#anyway. that's not even everything but that was kinda the kickoff event of the last few miserable weeks and ever since then stuff just kind

[esleep]

I'm speaking as someone who had a really bad burnout a handful of years ago. You need to give your brain a break. Usually for adhd folks more asleep helps a ton with the brain fog. Adding stimulants will just have your body draw from an already empty well. If you're having trouble with rest or other forms of self-care doctors can help and so can some of the online resources out there. Supplements are wonderful too. Take care of yourself and good luck. You can do it.

thanks so much you sweet anon <3 creating my prior post actually did prompt me to call my doc about upping the wellbutrin because i'm on a low dose rn and i think i need some more mental stability at the moment. but i think you are right about the exhaustion, which increasing the adderall would probably make worse. im gonna see if the doc also has any input on how to help me sleep better because i think that's also a big factor. thank you angel 💕💕💕💕

[bubblegumlefty]

My thoughts on MITB... (Warning: VERY long post. Maybe.)

I was going to post them earlier, but after watching the first chapter of the last ride documentary, I needed a couple minutes to contain my emotions. (My head hurts from crying now 😂)

So anyway, I'd say it was pretty good. It was also the first MITB pay per view I have seen in years (the last one being when I was 'bout 8 years old). I'll go through a rundown of some of the matches and rate them on a scale of 1 to 10, including the main event(s).

Kickoff

Cesaro VS Jeff Hardy: 8/10

Overall, it was a solid good. There were obviously a few moments that were questionable. Examples include:

· Cesaro licking his finger and using it to rub off Hardy's face paint, which is kinda gross, pandemic aside.

· Unzipping his mesh shirt and giving a slap towards his chest.

· His overall dominance that just gives vibes that feel less then family-friendly...

(Whether this can be considered shipping or fanfic material or not is up to you. Take your pick.)

At least Jeff won in the end, so everything's all good. He really should get some medical attention though, it sounded like he fractured a rib from slamming into the apron.

Smackdown Tag Team Championship: 6/10

I'll be honest, I didn't pay much attention to this match. It's not bad or anything, I'm just not able to watch Smackdown thanks to our crappy cable service not providing FOX. And no, we can't switch over. I live in an apartment complex. So I wasn't too invested. 😂

MVP Lashley VS R-Truth: 5/10

Not much to say here. Just a short comedic breather. Lashley obviously won. Kinda suprised me that Lana didn't show up. At least Truth is still singing his own theme song despite there being no audience to recite it with. I just wish the commentators would've at least given some sort of response and not left him hanging. #Missed Opportunity. WWE apparently still has upcoming plans for the 24/7 belt, so that'll be something interesting I guess.

Smackdown Women's Championship: 6/10

This once again shows that I need to catch up on Smackdown, cause I wasn't as polarized as some fans with the finish. The commentary was pretty funny though, 'specially when both girls went up to the commentators and pressured them to clap. Overall OK match.

Universal Championship: 8/10

First off, why did Brey choose to fight in his firefly funhouse attire? That looks very uncomfortable. Also puppets. Puppets everywhere. He also seemed to be going through some sort of Vietnam flashback trauma (bad joke). Brawn pulled a fast one on him though and managed to retain the title. Also there was a moment where a few glitches appeared, which tells me that something in Brey has just snapped, triggering the fiend.

WWE Championship: 9/10

The banter between Drew and Seth was just perfect. Also loud groans and yelling. Lots of it being from Seth. He almost got himself disqualified at one point from attempting to bring a chair into the ring. Both men also managed to nearly kick each other's heads off back and forth at one point in perfect timing. In the end, Drew retained, and somehow managed to have Seth shake his hand in mutual agreement even after defeating him. It really shows how good of a person he is and I love it.

Main Event: Corporate Ladder Match(es): 10/10

I really don't know how to describe this. It was the most unique mitb ladder match I have ever seen, and they had managed to hit it out of the park. It started off very nicely with all the competitors coming out only for shenanigans to immediately ensue. Highlights include:

· Asuka standing on top of the balcony above the elevators, and basically pulling a Jeff Hardy onto the other girls.

· Corbin pinning AJ down with a barbell, causing him to call for Rey to help him. When he looks like he is considering it, he decides to just run off and leave him there.

