Previewing Our Complaints

I don’t know about you, fellow Auburn fans, but I could really go for some actual Auburn football news these days. Heck, I’d even take a scandal right about now. This has been the quietest offseason in my memory. We have consistency at the coordinators spots, the qb position, and at head coach. Auburn returns most of it’s defensive starters and doesn’t have a single gaping hole in its lineup. Right now, we are in the part of the offseason where most Auburn websites are giving you droll countdowns, dumb listicles, and sure-to-be-wrong season previews. Not here, dear reader. Here I am going to give you not only a dumb listicle, BUT ALSO a season preview!

The Auburn Family (the group, not the twitter account) is a diverse collection of educated and well-meaning fans/crazy people. I love us. There is a Spirit That Is Not Afraid™ of firing off half-baked tweets on a variety of subjects during Auburn football games. This season, there are sure to be times when Auburn fans will reach for their phones in the fog of war or at least bourbon and shoot off a fire tweet for #auburntwitter to deal with. Because I love you, I am going to preview the 2018 Auburn Football fan tweets by topic.

1. The Playcalling Stinks

The armchair quarterback has now given way to the laptop offensive coordinator. We aren’t Georgia, so we don’t have the “Run the dang ball, Bobo!” battle cry. Instead, Auburn fans are much more creative in our suggestions. Over the Gus Malzahn years, the outcry against him has coalesced into two distinct camps. These folks are really upset easily, or at least have too high of expectations for life.

“ALL THE GOOD PLAYS ARE CHIP’S AND THE BAD ONES ARE GUS’! WE NEED MORE ‘CHIP PLAYS’ AND GUS NEEDS TO STOP MEDDLING”

and

“WE GOTTA FIRE GUS, YALL, AND HIRE US A COACH TO RUN A PRO-STYLE, MULTIPLE OFFENSE.”

These are ostensibly the same critique, yet if you dig into the nuance, you’ll notice the beautiful idiocy of both. I get the frustration of watching Gus do the same thing over again expecting different results. However, the position that ALL of the good plays are not of his design and ALL the bad plays are the result of Gus forcing his will on Chip and the offense is hilariously reductive. It is still not as stupid as either the phrase “pro-style” or “multiple” when describing an offense. Those are meaningless words. Every offense is multiple since the forward pass was invented. The NFL runs offenses derived from the college game all the time, so what the heck even is “pro-style” aside from an offense comprised of players who for all intents and purposes are not amateurs yet are treated as such by an arcane system of rules designed to limit their earning potential and line the pockets of those in charge of the system. Holy run on sentence batman.

“WE NEED TO ROTATE OUR RUNNINGBACKS”

Poor Kam Martin, he really messed up becoming the starting runningback because now Gus is most assuredly going to grind his body into a fine dust with thousands of carries right into the teeth of SEC defenses. Other runningbacks will stand on the sideline, healthy, highly recruited, and unused. I have nothing against this criticism, it really is maddening to see guys not get touches when we all know they can play. It is a funny criticism when juxtaposed with:

“NO MORE WILDCAT GUS!”

We want Gus to rotate the runningback to the sideline, not with the quarterback. We especially don’t want a runningback to receive a direct snap and then rotate

The Anti-Wildcat noise is tiresome to me, considering Auburn scored so many touchdowns over the past two seasons with Kerryon Johnson taking the direct snap. It’s probably Auburn’s most effective formation in terms of touchdowns-per-play. Sure, it’s mostly used in goal line situations, but wouldn’t you want to run your most effective formation in goal line situations?

WE SHOULD THROW IT MORE

WE SHOULD THROW IT LESS

Auburn is rarely throwing the ball the exact right amount. Too much, too little, too hot, too cold. The Goldilocks of AuburnTwitter is rarely satisfied with the porridge of Auburn’s passing attack. If you know the right amount of throwing Auburn needs to do, please send an email to DaBigGustav@geocities.com and let him know.

2. They Ruined The Uniforms

Auburn rarely makes any real changes to its uniform. It’s one of the cleanest looks in the game, and doesn’t need constant overhauls to keep it relevant. Every so often UnderArmour or some equipment guy or a player decides to add something minor, to tweak the look in some way. When this happens, AuburnTwitter reacts with the calm composure of a three year old with a sunburn. Don’t believe me? If an Auburn site posts something with “Auburn Uniform” in the title, it will have a record day of clicks. It’s as easy as me writing Tim Tebow Cardi B Johnny Manziel Party Wardrobe Malfunction and watching the SEO numbers go through the roof.

“THEY SHOULD WEAR WHITE CLEATS ONLY”

Please no. They wore black when I was in college. Let the kids cook, y’all.

“WHY IS THE STRIPE ON THE HELMET SHINY? DUMB!”

“THEY SHOULD KEEP THE UNIFORM THE SAME, DANGIT”

These are all silly since Auburn changes it’s uniform to some degree almost every season. Some seasons the cleats are black, some white, some orange. Some seasons the pants say “war eagle” on the butt. Some seasons there are orange undershirts, some seasons just blue. Nevertheless, get ready for a barrage of uniform-change tweets.

3. Downtown Auburn

Auburn is changing. There are almost as many tower cranes in town as chicken finger restaurants. Bodega is long gone. Campus looks completely different every month. People want to live in Auburn and other people want to get extremely wealthy. The city of Auburn has made it possible for both of those groups to be happy.

“WE DO NOT NEED ANOTHER HIGH-RISE CONDO DOWNTOWN”

“WHY IS SKYBAR SO BIG NOW”

“WHAT HAPPENED TO SUPPER CLUB?”

“WHY ARE THERE SO MANY PIZZA PLACES HERE NOW?”

There really are too many pizza places in Auburn. Too many. It’s more like Auburnapoli now. “The loveliest Tuscan Village on the Plains” needs to stop this. I say we say goodbye or “Auburnederchi” to a few of them.

Pieology gets it particularly because it replaced a popular bar with something no one was asking for. Are there worse problems in downtown Auburn? Yes. Is Pieology an easy target for our ire? Also yes.

There are too many condos and parking decks being built, and downtown Auburn is becoming a bit too big for its britches. Most of us can all agree, though, that adding a bunch more shops and restaurants downtown is just what gameday traffic needs.

Week to week, those will be the topics discussed on AuburnTwitter. If you have some that I might have missed, please feel free to post them in the comments. If you want to post “GUS LOSES AN AVERAGE OF FOR[sic] GMAES[sic] A YEAR” or something like that, go for it. We only get one 2018 season, so we might as well start voicing our best terrible opinions early.