EDIT: Thanks to the couple dozen of you who joined us. This worked out much better than i thought it would. If you missed it, the recording will be up sometime tomorrow here on www.geauxshow.com

Look for another live show saturday evening(it's not like we've got a game to watch)

As a few of our fans know, yesterday's live show from the MSU tailgate didn't go very well. Besides the connection issues that caused the delayed start, our unpreparedness made for a really bad show.

We hope to correct the situation with a live call-in show tomorrow night at 9:00 pm. We'll be back on topic and ready to give you the completely useless analysis you crave.

JOIN US LIVE! RIGHT NOW!


http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/27523
Phone Number: (724) 444-7444
Call ID: 27523

You heard Coach! Go Vote! The band get $25,000 if they win.

http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/contests/indianajones/voteBand

Wee and Pat are back with a first hand account of the fantastic Auburn game, expectations of Miss St., and the emergence of a starting QB.


We seem to have finally worked out the kinks in getting a live call setup working, so from now on all geaux shows will normally be recorded live and we will be taking your calls. Saturday the show will start at 10 am live from the tailgate and the Midweek show will be live on Sunday nights (time to be determined) We want you, our great fans, to be part of the show, so be sure to tune in.

By Justin Goar, Blogger

If this is the Tiger Bowl, then what’s with the eagle?...

For me, the first time it happened was in 1997. I was in the student section in Tiger Stadium. Auburn got up 14-0 before LSU came back with two scores to tie it up mainly from the running of Cecil Collins.

It was a back and forth slugfest that went down to the wire and had the Auburn Tigers finish on top 31-28. As I sat in my seat when the clock hit triple zeroes, I actually put my frustration aside for a few moments and marveled at the fact that I saw just an incredible football game. It was awful to swallow that loss, but the game couldn’t have been more entertaining. It makes you respect the game. It makes you respect your opponent and it made me respect the LSU-Auburn series. Eleven years later, little has changed and this game continues to be a gift that keeps giving to the world of college football.

Whether you’re an indifferent fan in some other part of the country or say a Bama fan that wanted both teams to lose, you have to respect the show these two teams put on when they play each other.

It’s mega physical without being dirty (except for maybe one infamous play from last year). That goes a long way in my book. You had LSU players popping pads and helmets on defense and I don’t think I need to illustrate the way Auburn hits outside of looking at the play that left LSU QB Andrew Hatch seeing stars like he’s on the red carpet.

But there was never any pushing or shoving and not too much jawing (outside the normal amount these days). With that in mind, between the whistles these guys still hit each other like the other side owes them money.

Cut out all the drama of recent years, the earthquakes, the magic, the fire, the cigars, and for sixty football minutes these guys put on a show.

I would hope that some Auburn fans had the same moment of appreciation for this series on Saturday that I had in ’97 in the face of a frustrating loss. But I know it’s easier said than done.

Before watching the game with my buddy Scott, I was pacing nervously, we both were. And I thought out loud, how cool it would be to not care, for a college football game to not matter this much?

There are people all over this country who don’t care about this game. They’re at work or on a date or hanging with their family or watching “Three’s Company” re-runs on TV Land.

The point is, their heart rate doesn’t hinge on every play, every bounce, and every turn of the game. They won’t go to bed heartbroken because they lost or on Cloud Nine because they won. Their mood for the rest of the week at work or at home won’t depend on the outcome of a three hour contest played by college kids. Why do I do this to myself???!!!


Then after LSU kneeled it out to end the game the four of us went outside for that conversation which if you replaced the words, you could have believed in our demeanor that we’d just robbed a bank without getting caught or escaped a bus crash with our lives.
As we hurriedly spit out the night’s cliffhangers and second guessed decisions made, I stopped for a moment and thought out loud again…

“Oh yeah, this is why we do this. This feeling right here and right now is why we care.”

I’ve been on the good side and the bad side of this rivalry through the years and I’ve suffered through heartbreaking losses to many other teams besides Auburn over the years. As bad as losing is, it makes winning that much better.

