Week 9 Money

You bring up a good point about Pat White's health rzamo, even though you are refering the the Pitt game last year - a game that I watched in it's entirety by the way.

This year White has been knocked out of the last two games he's played (Marshall and Rutgers).  He left in the 3rd quarter of the Marshall game and did not return with an injury to his thumb on his throwing hand.  He was also knocked out in the 3rd quarter of the Rutgers game the following week with a concussion.  That sidelined him for the Syracuse game as well.  That means White hasn't played in 19 days so he should be relatively healthy coming into this game.

Like the professional game, SEC teams don't have running QBs because coaches know that their QB can't take the weekly pounding they would endure from SEC defenses.  Urban Meyer tried it last year with Tebow, but even as tough as Tebow is, he couldn't survive the pounding.  Meyer has since adjusted his strategy to protect his QB this year.

Pat White now will face a defense that is significantly better than any defense he's seen to date.  Auburn is bigger, stronger, faster and better coached than the defenses he's faced so far this year.  I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the fragile White not finish his third consecutive game.  Even if he does, it really won't make any difference.  His offense will strugggle to reach DD tomorrow night against one of the best defenses in the nation.

BOL!!!

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Auburn's defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads was the defensive coordinator at Pitt for eight years.  He is the one who devised the scheme that held West Viginia's offense to 7 points last year and knocked them out of the national championship game.

This year he leads one of the most talented defenses in the nation - a defense who's had extra time to prepare for the Mountaineers.  Furthermore, the extra time allows their injury riddled defense to heal.  Most significant out the healers is Jarraud Powers who is Auburn's best player in the secondary.  Because of an absolute dearth of depth in the secondary (they lost 3 guys in the secondary for the year before the season even started), that crippled their defense against a pass happy Arkansas team.  In fact, that was the basis for me playing Arkansas on the ML as 17-point dogs.

It would take wayyyy to much typing for me to go into the entire history of this Auburn team this year, but believe me when I tell you this was a very divided team (mostly along racial lines) since before the first game ( this is why I have faded them all year).  The basis for the division was that coming into the season everyone assumed Kodi Burns (who played significant snaps last year) would take over for the graduating Brandon Cox.  Enter Tony Franklin.

Franklin is the one who brought in Chris Todd because of his familiarity with Franklin's AirRaid offense.  Franklin insisted on Todd being the starter even though the entrenched offensive coaches liked Burns.

The point of all this is is that now that Franklin is gone, Burns has been inserted as the undisputed starter, and Todd has be relagated to 4th string.  The internal division that has destroyed this team to this point in the season has now largely subsided now that Franklin is gone.

As far as this game is concerned, I think the West Virginia offense versus the Auburn defense is a mismatch that strongly favors the Tigers.  I'd be shocked if West Virginia scores 14 points in this game.  I also think that the offense will unite behind Kodi Burns, and score enough points to win the game outright (14 points will probably do the trick here).

On a side note, Robert Dunn (one of the top punt returners in the country averaging almost 22 yards per return), will be back in action for this game.  Aside from from having a huge coaching advantage, I believe Auburn also has a huge defensive/special teams edge as well, and I would not be at all surprised to see one or both units tally touchdowns in this game.

Auburn + whatever is one of my "Best Bets" of week.  They WILL NOT lose this game.

 Wahoo

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oregon back to 3 at my book..wondering what gives?

because you have been around since 03 I'm going to let this writeup in my thread slide

Noel Devine made that SEC defense look like a high school team, speed kills and Noel is faster than everyone in the SEC

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Boy he sure did.  It was more than just his speed.  Auburn just couldn't tackle him.  The most surprising thing is that Pat White pretty much never ran the ball.  They barely ran the zone option at all.  West Virginia just shredded them primarily with straight hand-offs, and Auburn couldn't even come close to stopping it.  I know how good Devine is, but I thought Auburn's defense would have done a much better job of containing him.

And although not a lot was expected from Auburn's offense, West Virginia completely stuffed the power running game in the second half.  That was also very impressive.

Congrats to you and all other West Virginia backers.  Nice hit!!!

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