· Corbin smashing a giant mirror and immediately pulling a look that basically translates to "Oh crap!". There's something about bad luck from smashing mirrors apparently.

· Several cameos including a couple wrestlers from the 80s/90s like Doink and Brother Love, a general manager, Stephanie, Paul Heyman, and Vince.

· AJ getting spooked by a picture of the Undertaker and having a vietnam flashback. He also gets trapped inside an office by Aliester Black, which I should mention the office has a casket. He does manage to get out though.

· Dana mistakes the office briefcase for the real briefcase and ends up with her upper body being trapped in a picture frame as a result. She also slips on the floor from a mop.

· There's a point where both the men and women run into each other and get caught off guard in a buffet. A food fight ensues, with Shayna almost nearly knocking Rey out in a sleeper hold, and he does get knocked out from Nia and Otis running into him. (I feel very sorry for the poor smockes who have to clean all of this mess up.) We also get a beat from Nia and Otis for a few seconds, which is interesting.

· Otis gets distracted in a cafeteria and pie face's a general manager.

· Both Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles ending up in Vince's office, and getting scolded like kids in a principal's office. They slowly exit, but not before pushing the chairs back in, because good manners. They blame each other for getting scared and immediately resume to fighting.

· Both Rey and Aliester potentially "kayfabe" died from being shoved off the roof.

· Asuka managing to fight the briefcase off Corbin, and giving him a kick to the face. It does make me question why Corbin was trying to grab the wrong briefcase though.

The winners in the end were Asuka and Otis, which are the two I least expected to win, and I was pleasantly surprised. Though tbh, the only reason Otis won was because AJ's freakin butter fingers dropped the briefcase after fighting for it from Corbin. He needs to make a mental note for leaving his gloves off during a match like this.

So after all of this, I'd give the pay per view an 8/10. This was probably one of the more ambitious matches WWE has put on and I think it pulls it off almost perfectly. I really wouldn't mind if they decide to turn this into a thing that happens every couple of years. I think the crowds would be very entertained. I'll probably fix any mistakes or typos in the morning. Now to mark my calender for Backlash. 👍

[taylorteffyswift]

REDiversary In Review❗

Happy REDiversary

As you may know, 7 years ago, this magnificent creation came into existence…

I have to admit, when this era first started, I didn’t know what to think. With **WANEGBT **coming out which had a very different vibe from the Speak Now era, I wasn’t sure what to expect. This was the most mainstream pop thing I’d ever heard Taylor do. I wasn’t really against that sound, I just wasn’t used to Taylor’s music having so many “top 40 anthem” vibes even though Mine was very clearly a multi-format bop.

After **Begin Again **came out I felt a lot better about what was to come around the corner. This song gave me all of those warm and fuzzy feelings that Taylor has always been so good at bringing to the surface.

I was also in a very bad time in my life. Earlier that year in June, I went through a really bad breakup. The kind of breakup that hits you from your blind spot. The kind of breakup where you think things are going great and then you find out they were thinking of cheating on you and have been unhappy for the entire time and then the night before exam week, she ends it in a text with no remorse. It was extra impact because this was my first serious relationship and I honestly never pictured it ending… if you catch my drift.

Anyways, for months I was in a bad way with a short fuse and WANEGBT just ended up making me more depressed because it reminded me of how she was probably thinking about me right now just like Taylor was speaking in her words (this girl was also a Swiftie btw). That made me feel hopeless in many respects and is one of the other reasons why I was unsure about this era. But I always have faith in Taylor no matter what so I kept my mind alive and my ear to the wall anyway.

Then… Begin Again came out and I felt a glimmer of hope like the sun coming out after a hurricane. Suddenly I was excited about this era again and it did not let me down.

RED pulled me out of that hole that I feared might become my grave…

I remember putting it on, on release day on my headphones hiding away from my family, just me, Tay and some headphones.

She had me at the very first song. State of Grace feels like one of the most magical, ethereal and underappreciated songs from that record and I think it should have been a single. Every time I listen to State of Grace I have like an out of body experience and I can just close my eyes and she takes me back in time to a world in my life that was just happy and innocent. I truly love this song.

Next to that I loved the concept of** Red**. The whole synesthetic concept of assigning colors to different types of love and emotions is both a genius concept for a song and a genius concept for an album. I loved the intimacy of Treacherous and once again the concept is so relatable. As much as I didn’t like the pop vibes at first… **IKYWT **is totally a bop and I love it.