It’s the yin and yang. You can’t know true happiness without knowing true despair and vice versa. It proves we’re alive. LSU and Auburn fans won’t have to check for a pulse anytime soon.

Whether it’s the agonizing torture of a loss or the internal high of a great win, the fans of this Tiger Bowl definitely know we’re alive.

My hat’s off to the orange and blue and the purple and gold for leaving it all out on the field Saturday night. Also, to the fans on both sides who make this game what it is every year. It’s great to be an LSU Tiger. It’s great to be an Auburn Tiger. It’s great to be a fan.


“We’re also well above average…”

There’s a mantra I use via text message with my friends that I send out when things look their darkest during game. It was originally used last year in joking, as if to mock the very thought of LSU actually making a comeback in a game.

“We’re a second half team.”

The phrase was born last year during the Florida game. It returned for the Auburn game last season and was legitimized against Alabama.

The last three times I used it was when the Tigers were struggling with Tennessee in the first half of the SEC Championship game, going down 10-0 to Ohio State, and recently going down 14-3 at Auburn this past weekend.

Say what you want about Les Miles, but his teams do not quit. They’re the bad guy in the 80’s scary movie. Michael Myers, Jason Voorhies, Freddy Krueger. Don’t they ever just die???

Auburn had to be thinking that right around the time LSU recovered the onsides kick. They thought about it when we completed the halfback pass. They thought about it when Charles Scott got stopped behind the line only to burst through for a big run on the following play along with countless other “Great Scott” runs. They thought about it when LSU answered their late score with not a game winning field goal, but a touchdown. This time LSU left more than one second on the clock.

And most of all this was personified in Tiger defensive end Raheem Alem whose personal foul with under a minute was just about the last thing LSU needed in order to quell a comeback. Then, Raheem Alem came back on the next play and turned Jordan Hare into Elm Street, Haddonfield, and Crystal Lake all rolled into one. His fifteen yard penalty was followed by a fifteen yard sack and put Auburn in a 2nd and 25 hole from which they would not escape.

If Alem did it in two plays, Jarrett Lee took an entire half to redeem a horrible mistake. Lee took a snap and tried to take advantage of Auburn not having all their players set by swinging the ball to Keiland Williams in the flat. After starting 0 for 5, Lee completed his first pass to a lineman wearing blue who took it for a score.

In a game where every bit of real estate was precious and every point at a premium, a 14-3 deficit on the road seemed too much to overcome especially when starter Andrew Hatch went down in the third quarter with a good case of “you got knocked the #$%* out” syndrome.

But we all saw what Lee did in the second half. I was halfway through a text I started but never finished that said…

“Who is this quarterback?? Are there two #12’s?”

That’s when Keiland Williams took a pitch and played quarterback for a down. LSU would go up 17-14.

Lee continued to play like a different person in the second half against one of the better defenses in the SEC and it didn’t hurt to have the juggernaut knows as Charles Scott opening up the pass game.

That’s what did it, you know? That’s why this sequel ended like the original did last year. Last year, Flynn and the coaches saw something they could exploit. It wasn’t a crazy call it just took too long to set up at the line. Flynn made a perfect throw and Byrd made a great catch and that was history.

This year was eerily like last year. Last year the score was 24-23. A field goal would’ve won it. LSU got the touchdown. This year same thing with LSU down by one 21-20 and were within field goal range for kicker Colt David. With a little over a minute left, most of us would think to run Charles Scott three times up the middle and kick the field goal. It’s what I would have done. But then again, maybe there’s good reason I don’t coach this team.

With a 1st and 10, everyone and their mom expected a run from Charles Scott including Auburn. But offensive coordinator Gary Crowton and Les Miles play to win and look for favorable situations. Instead of handing off, Jarrett Lee dropped back and threw his best ball all night. It was a down and away out route that only Jo Jo Lafell could’ve gotten. #1 did and brought it to the house.

So another Les Miles gamble pays off, but I’ll ask this question for the hundredth time. If gambles work out in your favor 90% of the time, is it still a gamble?

Les Miles doesn’t play his cards, he plays his opposition. He exploits favorable opportunities when his opponents show tendencies.

