Did anyone see the horrible officiating in the Auburn vs. Arkansas game yesterday? I watched the entire game. I sure hate it when Bama is on so late. It forces me to watch games I don’t want to watch. What I did see is that Arkansas got screwed. If you didn’t watch the game, you would look at the 65-43 score and say a couple bad calls wouldn’t have made a difference, but in my opinion, it did. Let’s look at the two main calls.

The 1st one that pissed me off was the Mario Fannin Touchdown. The ball clearly never broke the plane and came out right between the 1 yard line and goal line. A ruling on the field was never announced until the review of the call was announced. The SEC said that one of the officials ruled it a fumble and another said touchdown. Once the ball came out, just before his body landed in the end zone, there was no touchdown signaled and the play was not whistled dead until the fumble was recovered and the player ruled down. When the officials started the review process, they said that the ruling on the field was touchdown and the SEC claimed in a statement that there was not enough visible evidence to overturn it. Bullshit. To be honest though, this horrible call didn’t make that big of a difference. Arkansas put it behind them and continued playing good football. Well, good offense and no defense.

The 2nd bad call was the one that I believe turned the game around. This one was the Broderick Green fumble (or no fumble) that Auburn returned for a touchdown. There seemed to be visible evidence on this one. It could have gone either way though. What I thought I saw was his knee go down before the ball came out. After his knee touched, he arched his back in what looked like an attempt to get more yards out of the play. The ball came out during that, but his knee looked to have touched prior to that. I believe this play sealed the deal for Auburn. Not only did it put Auburn up a good amount again, it was a mental dagger for the team. The defense looked like it gave up after that. I know Cam Newton is a beast, but towards the end, Arkansas was either really tired or they gave up. In addition, down by two scores now, Arkansas started playing more desperate on offense and forced some passes which helped set Auburn up for 2 more scores.

Both teams had horrible defense outings. Both teams had very potent offenses. It was a shoot out for the ages. Auburn might have still won, but I feel the bad calls changed the game and caused Arkansas to play catch up, which led to mistakes. Yes, if you are wondering, I wanted Auburn to lose. Not only am I a Bamer, I saw the need for Arkansas to win for Alabama’s RPI.

This game and the losses by Florida and South Carolina really hurt Alabama ultimately. The Ohio State and Nebraska losses help us a little too though.

As for Alabama’s performance against Ole Miss… The 23-10 win by Bama was boring and still showed big chinks in Bama’s armor. Not only is the defense still iffy, injuries are starting to plague Bama. Penalties galore. I think we’ve already had more penalties this year than all of last year combined. I am very worried for Alabama in the coming weeks. If we can get by LSU and Auburn unscathed, there is no way in hell we don’t get back into the National Championship game talks, especially after the nation saw what Auburn did offensively yesterday.

Who the hell is going to win the SEC East this year? It’s freaking wide open right now. Quite ugly too.

Roll Tide, Screw Auburn!

Heisman Trophy winner, Mark Ingram was outed by TMZ yesterday for being at a high end draft party in Washington DC back in May. This could easily be grounds for NCAA investigation, but the report was quickly stifled since Mark consulted the University of Alabama compliance department to get approval from the NCAA to attend. He was told that as long as he provided receipts for his expenses, all would be ok.

The University of Alabama says Ingram is on the up and up. The Compliance Department tells us, “Mark asked if he could visit Joe Haden at his home in Baltimore. We checked with the NCAA and they approved this trip as long as Mark provided receipts for his expenses.”

The question I have is why did TMZ even run the story if they knew the trip was on the up and up? Did they know that millions of Alabama fans jaws would hit the floor when this scare started circulating around the interwebz? Well, it worked. When I 1st saw the headlines I was like, “OMG, Here we go again.”. We still have our fingers crossed waiting to hear about Marcell Dareus’ fate. He is being investigated by the NCAA regarding an agent party he attended in Miami. He is on the preseason SEC 1st Team Defense and we are definitely going to need him playing this year.

Saban put Star Jackson, our red shirt freshmen QB that coming out of High School was supposed to be “the shit”. He did ok in this game, but I was happy to see us have a comfortable enough lead to give guys like him a shot in a live game.

I am also proud of our RB stable. We’ve got 4-5 backs that could be starters at 90-95 of the 114 (I think) NCAA Division 1 schools. Saban is working them in wonderfully. Trent Richardson has seriously impressed me.

Imagine 2-3 years from now. Star Jackson at QB, Trent and Ingram running the ball, an offensive line of seniors, and Julio Jones as the lead receiver. Man! That sounds hot. Let’s just keep Julio from going Pro early and keep others healthy.

Roll Tide!