Then I came across All To Well. I just burst into tears for this entire song. It really felt like the closure I needed. Was it really closure? No I guess not. But just knowing that someone else knows what this feels like and also that someone else was able to describe what I felt – the most visceral emotion – and put it into words that just seemed so perfect to describe this horrible impact I felt… that was all the closure I needed.

22, again… such a bop and maybe even my favorite bop from Red as far as party songs go.** I Almost Do** is such a beautiful country ballad. The glam and delicateness of this song really just leaves me feeling so… comfortable. I have to admit even **WANEGBT **after a while kinda grew on me, it’s definitely an ear worm.

Stay Stay Stay is adorable as hell and always brings a smile to my face. The Last Time has a very emotional feel with some CRAZY Snow Patrol vibes (for obvious reasons). Side note, I love the collabs on this album the most I think of any collabs she’s done (other than maybe Babe). Holy Ground is SUCH A BANGER!! I like the energy in the live performance a bit more. I feel like Nathan missed the energy a bit in the production on this one but that’s just me being fussy. I still love the album version a lot tho.

Sad Beautiful Tragic always brings me to tears. It reminds me of how good love can feel but also that Love has hurt me more in my life than it has made me feel good. To this day it makes me remember relationships and love interests passed and I tend to reminisce a bit. Its like the best and worst home movie playing back in my mind at the same time. The Lucky One is everything. Again, lovely falsetto from her at the beginning and super tight pop prod here. This makes me think of my worst middle school days and loneliness. I don’t feel those things when I listen to this but it makes me think of those feelings and memories.

Everything Has Changed is the song that CHANGED EVERYTHING!!! TO DATE is my fav Ed Sheeran song lol. I do like a lot of stuff with Ed but something about how their stories intertwine in this song and how the sonic signatures of their vocals mesh so well I think is just magical. Starlight has some mad pop vibes, a very unique intro. Not a huge fan of the feel in verse one. I thought it was a bit weak going into it out of the intro but that’s more of a Dann and Nathan thing than a Tay thing. Once the song gets going it’s great but it’s just that awkward first verse kickoff. And then of course there is Begin Again which is also one of my favorite songs off the album and I think an AWESOME way to end the standard album.

Deluxe: The Moment I Knew is such an ANTHEM. It is both epic and bombastically “plane going down” vibes all at the same time. I love the use of Cello. I find it really augments the horrible feeling. I find I can actually picture her or myself in this situation feeling this way at an event and that is the real magic of this song. I feel like I’m actually there.** Come Back Be Here** is so real and raw. I saw this song live at the repTour and somehow… that was everything. GAH has again very lite pop vibes and I like the message of the song a lot. I love the two demos and how they really help to illustrate the songwriting and production process. I remember as an aspiring record producer I analyzed the hell out of those two demos and the album versions haha. **SOG **Acoustic left me feeling relaxed and… inspired (more on that later).

All in all, this album made me feel like a weight had been lifted off my shoulder. Like I was emerging from a car wreck without a scratch. I felt like I had been kicked down on the gravel road and Taylor reached out her hand to my skinned palms to pull me up. I will always cherish this album and the light that it brought me when I really needed it.

As always, thanks @taylorswift​ for always being there and for 7 glorious years painted RED… I hope some day I can have 7 years painted Golden

[rassasassalin]

Annnnd it’s Smackdown time, woooo.  Got some hopes for the main event tonight, let’s see how it goes.

Yep movement.  Yes.  I love it.  Beautiful.  More of this, please.

Honestly, whatever anyone’s feelings on Jinder Mahal, and there are a lot of them, all varied and viable, but the Singh Brothers are amazing.  The second best part of the gimmick they gave him, imo, only slightly behind his entrance.  They’re so over the top with their acting, it’s great, they’re great, I love them so much, I want to see them have a who can be more extra-off with The New Day.

Excuse me, I’m sorry, did they just give the Ruby and Charlotte fucking JOBBER ENTRANCES?  First actual match of the night, and I don’t get to see the full entrances?  Not a huge fan of that.  But okay.  Whatever.  No entrances, just packages, that’s fine, it’s cool.

