Saturday, October 06, 2007

Anatomy of a blowout

Vandy is definitely NOT excited to be here. The ‘Dores just ran a very ugly-looking off-tackle play, swallowed up by Antonio Coleman for a loss of 6. Coleman is having a great, great season, and it’s not entirely because opposing offenses have spent most of the year double-teaming Quentin Groves.

An ugly pass by Nickson…that ball just slipped out of his hands. Weird. And a nice play by Pat Lee on third down forces yet another punt, which means the return of the new-look punt return unit. When Field and Williams found out they’d be on the No. 1 punt return team, I don’t think they realized they’re be getting all this work.

Auburn appears content to run out the clock and head to the locker room. After a routine third-and-6 run play, an Auburn player—Jason Bosley—and an unidentified Vandy player are down. Bosley limps—and I mean limps to the locker room, supported by two members of the medical staff. Dunlap goes to LT, Pugh replaces Bosley at center. Bosley looks to have injured his left leg…that could be bad for Auburn. Bosley is one of the offense’s most irreplaceable players, just behind Cox and Rod Smith. That’s not a knock on Pugh, who will be fine at center; it’s just that Bosley has been doing it for a while. Center’s a tough position just to step into at halftime.

After an Auburn punt, Vandy takes over at its own 36. Zzzzzz…not much to see here. The ‘Dores wanted to put together a scoring drive (obviously!) but they just don’t have it in them. Time runs out with Vandy on the 50 after an incomplete pass by Nickson.

And now we head to halftime. Be sure to check back in the third quarter…I’ll continue to live-blog the second half. (Hooray for early kickoffs!)