Auburn Players Vow To Take Opponent Seriously
The Huntsillve Times remembers what happened a year ago when Auburn went into their bowl game with a bit too much confidence.
One New Year’s Day last January, they took the field for the Capital One Bowl feeling quite good about themselves. They were 9-2, ranked No. 7 in the polls and were being lauded as one of the nation’s top teams. A win over underdog Wisconsin, they figured, would vault them into the top five in the final polls.
Instead, Wisconsin gave outgoing coach Barry Alvarez a 24-10 victory in a game that wasn’t as close as the score. The Badgers outgained Auburn 548 yards to 236.
Auburn players vowed they would not be caught napping again.
“The atmosphere last year, going back to Orlando for the second time, the preparation, I think a lot of guys were a little lackadaisical in practice,” senior linebacker Karibi Dede said. “We were looking at a team that wasn’t ranked so high. We were a heavy favorite.”
“I know, as a senior, I’m not going to let that happen this year. It’s going to be a big-time game and we’re going to prepare for it like we were playing a team that is ranked higher than we are.”
December 5th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
It is beginning to look like this might not be an easy game for the ’skers’ !! Sounds like Auburn isn’t going to take it lightly and, I noticed today that Auburn is favored by 3. Should be interesting!
December 6th, 2006 at 5:44 am
You heard it here first, anti-war eagles! I haven’t seen any early picks for the ‘07 Cotton Bowl, so here goes:
A rare and raging winter blizzard will blanket the southwest to usher in the new year, and the Huskers feel right at home while the Tigers are searching for pacifiers and electric blankets. In near white-out conditions, Zac Taylor scores on the only “R-rated” play in Callahan’s playbook (i.e., the “naked reverse”) and NU blanks Auburn 6-0 when the PAT sails 100 feel wide right due to the wind. Each team commits multiple turnovers, but cannot convert them into points until Taylor’s score in the 4th quarter that breaks a scoreless tie.
Callahan and Cosgrove are both outrageously incoherent and deliriously happy with the shutout, and each is carried off triumphantly on the shoulders of their players. Sore loser Tiger fans scream at the Husker players from the bleachers to deposit Callahan/Cosgrove off their shoulders into the stadium dumpsters, but Cotton Bowl security personnel lock up all trash receptacles as a saftey precaution. WE WIN!
December 11th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Whoa…. Art, wake up and take a breath, you were only dreaming. The weather hasn’t been that bad for 10 years at least. And Nebraska is not the hard weather team from the past. Most of Nebraska’s elite position players that handle the ball are from the south or the west coast so the cold weather will hamper us as much/or more than AU