So, I’d go ahead and guess right now that at some point tonight, given what happened on Raw and how things have been going for the last couple of months, that the Riot Squad would get mobbed by all the Female Wrestlers on Smackdown tonight, but it doesn’t feel like they have the same kind of numbers advantage that the gal’s on Raw do?  And while I think that, I’ve done the quick math, and no, the numbers are only like, one off, but...  I think Lana’s throwing me off.  Lana just doesn’t feel like a wrestler to me, so my subconscious isn’t counting her as one.  I guess they could mob them.  Wouldn’t be much point tho, I don’t think.  Don’t like this whole mirror storyline that’s happening on Raw and Smackdown when there’s no important variables.

Also, sidenote, I have always, forever, loved Natalya’s ring gear.

Oh, they’re bringing out the steps again.  That move’s really cute.  I know it was supposed to be super dangerous but it’s just kinda silly and I love it.  Good on Naomi for coming out and kicking ass- giving ass?- tho, love that girl, annnnnnd yep, alright, there we go, getting kinda mobbed, yep, called it.

Ahhhh, Baron Corbin v Ziggler.  So, fun fact that I’m sure no one cares about, but I’ve come to enjoy Baron’s wrestling entirely against my will.  He is the opposite of the problem that I had with Ryback- in that he was huge and looked like everything I’d enjoy in a big muscle hoss rassler-, but his moves were so boring that by the end of his run I legit tuned out during his matches because I just couldn’t get into them.  Corbin, on the other hand... something about him just rubbed me the wrong way from the first time I heard him talking, and I wanted, I desperately wanted to hate him.  And then I saw him do the End of Days.  And I’ve been petulantly hooked ever since.

Mmmmhm, DB, what have we got here.  Daniel Turn tonight?  Probably not tonight.  Probably just setting the seeds for tonight.  And I say “turn”, but I don’t know if it’ll really count as that, because Shane’s being pretty petty Mcmahon Heel right now.  Daniel standing up for what he thinks is right isn’t a particularly heel move, at least, not traditionally.  Then again, WWE seems to love Heels that Actually Have Good Points now, soooo...

...When did Dolph start coming out to music again?  Did I miss something?  I mean, I’m not complaining, wasn’t a fan of the record scratching then stark silence.  Fans really let me down on that one.  They should have started doing theme songs for him when the music cut out.  Golden opportunity, wasted.

AND Baron is fighting sands shirt.  Noice.  Uncommon, but nice.

When will Heel Roode come back from the war?  I miss him.  This is kind of dickish Roode, but not super heel yet.

Ah, yes, My Violent Kane Themed Team Rocket Bros coming next.  Their get ups are so goofy, but I do like the way they’re wrestling.  That smacking the shit out of Roan to get him fired up?  I wouldn’t mind seeing more of that.  Not sure if I’m looking forward to Breezango going up against the Bludgeon Bros.  I love my dumb cop boys.  I don’t want them to be decimated.  Also, it’s so obvious that the Ascension has been behind all of the fashion file shenanigans so they’d be putting themselves in super danger for no reason.

...man, i love seeing my wyatt boys doing good for themselves, but man, sometimes i watch them and i think what could be if they just let bray have his giantman stable.  and now i’m sad.  corey laughing at people getting decimated helps a little bit, i guess, but still.

Not making me less sad reminding me both of Heel Cole- oh god no please- and that time the Rock came back and said he was home, only to leave us again.

YEP MOVEMENT MAKES ME HAPPY, THOUGH, THANK YOU.

Zayn and Owens revolutionaries, you say?  They should hire Drew Gulak.  He could make them a beautiful power point to help their cause.

KO being the Yup Man is the Best Thing and I love it.

Still don’t trust Randy to not turn on Shin.  Never trust Randy.

I really want a Yep! shirt.

Oh no, come on, SOMEONE has to occupy smackdown with ma boys.

...Man, thanks Kevin, now I want some kool-aid.

Doooon’t trust a McMahon, Daniel.  Don’t do it.  It never ends in anything but tears.  Nice to see Sami and Kevin happy, though.

Oh hey, Rusev is fighting tonight!  Happy Rusev Day to Me!  AND New Day on Commentary!  Oh Smackdown, you’re spoiling me~

YAS!  GIVE ME THE WHOLE SONG!!!!!

