I wonder

Tommy Tuberville said the game was in their grasp. The players were playing to win, and not just to play good. He said that even though there was a tremendous effort, that coming up short was still coming up short. He applauded the team's effort, especially the way they went into one of the most difficult stadiums for a visiting team to play in, and yet had a chance to win.

He went on to say that the team was not a very good third quarter team, on either side of the ball. He expressed his concern that in the third quarter, the team was converting 3rd downs less than 50% of the time. He said that the only way to get better in the 3rd quarter was to coach better in the third quarter. It was still a very young team, and young teams must be "coached up." He took all the blame on himself.

Why?

Because his Ole Miss Rebels had just lost a game to the Auburn Tigers that they should have won. That’s right….ten years ago…1997….Head Coach Tommy Tuberville of the Ole Miss Rebels brought his team into Jordan-Hare Stadium and stood toe to toe with the 16th ranked Auburn Tigers, losing in the last minute due to a Dameyune Craig bomb to Tyrone Goodson.

I guess you thought I was writing about the 2007 Auburn Tigers. The first two paragraphs could have been cut from today's headlines. But no, this was a decade earlier. 1997.

The game was an 11:30 a.m. kickoff. And the Auburn offense overslept. Before they knew what hit them, Auburn was behind 9-3. Auburn scored a third quarter touchdown, to make the score 10-9. The outcome was in serious doubt until Ryan Taylor, the safety turned linebacker from Dublin, Georgia, sacked the Ole Miss quarterback for a safety. With the game now at 12-9, and Ole Miss having to kick the ball to Auburn, it was Dameyune Craig and Tyrone Goodson’s time to shine.

Craig and Goodson, a senior tandem back in 1997, made sure that Auburn would seal the victory. With the ball on the Ole Miss 49 yard line, Goodson split two defenders and made a leaping catch of a perfectly thrown ball from Craig. He came down hard on the two yard line. The very next play, Craig tossed a well-thrown timing pattern into the endzone which Tyrone Goodson came down with, making the score with PAT 19-9.

At the postgame interview, Coach Tommy Tuberville of the Ole Miss Rebels was filmed saying, “Peyton who? Dameyune Craig is the quarterback I’d rather not face in this conference. And that includes Peyton Manning. After today, I think you can see why I believe that Dameyune Craig puts more pressure on you than any quarterback we will play all year. He’s the best I’ve ever seen.”

And that was a decade ago. I wonder why his teams still struggle in the third quarter. I wonder if Tommy Tuberville, head coach of the Auburn Tigers, still feels that way about Dameyune Craig? I wonder if 10 years from now, his teams still struggle in the third quarter.
I wonder what this year's version of Auburn vs. Ole Miss will bring.

I wonder.

War Eagle,

WJLaneSr