In this case, the call wasn’t the gamble, believing in a redshirt freshman quarterback to execute the call was.

But hey there Mr. Blue Chip recruit, you want to come play for a coach that believes in his players??? You can come do that in Baton Rouge.

Crazy calls or not, it doesn’t take a football genius to see what coaching staff made the better adjustments at halftime.

LSU has some weak spots that need to be worked on, but all in all, even in games they should probably lose like Florida and Georgia, it would be wise never to assume the bad guy is dead. After all, we’re a second half team.

Stop trying to bring me down…

I wouldn’t start making reservations in Atlanta and Miami just yet Tiger fans. This team has a bunch of things to get straight but the good definitely outweighs the bad at this point and time. One thing that if consistent will always keep LSU in a game is their running game.

The offensive line looked like beasts and it doesn’t hurt to have a fullback like Quinn Johnson opening holes and solid blocking from TE Richard Dickson. With Charles Scott continuing to rack up the yards especially on first down, it puts a defense on its heels.

Enter Jarrett Lee in the second half who began to throw on first down and then the offense really got clicking. LSU gained 257 yards on 31 first down plays for the game. That’s an 8.3 yard average and Miles and Co. will take that every time.

Add in a defense that gets pressure rushing just four and are smothering against the run and you’ve got some headaches for the opposition. LSU has some holes in its coverage and that was to be expected with inexperienced corners and Danny McCray and Chad Jones struggling with coverage at the nickel back position. Good QB’s (read Tebow and Stafford) should be more effective in making the Tigers pay for mistakes.

I was right about…

Two things:

1) Trindon Holliday’s hands. I said he’d fumble punt returns in crucial situations this year. I didn’t want to be right so soon in the season, and twice on top of that. Miles insists Holliday will still return punts. I’d keep him in on kickoffs though.

2) Chris Hawkins is the best corner on the team. This isn’t even a close race at the present time.


I was wrong about…

Two things:

1) Demetrius Byrd being the featured receiver when the season started. Lee likes Brandon “Jo Jo” Lafell and he likes him a lot.

2) Richard Murphy being the go to guy in the backfield when the season started. It’s quite obvious to everyone that #32 Charles Scott is the man.

Moo U blues…

I’m sorry to say that while I’m a pessimist at heart, I am never worried when we play Mississippi State. For some reason, LSU has their number every single time they tangle. The Bulldogs are 1-3 this year with losses to La. Tech, Auburn, and Georgia Tech. The reason why MSU was good in the 90’s was because of their lines. And that advantage has faded away for State. Add in the fact that it’s a night game in Tiger Stadium and I don’t like the Bulldogs’ chances.

LSU should be able to run the ball. If they can’t, and MSU forces LSU to become one dimensional, then that might give State a chance. But I look for LSU’s O-line to be dominant again and Scott should have another 100 yard day. That’s bad news for the Bulldogs who need every advantage they can get in Baton Rouge. LSU slows down a bit because of a hangover from the AU win, but don’t expect an upset this week.

LSU 35 Miss. St. 10

LIVE! from an attic in Walker, The bald bros. C-Dub and JJ give their take on the early SEC picture, how the Saints are doing, and break down the evenings match up. Enjoy an hour of the most sober episode in Geaux Show history.

Edit: thanks for listening, GEAUX TIGERS!!

Wee and JJ stay off the painkillers long enough to rethink their season predictions on our QB, M State, and our running game. Also in this show, your preview of Auburn and a ring side report of "The Quarrel in the Quad"

By Justin Goar, Blogger

The great thing about the Internet is that it allows anyone with differing opinions to get together and voice them to the world. The bad thing about the Internet is that it allows anyone with differing opinions to get together and voice them to the world.

To think that a single fan, most under the guise of anonymity, can express his or her most heartfelt sentiments about their beloved team and post their loving thoughts for the entire world to see just gives you that “Rudy sacked the quarterback in his only play even though that didn’t happen in real life” kind of feeling.

Thought-provoking, point-counterpoint football discussion makes me proud to be an American. But sometimes there are thoughtless drive-by posts that seem to just be cheap shots for the sake of being negative. I think the kids today are calling these net characters “trolls.”