THREEE UNHINDERED JINDERS OMG, BEAUTIFUL

I wouldn’t mind seeing Aiden dressed up like the Grinch.  Oooh, no, guys, come on, be nice to English, he’s not that bad.

...I’m actually really enjoying Benjamin and Gable together.  They play pretty well off of each other.  I really wish they got more TV time.  I like the idea of Sheldon teaching Chad how to be a proper heel/tweener.

Big E is a Gift, let we never forget.

So is Corey and Byron’s antagonistic relationship.  It’s so nice to have a Heel Face commentator duo again where it doesn’t feel like actual meanspiritedness that one party can’t actually handle.  Byron’s really grown on me.  Maybe he’s better now that he’s not up against JBL.  Maybe it’s just having to listen to Otunga for ages.  Either way, doesn’t really matter how or why, I just know that if Byron wasn’t on the announce team for Smackdown, I would actually genuinely miss him.

Hm.  So Zack’s gonna get murdered on the CoC kickoff.  That kinda makes me sad, but hopefully it will end up being a good ark for his and Mojo’s characters.

Fucking Bobby’s picture looks so happy to be there

OH NO, I DON”T WANT DANGO AND BREEZE TO GET MURDERIZED!  I’m seeing they’re going to get pretty well banged up, then the Ascension is going to come out and it’ll look like they’re there to help their “Best Friends”, but then Oh No, They’ve Actually Been The Villains All Along!  And so either BB’s win, or if Breezango wins it’ll be by DQ because Ascensions only going to come out there to twist the proverbial knife in their backs.

Really wish they didn’t add those strobe lights to Shinsuke’s entrance.  Still one of my favorite entrances otherwise.  Whatta man.  HE JUST FISTBUMPED THE VIPER NAKAMURA NO

Randal growing his hair out kind of weirds me out at this point. THEY FIST BUMPED AGAIN WHAT IS THIS? 

SHINSUKE IS SO FUCKING ADORABLE I LOVE HIM

Daniel on commentary now, Guest Night at the Commentary Desk tonight apparently.

Man I just really love Sami’s face.  Just thought I’d share that.

Yep, yep, gonna be Shenanigans at Clash of Champions during the main event.  So many shenanigans.  Perhaps even all of the shenanigans.

Nakamura’s kicks give me life.  So does KO murdering people on the ring apron.

Fucking Sami waving at Daniel.  Goddamit, Zayn, stop being so cute.

Shit man, Daniel bringing up Indie stuff, I can sense Vince Feuding from here, ehehe.

You know, one day I want to have a wrestler purposefully toss a match on the go home show because traditions state that he who wins before the PPV, shall lose at the PPV.  I know tonight wasn’t the go home show, but it just got me thinking.  I’d love to have a wrestler who’s gimmick was like, being super meta about things like that.  Or just really superstitious I guess could also work.

Anyway, Now to get my weekly fix of Drew05 Live.

[auburnfamilynews]

  For 60 divine minutes, we had an answer. (90, if you count the first half in Starkville.) The question, of course, had hung in the Auburn air since at least the 2010 Arkansas barnburner, and maybe since Chris Todd was slinging darts in the rain against West Virginia: How good could a Gus Malzahn team be if he developed a top-tier, Tuberville-caliber defense to pair with a peak-performance offense of his own? 

Against Arkansas this past October, we found out. Kamryn Pettway and the offensive line ground the Hog defense to dust; Carl Lawson, Montravius Adams and the rest of Kevin Steele’s defense permitted the Hog offense less than nothing. The final tally of rushing yardage was Auburn 544, Arkansas 25. The final scoreboard read Auburn 56, Arkansas 3. Not even Cam’s national champions, not even the 2013 team in its white-hottest moments registered anything like the kind of scorched-earth obliteration of a bowl-bound SEC rival the 2016 team registered against the Razorbacks.

Which is why, when I took my seat in Jordan-Hare’s north end zone bleachers two weeks later for the Vanderbilt game, I fervently believed Auburn had a puncher’s chance to defeat Alabama, win the SEC, and possibly — it wasn’t totally crazy — get another national title shot. The defense hadn’t been as superb against Ole Miss, but Chad Kelly had made Alabama look silly for stretches, too, and they’d been due for an off-game, and the rushing game had been murderous anyway, and the freshman wideouts were coming along, and Steele would be more comfortable against pro-style offenses anyway, and, and, and, and. The ceiling was that high. This team had shown us. There was no reason it couldn’t keep on showing us.

