re: 2004 Alabama vs. Auburn Highlights

It was an agenda. The week before Herbie was saying that our dismantling of a highly touted UGA team was impressive but "just beating a rival" was always an accomplishment. I believe he was setting up his argument if OU just got by OSU, in the end a lack luster performance against bama was the ammunition ESPN needed to get the OU vs USC match up and Herbie seemed to forget the comment he made a week earlier about "just beating a rival".

Auburn was the most talented team.

The argument about 2003 is silly. Auburn's offense was literally 70 spots better from 2003 to 2004 and the defense improved as well.

USC had many players drafted off the 2004 squad, but few made it out of their rookie contracts. I.E. Busts. The media often over inflates a teams talent and potential and the average joe eats it up like a Ryan's buffet. Auburn actually has two undrafted guys from the 2004 squad that managed to make it past a rookie contract. The QB was better, running backs were better, oline was better and shocking the WR's were also better despite all that pitch/catch hype USC generated. Defensively it was close. We had a huge edge talent wise in the secondary and interior line. The LB's likely go to USC and the ends were a wash. We also had the ST's advantage. Oh, what might have been if our name was the name of one of the pretty girls at school like bama, OSU, OU or USCw.