But there’s a big difference between trolls and those actual fans that are just a bit quick to hit the panic button. There seems to be a wave of negativity sweeping the message boards this week. I noticed it with my LSU Tigers.

The catastrophe syndrome. Chicken littles. Call it what you want, it’s out there, man.

What I have for you today is unedited (save for language and some grammar and spelling) statements made from actual fans regarding their own team. All posts are in italics.

We start off with LSU:
“With bad QB play and DB play to go along with USC and Oklahoma blowing their teams out, I feel just down today.”

Pretty harmless, right? Not much venom to it and it only seems a little strange because the poster is mentioning a game in which their team won 41-3.

But then we have...
“If we go 6-6, do we still get invited to a bowl game? I hope so.”

Whoa?! 6-6? The defending national champions? I think most sane fans expect a drop-off, but I think this is a little too panicky.

What about...
“Can't wait till next week when we get our a***s handed to us, you guys are just pure HOMERS!”

And there we are. The lines have been drawn. You’re either way too negative or you’re a homer.

Well, put me down as someone who thinks there is a rational middle ground. I’m someone who thinks that a fan can point out the bad parts of a game or season and still be optimistic that those things will change.

Nevertheless, those supposed “homers” on this particular LSU message board coined a term for those Tiger fans whose perpetual perception of reality is glass half empty.

“Nega-tigers.” Cute, huh?

“Homers” tend to be labeled as such because of the ardent defense of their team and coaches no matter what’s going on around it. While “nega-tigers” are quick to push the panic button, homers don’t have a panic button. It’s the lack of middle ground that has these two groups at odds.

So now we have one side attacking the players and perceived lack of talent at a position, and the other side attacking those attackers and dismissing their opinions as invalid because of their negativity. But what if the criticism is valid?

College football is a passionate sport fueled by passionate fans. Some of these things are said in the heat of the moment. Is it possible to be able to criticize my team without being called a “nega-tiger”? We’ll come back to this in a second.

But first, with doomsday on the horizon and an ever-important meeting with Auburn on the road this week, you must think the purple and gold Tigers have the market cornered on negativity.

Think again.

Enter Auburn fans. I found this next post on an Auburn message board in a thread about whether to boo or not to boo their own team this weekend against LSU...
“If the offense tanks again I think we’ll be past the time for booing. It’ll be time for the rotten tomatoes.”

Then some of the discussion turned to the QB play and the new offensive coordinator Tony Franklin. I mention Franklin because he gets paid, unlike college kids.
“Maybe if we didn't have Brandon Cox Jr. as our only QB we wouldn't go three and out.”

Different post, this time about the OC:
“More excuses. You need a script in order to tell you that inside the five-yard line, to line up in the jumbo package and punch the ball in for a TD??? Maybe we should start calling him Teflon Tony...”

Welcome to Auburn, Mr. Franklin—don’t unpack.

The good thing is for the most part this is the fringe. It’s like the guy 10 rows behind me in Tiger Stadium who apparently didn’t need to pass a football IQ test to obtain season tickets and whose football knowledge is inversely proportionate to the volume in which he verbally displays it.
LSU fans are well aware that a national championship may not be in reach this year. Auburn fans need to understand that implementing a new offensive system with a new quarterback is a work in progress. Most fans get this.

One thing’s for sure: I wouldn’t want to see the message boards of the losing set of nega-tigers this weekend.

Football doomsayers don’t just reside in Auburn and Baton Rouge.
“Hate to say it but we are horrible. Worst Michigan team I have ever seen in 30 years of being a fan. Are we better than ANY Big Ten team? I will suffer faithfully with our team and hope for better days, but am fully expecting a 10th or 11th finish in the Big Ten.”

And from our friends in Tempe:
“...But when you can't even get a first down on offense at home 'cause you're afraid to open up your playbook! Give me a break! We need to delete National Rankings and BCS from our vocabulary for a couple years! And it's somewhat ironic that our seasoned, experienced coaching staff would let this happen to them. Seriously, what's wrong with our OC? I don't know the guy's history like some others on this board, but who's calling the predictable three and four-yard running plays up the middle when we need seven or eight? This is the worst I've felt since the USC game last year.”