Then, I don’t remember if it was just before kickoff or just after, my phone told me Sean White wasn’t starting.

I do remember watching John Franklin III take the field and thinking Uh-oh. And at no point for the remaining two months of the season was the status of Auburn football anything other than Uh-oh. That ceiling we’d waited six, seven years for our Tigers to touch? When poor White dropped back in the Sugar Bowl and uncorked the duckiest duck that’s ever ducked, man, that ceiling felt as far away as the moon.

It’s not a scientific assessment, but I’d judge Auburn fans as a whole to be more unhappy at the close of the 2016 season than 2015’s, an assessment that if accurate doesn’t make a damn lick of logical sense. Instead of going 2-6 in the SEC and finishing last in the West, Auburn went 5-3 and finished second. Instead of going 6-6 overall and playing the Birmingham Bowl, Auburn went 8-4 and played the Sugar. Instead of finishing 35th in S&P+ and 29th in Sagarin, Auburn finished 13th and 14th, respectively. And Auburn accomplished that improvement while breaking in its third defensive coordinator in three seasons, adding an eventual playoff finalist to the nonleague schedule and suffering the aforementioned crippling injury to its starting quarterback. By any rational measure, the future looks far brighter than it did a year ago.

So why do I feel like Auburn’s glass is half-empty, even when it’s clearly half-full? Why do I empathize with the criticism avalanche aimed at Malzahn even when I disagree with the overwhelming bulk of it? Why did a season that was so much better than the one before it leave us feeling collectively just as bad, if not worse?

The simplest answer is that the one thing we could expect 2016 to provide us was clarity. Was Gus the coach that in the space of one season brought a 3-9 team to within seconds of a national championship? Or the coach who without the security blanket of a JUCO superstar under center was incapable of even breaking .500? By year’s end, we’d know … except that, whoops, it turns out Gus can be both those coaches not only in the span of a single season, but over the span of a single month. (Auburn fans, you thought you got emotional whiplash going from 2010’s triumphs to 2012’s misery? For our team’s next trick, it’ll go from the Arkansas win to the Georgia loss in all of four weeks.) If you believed coming into this season Gus was the long-term answer, you got plenty of evidence to back you up. If you believed Auburn was better off moving on, you got plenty of evidence to back you up. 2016’s high points were high enough that the team unquestionably moved forward. But the low points were low enough that — much as it hurts to admit — there’s legitimate reasons to doubt how far forward it can keep moving under Gus’s leadership, too.

They’re not all legitimate, of course. There’s things it makes sense to be angry about. There’s things it doesn’t. In the interest of unpacking exactly how we came to be collectively unsatisfied by what should have been a satisfying season, here’s my list of those things, piece-by-piece.

I AM MAD ABOUT: LOSING THE GODFORSAKEN GEORGIA GAME. The Iron Bowl is the game I most want to win. But given the unfortunate state of Crimson Tide affairs these days, the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry is the game I least want to lose. And that went double entering this year’s edition, what with the Dawgs a mediocre mess that narrowly escaped Nicholls State, lost to Vandy, couldn’t even compete with Ole Miss or Florida, still ranks 58 places lower than Auburn in S&P, etc. And that went quadruple, octuple, hexadecouple when the defense went into Athens and stuffed the Dawg offense in a sack.

I can’t make myself care about how injured White may or may not have been. Can’t about what he may or may not have told the coaches. Can’t about why or why not Franklin or Johnson never saw the field. If all you need from your offense to win the Georgia game is to score more than a net of zero points, for the love of everything holy find a way to score more than a net of zero points. Backup quarterbacks. All-Wildcat offense. Triple-reverse flea flickers. Just please, please, please don’t waste that defensive performance, in this game of all games.

I believe that if Gus’s team cobbles together enough offense not to, no one really much minds losing to Alabama or Oklahoma. But waste it they did. And I’m still angrier about it than any loss since Tony Franklin hit his nadir against Vanderbilt.

