Wandering YouTube the last couple of nights and found a couple of games from '83 I had never seen beyond the Auburn Football Review highlights.
The first was Kentucky, played in Lexington on Oct. 8 in what sounded like picturesque weather for football. Auburn destroyed Jerry Claiborne's Wildcats, 49-21.
The second was the Sept. 24 game in Knoxville wherein Auburn topped the Vols, 37-14. Some of the things that stood out:
-It's always impressive to watch the defense from that season, mostly the defensive line. Auburn was consistently in the other team's backfield when only rushing four. Utter mayhem.
-The stable of backs was daunting. More than just Little Train, Bo, Agee, Tim Jessie, Brent Fullwood. Good lord, how do you stop it?
-You forget the difference in physical appearance between players of that era and today's athletes. The average player then looked more like an average person off the street, just bigger. Kids now look more defined, more like Bo did in that era. The exception there is the down linemen. Today's version carry far, far more weight around their middle and hanging over their belts. They might weigh more and possibly be stronger than yesterday's linemen, but I'd be willing to bet those cats from the '80s could run for a lot longer without falling out.
-Amazed at the names that came back I had forgotten about, guys like Demetrius Threatt, Kyle Collins, Ed Graham, Jimmy Bone, Pat Thomas, Jonathan Robinson, Joel Gregg, Tommie Carroll and Rob Shuler. I think I might have seen Jeff Ostrowski and Ronnie Bellew at one point.
-In the same vein, it was sad to see Donnie Humphrey and Harold Hallman and consider they are no longer with us.
-Randy Campbell wasn't nearly as physically gifted as Nick Marshall but he could certainly run the option as well. Surprisingly, Auburn beat Tennessee as badly as they did thanks to Campbell's arm. He successfully went to the air more than usual that day. A lot of those completions were boundary patterns to the wide side, too.
-While Auburn's defensive front was absolutely loaded, they were very thin in the secondary. How thin? In addition to being on kick coverage, Brent Fullwood apparently played in Auburn's defensive backfield against the Vols.
-The fly-by-night network that aired the Kentucky game made Jefferson Pilot look like ESPN.
-The lack of piped-in music and similar pyrotechnics did nothing to diminish the game. The fans seemed just as involved and interested, maybe even more so.
**Edit note: The #22 on defense against the Vols wasn't Fullwood pulling double duty but a DB named Danny Robinson. Pretty odd on Dye's teams to see jersey numbers doubled up like that.
Also, Ronnie Bellew's last year was 1982, not 1983.
The first was Kentucky, played in Lexington on Oct. 8 in what sounded like picturesque weather for football. Auburn destroyed Jerry Claiborne's Wildcats, 49-21.
The second was the Sept. 24 game in Knoxville wherein Auburn topped the Vols, 37-14. Some of the things that stood out:
-It's always impressive to watch the defense from that season, mostly the defensive line. Auburn was consistently in the other team's backfield when only rushing four. Utter mayhem.
-The stable of backs was daunting. More than just Little Train, Bo, Agee, Tim Jessie, Brent Fullwood. Good lord, how do you stop it?
-You forget the difference in physical appearance between players of that era and today's athletes. The average player then looked more like an average person off the street, just bigger. Kids now look more defined, more like Bo did in that era. The exception there is the down linemen. Today's version carry far, far more weight around their middle and hanging over their belts. They might weigh more and possibly be stronger than yesterday's linemen, but I'd be willing to bet those cats from the '80s could run for a lot longer without falling out.
-Amazed at the names that came back I had forgotten about, guys like Demetrius Threatt, Kyle Collins, Ed Graham, Jimmy Bone, Pat Thomas, Jonathan Robinson, Joel Gregg, Tommie Carroll and Rob Shuler. I think I might have seen Jeff Ostrowski and Ronnie Bellew at one point.
-In the same vein, it was sad to see Donnie Humphrey and Harold Hallman and consider they are no longer with us.
-Randy Campbell wasn't nearly as physically gifted as Nick Marshall but he could certainly run the option as well. Surprisingly, Auburn beat Tennessee as badly as they did thanks to Campbell's arm. He successfully went to the air more than usual that day. A lot of those completions were boundary patterns to the wide side, too.
-While Auburn's defensive front was absolutely loaded, they were very thin in the secondary. How thin? In addition to being on kick coverage, Brent Fullwood apparently played in Auburn's defensive backfield against the Vols.
-The fly-by-night network that aired the Kentucky game made Jefferson Pilot look like ESPN.
-The lack of piped-in music and similar pyrotechnics did nothing to diminish the game. The fans seemed just as involved and interested, maybe even more so.
**Edit note: The #22 on defense against the Vols wasn't Fullwood pulling double duty but a DB named Danny Robinson. Pretty odd on Dye's teams to see jersey numbers doubled up like that.
Also, Ronnie Bellew's last year was 1982, not 1983.
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