I think the biggest problem on message boards is anonymity. Everything you read from me here has my name on it. The line should be drawn on the way we criticize.

Anonymity gives us this cloak of invisibility to attack without knowing who it’s coming from. So those attacks can be either vicious or without merit. It’s the main factor as to why message board banter and information is so easily dismissed sometimes.

Let’s come back to whether or not it’s possible to criticize a team without being branded a negative fan.

If I were to blast the LSU quarterbacks for staring down receivers (which is a popular knock right now), it matters how I say it and how I back it up. It also helps to have a little football perspective and not be so reactionary.

When that thought crosses my mind, a rational thought response would be:
“Well, JaMarcus Russell, Matt Mauck, and Rohan Davey all did similar things in their early starts.”

That would be an even keel approach.

A “nega-tiger” talks in absolutes and might say something like:
“Well that’s it, we’re ****ed for the season. If they look bad now, I’m sure they’ll look the same as the season progresses. Mark my words, this is the downfall of LSU football as we know it!!!”

On top of this, you have trolls who cheap shot and run. Negative fans care about their team, but their defense mechanism is to attack now to later avoid the pain of their self-fulfilling prophecy. Trolls just look to spew venom and are probably much happier when their team’s hopes are in the toilet. Misery begets misery.

Now, most message boards have moderators who try to toe the line between allowing frustrated fans to vent and removing inappropriate content that doesn’t contribute to the spirit of the site.

On that note, we head to Columbus for some examples of posts that will get you banned from a certain Buckeye fan site:
“The boys must have been chugging a big case of Choka Cola again. I can’t take this [censored] anymore.”

I want to add that I do not condone calling out any college player so I’m going to delete the player’s name:
“Why are we keeping up this charade? He just isn't good. Zero poise. Zero talent. Zero smart.
"He's an embarrassment to this team.”

And a final parting shot from Buckeye country...
“It's time for (player name deleted) and Tressel to go.”

Now I’m not saying you can’t point out your team’s weak points. One must keep in mind that we are talking about college kids who are not professional athletes.

And despite warnings from just about everyone involved with their team, many players visit the message boards, and some players must find it hard not to take to heart what is said by some guy typing in his underwear while eating Fig Newtons by the sleeve.

I try to temper my opinions with a dash of reality, but deep down I’m just a guy who wants what’s best for his team. If I see a problem, I’m going to say something about it, but hopefully not in a disrespectful way, and try to find the positives and ways the team can improve in the meantime.

I wouldn’t consider myself a homer or a “nega-tiger.” I’m a pessimist at heart. I believe the coin will come up tails a half second after I call heads. But deep down, I still believe in the purity of the flip.

That comes from being a Saints fan since age six.

When it comes down to it, the Internet is a lot like life. There are a lot of stupid people and a lot of angry people in this world. And sometimes there are stupid angry people. A good fan knows to avoid this group as much as possible.

Lastly, don’t take every statement from every person seriously, whether they’re a troll, a homer, or a “nega-tiger.”

Starting today, Long time LSU blogger and recent Geaux Show guest Justin Goar, will be writing for us here at the geaux show. He'll be covering everything from football and baseball, to tailgating and life as a fan. Justin has authored more than 150 columns since 2000 at his personal site (http://www.tigerreport.com/) and is now the LSU Community leader at The Bleacher Report (http://bleacherreport.com/users/9359-Justin-Goar). We hope you enjoy his writing.

After 2 weeks of hurricanes, The Geaux Show makes it's triumphant, LIVE, tape delayed return. 2 weeks of semi-expert analysis jam packed into an hour of drunken rambling. Special Guest: Long-time LSU blogger Justin Goar.

Because of winds and rain from Hurricane Ike, it has put our live Geaux Show in jeoparday for Saturday morning.

If we are able to set up the equipment and not have to worry about rain, we will stream live at beginning at 10:00am. 

Check back during the morning for anymore news.

 

 

Carey (Big Wee)