I AM NOT MAD ABOUT: GUS GOING 1-3 AGAINST ALABAMA. Quit saying “Malzahn is 2-6 vs. Georgia and Alabama, and almost lost in 2013, too.” The Tide’s rank entering the four Iron Bowls Gus has coached: 1, 1, 2,  and 1, and that No. 2 team won the national title. Gus won the greatest game in college football history in 2013, rolled up 630 yards in Bryant-Denny in 2014, and stayed kinda-sorta competitive in 2015 and 2016 despite starting Jeremy Johnson in both. Gus’s track record against Georgia is a major issue. His against the Tide just isn’t.

I AM NOT MAD ABOUT: “NOT BEATING ANYBODY.” Among the anti-Gus brigade, the most frequent method of dismissing Auburn’s post-Texas A&M, pre-White injury run seems to be dismissing the level of competition faced during said run. There’s a number of problems with that approach, first and foremost that ignoring a statistically dominant win over LSU — which is LSU, and which also wound up the SEC’s second- or third-best team, and a good deal better than that according to some — is the opposite of fair. Second, as has been noted already, it’s not as if 53-point home wins or 24-point road wins in SEC play have been commonplace even for the very best teams in Auburn’s recent history. Lastly, those margins-of-victory matter. No, they don’t change the win-loss record, and yes, LSU aside, the teams faced between A&M and Georgia weren’t the cream of the SEC’s less-than-bumper 2016 crop. But pretending a 56-3 win over Arkansas doesn’t tell us anything more about how good Auburn is than a 16-3 win over Arkansas hasn’t been in fashion since before Phil Steele first started tracking close-game records and yardage margins. In the early days of 2017, it’s straight-up willful ignorance.

How much credit to give Gus for a single month is (ahem) debatable, but don’t pretend that for that single month Auburn was anything less than a force.

I AM NOT MAD ABOUT: LOSING THE SUGAR BOWL WHEN SEAN WHITE BREAKS HIS ARM ON THE FIRST SERIES OF THE GAME. The moment White threw that “pass” — you know the one I’m talking about — the only question was how many points by which Oklahoma would win, and if Musberger could talk himself out of a job before the fourth quarter.

I AM MAD ABOUT: NOT HAVING A VIABLE BACKUP PLAN IN THE EVENT OF A SEAN WHITE INJURY. An incomplete list of people and/or creatures and/or objects that expressed concern over White’s durability this past offseason:

Auburn fans

Detroit Pistons fans

The ghost of Harriet Tubman

Squirrels

Atlas moth caterpillars

An asteroid circling the sun at a distance of 600 million miles from Earth

“White showed enough last year that Auburn might be OK with him as their starter,” a sapient paper clip told me last August, “but health-wise, I gotta see him last the year before I believe it. JF3 had better be ready.”

I’m assuming that, being football coaches and thus a good deal more knowledgable than most sapient paper clips, Auburn’s staff shared the same concerns. But in the end, did it make any difference if they did? Their efforts to address them amounted to “sign Franklin,” a decision that proved so successful Franklin 1. remained on the bench even as White’s arm transmogrified into pudding before our eyes in Athens 2. watched Johnson get the nod in the Iron Bowl, a move even the non-sapient paper clips could tell you gave Auburn the odds of winning I have of assembling my own Volkswagen.

Maybe that’s because Franklin proved incapable of running the offense. Maybe that’s because Auburn’s staff was incapable of teaching the offense*. Either way: Gus went into this past offseason knowing an injury to White had ruined a promising end to the season. And he still failed to prevent an injury to White from ruining an even-more-promising end to this season.

*The “Gus can’t develop quarterbacks” line you’ll hear trotted out in relation to this — or to express skepticism that Jarrett Stidham will alter Auburn’s fortunes at the position — is bunk. Tulsa’s quarterbacks got better under Malzahn. Chris Todd got better. Title game weirdness aside, Cam got better. Once-and-future defensive back Nick Marshall threw for 456 yards at Alabama. White’s gotten better every healthy game he’s started, to the point he was the most efficient passer in the SEC when he got hurt. If Gus couldn’t develop Johnson or Franklin into workable starting options, the evidence-to-date suggests that’s more a Johnson or Franklin issue than a Gus one.

I AM NOT MAD ABOUT: LOSING THE CLEMSON GAME. Those guys are pretty good, it turns out. Can’t wait to play them again in Clemson next year!

