Put a guy in the end zone to return it, Gus.

Asked myself: as we enter 2026, what's the biggest story, the No. 1 conclusion to take away from the USMNT's run to end 2025? My answer, for Backheeled: actual depth, y'all https://t.co/JAUEEzFLhT

Alex was drawn to the Soviet architecture at Auburn

Well hot damn

Pochettino got hired to get us pumped going into 2026. After watching the USMNT obliterate Uruguay with our B-minus team, y'all, I have to tell you: I am pumped New Ten Windows for Backheeled:

Hot take: I didn't *want* Tahaad getting off those shots around the paint. Getting a good look or a whistle against *that* D in *that* situation down among the trees requires size/strength that--love him, but--Tahaad just doesn't have dribble into pull-up from 14 feet there >>>

both those possessions started w/ Tahaad making a pinpoint pass out of the double no assists yet but he's doing the right things

If you're lazy enough to hire Hugh Freeze, you're also absolutely lazy enough to make DJ Durkin the permanent head coach if he beats Alabama

(Fin. Returning to semipermanent Twitter hiatus. Occasionally posting on other site. Y'all be good.)

But as a fan, I'm not going to have any confidence in this program until it shows some confidence in itself, the kind we can look around and see at other programs that on paper should have a fraction of Auburn's. And I just can't imagine seeing it under the current staff.

Which is not to say I think he's doomed, in the short-term at least. His team will be either favored or a narrow underdog in each of its next 5 games, and a home Iron Bowl against this version of Bama isn't unwinnable. 8-4 remains wholly plausible, and 8-4 gets him another year

All the roster turnover, all the NIL support, and AU can still only dream of having the kind of Os we see at Vanderbilt (10) or Mizzou (14). Not sure how you look at these results--especially the off-script results in 2nd halves--and think it'll ever be good enough under Freeze

And unfortunately, a head coach and staff that doesn't have that confidence in itself is destined not to even make the most of the talent it has. Auburn now sits 63rd in offensive SP+. 63rd!

Auburn does not have that confidence because its head coach does not have that confidence. When you go on record to begin your tenure by saying "I need more talent," the unsaid part of that is "... because my Xs and Os aren't good enough to beat real teams without it."

Point of this isn't to bemoan Auburn opting to hire Freeze over Cignetti three years ago, a long-since-dead horse which requires no further beating. It's to point out that w/ actual confidence, it's not impossible for college football teams to overcome massively negative plays

As you probably noticed: the Hoosier offense responded to their "uh-oh" moment by going 75 yards in 12 plays for the game-winning TD. Auburn's offense responded like so

Instead of playing in their own stadium in front of an explosive home crowd, they were 2,200 miles from Bloomington in a hostile Autzen. Instead of having halftime to regroup, they had to run the offense--and the QB who'd just thrown the pick-six--immediately back onto the field

Plus: Indiana had some things going against them after their "uh-oh" moment Auburn did not. Instead of still being ahead by 10 points w/ their opponent pinned on the 1, they were tied.

Not a perfectly analogous moment to Arnold's Choose Your Own Officiating Adventure fumble on the goalline--there's something uniquely deflating about investing that many plays and that much time in a drive to have it end like *that*--but the "uh-oh" vibes were similar

Hoosiers went up 20-13 late 3Q, forced a punt, got the ball back w/ 13:59 to play, one good drive away from having the biggest win in living program memory by the balls. Instead, 3rd-and-2 disaster -- Mendoza floats up a back-foot duck, pick-six, instantaneously 20-20

So I've been thinking this morning about a sequence from the Indiana-Oregon game