Mel on Mell St.: Long Overdue Homeboy Recap: Ole Miss and Western Carolina

So sorry for my long absence from the blog. Since my last post, I've celebrated an anniversary, made trips to New Orleans and Seagrove, spent quite a few hours preparing for trials that got continued and loaded up lots of stuff for Natalie's bachelorette party next weekend. A few pics at the end of the post.

Clearly, it's been an exciting few weeks in SEC football. Auburn has surprised everyone and managed to pull of a few big wins. Georgia lost to Vandy, South Carolina lost to Tennessee, Missouri beat Florida. As usual, the SEC is a mess. I, for one, could not be more proud of the Auburn Tigers. I can't lie, I think at the beginning of the year I told my father-in-law that I expected a 7 win season. They have far surpassed my expectations. Each week, my dad has been e-mailing us with the homeboy winner and each week, he has expressed an admirable level of confidence in the Tigers!

The Commissioner on Ole Miss:

"Well we now have 5 games of the 2013 season in the books and we have defeated a ranked team. Auburn turned in a solid performance in all phases on the game on Saturday night on it’s way to the upset of #24 Ole Mess. This team appears to be getting it’s legs under it. With somewhat of a tune-up game next week for homecoming, I really like our chances as we travel to College Station on October 19^th to take on Texas A&M. If we can keep Johnny Hancock somewhat under control I think we could come back to Auburn with a 6-1 record and very well positioned in the SEC’s Western Division.

Again, this was a very solid performance by Auburn this week and several players deserved consideration for MVHB. Offensively, Trey Mason and Nick Marshall turned in the most notable performances. Defensively, our d-linemen really showed out, constantly keeping Black Bear Bo off balance. Dee Ford, Gabe Wright and Carl Lawson all had highlight reel performances and in recognition of his 6 tackles, which included 2 qb sacks and 3 ½ tackles for loss this week’s MVHB award goes to Carl Lawson. If you haven’t heard his post-game interview, it’s very impressive. He is quite articulate. My guess is that this young man is not your typical brain dead athlete and is someone Auburn will be very proud to have as both an athlete and a student.

I’m going to step out and predict that this team will continue to get better every week for the rest of the season and will enter the 2013 Iron Bowl with a 10-1 record and a chance to win the Western Division title."

Congrats on Andy on the Ole Miss homeboy victory! And congrats to myself on my victory in my bet with Robert, who has to make the bed every morning for a month since his team lost.

And on Western Carolina:

"Well after a week of pondering the MVHB from the Western Carolina game, it finally came down to a coin flip to decide who it would be. In a 62-3 rout where everybody, including all three drum majors, got in the game, it’s hard to narrow it down to one person. If anyone had chosen Jeremy Johnson it definitely would have been Jeremy. But unlike the earlier game where the MVHB was not a HB, I won’t make that mistake again.

So, the winner of the coin toss for MVHB against Western Carolina, which isn’t even a state, is Ricardo Louis. Ricardo finally showed what he has the potential to be as a receiver not only catching the deep ball but also taking the ball in space and making something happen.

Everybody get ready for a war this afternoon against Manziel; if our pass rush can put pressure on Johnny football and not let him scramble for major gains, I think we come back to Auburn at 6-1."

Yup, that's right...my homeboy WON! Even if it was sort of by default, I'll take it!

Life highlights from the last few weeks: