The Auburn Tigers were about to play on national television against the tradition rich University of Southern California Trojans. The voice of College Football, Keith &uot;whoa-nellie&uot; Jackson was doing the play-by-play.

The beverages were cold, and brother Jon was grilling burgers on the &uot;Big Green Egg.&uot; I could not wait, everything was just right. This was going to be a great start to Auburn’s 2002 season. There was only one thing missing, an Auburn victory.

Traveling 2000 miles and playing the 16th ranked Southern California Trojans team is tall order for any team. It is even tougher when you are as inexperienced as the Auburn team that took the field on Monday. In my opinion, Auburn seemed to be a step behind on both offense and defense. I don’t know about ya&uot;ll, but I closed my eyes every time Daniel Cobb dropped back to pass. When he has the ball, four things can happen, and three of them (fumble, incompletion, and interception) are bad. We all expected our inexperienced offense to struggle, but the defense looked confused all night too. We didn’t have much, if any, pass rush on the U.S.C. quarterback, Carson Palmer; and I don’t think he will. even need to wash his jersey before the next game.

Running back Carnell Williams, and punter/kicker Damon Duval are as good as advertised, Carnell ran for nearly 100 yards, and was the only weapon our offense had all night. He is a great back, but we need to develop a passing game to compliment his abilities. I’m scared he might not make it through the season if we don’t get him some help. Thank Goodness for Damon Duval, his leg helped us out of bad field position all night. It looks like we will play a lot close games this year, and he could be the difference.

Any questions about how much Selma native Ben Obomanu would play were answered immediately. He started his first game as a collegiate player, on national TV. That is impressive. Also he caught his first and only pass during the first five minutes. It look like he will be a star for Auburn as the season progresses.

Coaches say that teams improve more between the first and second games than at any other time during the season. I sure hope that is true. We only have five day to prepare for Western Carolina, but I think we’ll be O.K. against the Division II Catamounts. It’s a long season (12 games) and I think Auburn will be a great team before it is all over. &uot;War Eagle&uot; (that one is for last week when Kevin left it out) and &uot;Way Eagle anyway&uot; (this week).