As good as it gets

Look: I'm probably just as annoyed as you with the interminable SEC lovefest that's conducted on television broadcasts, most notably broadcasts involving Craig James and Jesse Palmer.

SEC speed!

But as we inch closer to Saturday's showdown between Clemson and Auburn ... under the lights ... at Jordan-Hare Stadium ... on national TV ... the thought occurs that this is just about as good as it gets.

This is about more than records or strength of schedule or X's and O's or any of the normal stuff that gets discussed and debated when we're talking conference supremacy (even though four straight BCS titles won by the SEC is hard to ignore).

This is about college football being followed more rabidly and religiously than anywhere else.

There's just a different feeling when you walk into a stadium in Knoxville, Baton Rouge, Gainesville, Athens, Tuscaloosa or Auburn.

The atmosphere at Clemson's Death Valley is splendid. Same for Virginia Tech's Lane Stadium. And sorta the same at Doak Campbell in Tallahassee (when they're winning big).

But most of the other places in the ACC -- Winston-Salem, Durham, College Park, Chapel Hill, even lovely Fort Lauderdale or Miami Gardens or wherever the Hurricanes play -- don't exactly get the juices flowing.

Been to all of the aforementioned SEC joints. And the goosebumps have come at all of them, whether it's from listening to the incomprehensible mumblings of Bear Bryant over the loudspeakers before the Crimson Tide take the field, feeling the earth shake as the Volunteers run through the "power T," or hearing The Swamp's ear-splitting roar produced by a sack.

Gotta include Auburn in there, of course. When the eagle descends from its perch high atop the stadium and circles before reaching the field, it's a surreal experience.

These places provide experiences that, combined, make the SEC as good as it gets if you love college football. And Clemson is going to be in one of those places tomorrow night.

This is gonna be fun.

I usually like the stuff written by this Birmingham columnist, but good gosh this one is a dud.

He's making the case that there's actually not much comparison at all between Auburn and Clemson. I guess it's a fair point if all we're talking about is head-to-head competition, but I don't think that's what most people are talking about.

And I don't think it's what Lewis Grizzard was talking about.

Clemson is Auburn with a lake.

That line might've been funny the first time Grizzard said it -- if the first person to hear it was on laughing gas -- but the famous Southern humorist was laid to rest in 1994.

They should've buried that insult along with him.

Fact is, it's just not true.

Clemson isn't Auburn with a lake. Clemson isn't Auburn with a rock. Clemson isn't Auburn in a box, with a fox, on a train or on a plane.

Clemson isn't Auburn. Period.

Any suggestion to the contrary is a bad joke.

This column reeks of an idea this guy's boss hatched to drum up a bunch of hits and responses from angry Clemson fans.

I guess I contributed to it by linking the column. But folks, just don't respond to that drivel.

Chris Low and Heather Dinich break down Saturday night's big game, and both seem to favor the Tigers without a lake.

Pretty good showing last night from N.C. State, just five days after the Wolfies won at Central Florida.

Gene Chizik had his radio show last night, and here are some of the notables from it.

Jane from Opelika, the usual first questioner, is up. She thinks MSU fumbled forward for the touchdown. Is that bogus or what? “We’re going to say, ma’am, that whatever they call — we’re all in.”

Is it just me, or is this new "All In" theme from Auburn a bit weird? I mean, I know Dabo Swinney isn't exactly the first person to use it. But it seems Chizik is going a little overboard with it, no?

And here's more on the biggest story of the week in Auburn: What color uniforms the team is gonna wear.

Word has it that this game has been taken off the board in Vegas until the oddsmakers discover Auburn's choice of threads.

And finally, a story on Auburn's quarterback. Some guy named Cameron Newton.



LW