Pure Bliss for Auburn

The lonesome kicker. Sometimes he's not even referred to as a football player. After last year's LSU/Auburn game a lot of blame rested squarely on the shoulders of place kicker John Vaughn. He missed five field goals in the Tigers over time loss to...the Tigers. Things weren't looking much better when he missed a chip shot in the first half of this Saturday's game.

But let's leave Vaughn out of this. You know he's heard enough about last year's game and besides, Auburn won this time. But there was a kicker who played a huge role in Saturday's win, punter Kody Bliss.

And I would personally like to thank my man John, an avid Every Game Counts fan, for giving me the heads up on that, not too long after the game was over. I can't say it any better than John did in his e-mail entitled, Every INCH Counts (nice):

"Especially in a defensive battle like Auburn's 7-3 win over LSU...Auburn's Punter Kody Bliss came up HUGE."

He's exactly right. When you've got a defense like Auburn (or LSU for that matter) the punter can be one of your best weapons. It changes game planning when you control field position like that and you don't look at punting as a bad play.

Take a look at Bliss' stats from the game, again, courtesy of John:

From the Auburn 13 Kody Bliss punt 50 yards to the LSU 37, Chevis Jackson return 7 yards to the LSU 44.

From the Auburn 22 Kody Bliss punt 61 yards to the LSU 17, Chevis Jackson return 12 yards to the LSU 29.

From the Auburn 15 Kody Bliss punt 62 yards to the LSU 23, downed.

From the LSU 39 Kody Bliss punt 31 yards to the LSU 8, out-of-bounds.

From the Auburn 47 Kody Bliss punt 34 yards to the LSU 19, fair catch by Chevis Jackson.

From the Auburn 29 (with 1:32 left in game) Kody Bliss punt 51 yards to the LSU 20, fair catch by Chevis Jackson.

Look at those numbers! Bliss was flipping the field on the boys from Baton Rouge and the War Eagle defense did the rest. In a classic game like this, you usually hate to see the game decided by a kicker. But somehow, I don't think Auburn minded too much.