior?
“It’s a great idea for schools,” she says. “I wish we were doing it.”