I AM MAD ABOUT: THE WAY IN WHICH THE CLEMSON GAME WAS LOST. Perhaps I should have let go of my anger over Gus’s Carousel of “Progress” by now. I haven’t. Not because it’s that much of an opportunity lost, really — if Auburn wins that game*, a 9-3 mark with a win over the eventual ACC champs vaults them all the way into … the Sugar Bowl — but because the remainder of the season made trotting out Franklin and Johnson alongside White as three-headed quarterbacking equals look stupid beyond all previously accepted measures of stupid. Could the gulf between White and his backups really be that obvious on the playing field and that obscure on the practice field? Is it too much to ask that if every fan knows this is Sean White’s offense to operate by Week 3, that Auburn’s offensive braintrust know the same before Week 1?

The charitable view is that Malzahn entered this season desperate, and desperate people sometimes do dumb things they wouldn’t otherwise do. The uncharitable view is that if the carousel itself was a one-time mistake, the A&M, Georgia and Oklahoma performances proved the resulting offensive implosion more feature than bug. And ultimately, that’s what makes me maddest of all. Let’s be clear:

I AM NOT MAD ABOUT: WHERE THIS PROGRAM STANDS GOING INTO 2017. Marlon Davidson and Derrick Brown are set to become the new Carl Lawson and Montravius Adams. Carlton Davis and Javaris Davis share as much All-SEC cornerback potential as they do a last name. If losing Alex Kozan and the dreadfully underrated Robert Leff will hurt, returning Austin Golson, Braden Smith and Darius James — oh, and Herb Hand — will heal. The freshman wide receiving crew won’t be the freshman wide receiving crew any more. Kamryn Pettway and Kerryon Johnson will continue to only make the other that much better. Kevin Steele knows what he’s doing, it turns out.

Then there’s Jarrett Stidham, likely the highest-ceilinged Auburn quarterback prospect since Cam, whose arrival means Gus now has — it’s worth repeating — the SEC’s highest-rated quarterback at midseason as his fallback option. Woody Barrett may not keep quiet, either. Auburn’s biggest problem for two years running has been its depth at quarterback. Its depth at quarterback now appears to be one of its biggest strengths. This alone should be cause for unalloyed optimism, even before discussing the positives from the paragraph preceding this one.

That even I can’t summon too much of that logically justified optimism speaks to how much of a toll the past two seasons have taken on our collective faith in Gus’s offensive acumen. Maybe there’s sound reasons for what we saw against Clemson, A&M, and Georgia, sound reasons to believe we won’t see the same things again at the worst possible times. But I can’t shake the feeling that the Gus of the Chizik era would have had his offensive identity on firmer footing before breaking out the Chandler Cox wildcat gadgetry, would have wizarded up something to salvage that trip to Athens, certainly would not have punted on fourth-and-damn-inches with a reeling defense in the second half of the Sugar Bowl. If the past two seasons haven’t felt anything like the Malzahn salad days in the win column, they’ve felt even less like it in terms of creativity, of chutzpah, of the damn-the-huddle-up-torpedoes mentality Gus brought with him from Tulsa. There wasn’t any shortage of spread gurus even in 2009, but as recently as 2014, all the evidence suggested Gus was cut from a unique — and uniquely talented — cloth, even among his HUNH peers. Far too often in 2016, it felt like Auburn was just another middle-of-the-road SEC team, like Gus has become Dan Mullen with better players.

There’s far worse things to be, of course. Mullen took Mississippi State to No. 1 and the Orange Bowl two seasons ago. If Gus giving up a portion of his old bravado was somehow necessary to put together the kind of defense we saw in 2016, it’s probably worth it. No one, myself included, gives a crap about how fast Auburn snaps the ball or how often it goes on fourth-and-short when it’s beating Arkansas 56-3.

I’m not mad Gus will get the chance to prove that performance is what the future of his Auburn tenure will look like. I’m happy 2016 gave us reasons to believe it will. I’m glad to enter 2017 with hope. But 2016 was supposed to take us past belief, past hope, to the point where we know — for better or worse — where Auburn stands with its head coach. I’m mad that it didn’t. And until that point is reached, it’s going to be hard to look back at this season and feel any other way.

Photo credit: @OUDailySports

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