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Naming a Starting QB at Auburn


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If only we had a short and long crossing route in our route tree to combat most of these defensive alignments Flex would use against us.  I know we have the dig route but it's run very deep to take the safety out not the line backers.  If we had a short and medium cross it would make the linebackers have to watch for them.  From what I've seen most linebackers against us play with the nickel inside contain and the linebackers either play down hill on the run or drop into zones on the pass.  Short and medium crossing routes would require them to choose which they cover.  Potentially opening up both.  The route tree has been beat to death though. Hoping it has expanded a little.  

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43 minutes ago, corchjay said:

If only we had a short and long crossing route in our route tree to combat most of these defensive alignments Flex would use against us.  I know we have the dig route but it's run very deep to take the safety out not the line backers.  If we had a short and medium cross it would make the linebackers have to watch for them.  From what I've seen most linebackers against us play with the nickel inside contain and the linebackers either play down hill on the run or drop into zones on the pass.  Short and medium crossing routes would require them to choose which they cover.  Potentially opening up both.  The route tree has been beat to death though. Hoping it has expanded a little.  

probably not

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4 hours ago, bigbird said:

Like I said, even though I don't like it, I'd run 3 and yes, I'd have the OLB playing like you said. To me, knowing Gus' love for the wheel, deep out, and post, I would stay out of 2 unless you inverted the corners and safeties. Even then, there are two many holes that Gus' tree exploits in 2. I'd play a lot of 4 and 6 just because I don't like 3 due to losing your OLB

I feel like 3 is the best case scenario because of the versatility that it gives you,and yes normally losing the OLB can actually be a bit of a detriment, I think Clemson's personnel make them ideal to run it since they've really got the 2 3-4 ILBs and an OLB, those guys are probably capable of playing with the ability to handle the middle of the field despite losing the outside backer to more spaced out coverage. Still, Cover 2 depending on how quickly your backers and safeties can close space is sort of like a hedging position. I think it's a safe bet without making a gamble and leaving yourself too vulnerable. The wheel is a sore point for 2 yes, depending on where the ball is given, and it's arguable depending on how long it takes that post to develop and whether it's skinny or not. Having the 2 inside backers play their hook curl a little deeper might make you vulnerable against say a wheel, Provided you don't make a peel call for your backside(RB-Side) end where they roll out with a flaring back. (We did this at JSU on a few calls, a.k.a Bansai and Demon.)

But still, you're right. Cover 3 would probably be the safest and using the rotation sparingly, since given our ineptitude on slants, they'd basically just have to worry about the run and the deep ball. Now quarters is a bit eh for me. Then again I've never actually played in a defense that used a quarters coverage shell extensively. 6 could work but you run into the issue of losing BOTH your WILL and SAM to deep flat duties, especially being a 4-3 team like Clemson. But then again, I also think that we're oversimplifying things, since knowing Clemson, they'll RARELY play naked shells like these. Their defense is probably a LOT more complicated with Pattern Matching built into these schemes where there are more complex roles and assignments that mitigate things like the wheel when playing Cover 2. Clemson does indeed use Cover 2 quite a bit so I'd imagine they're MORE than prepped for wheels since those are some of our bread and butter plays while the passing is suspect. 

Our Long WRs are probably still the only issue that Clemson is accounting for. When I had to do cover-downs and play man against guys, I always found it better and easier for me as a defender to be able to play inside leverage on the receiver and create an ISO where it was them to the sideline, that way I would never lose them to the middle of the field where they could be MUCH more elusive. Unfortunately taller WRs will take advantage of that with a QB who can actually put the ball on their outside shoulder. THAT is our missing component right now which makes everything fall apart. Otherwise we'd be dangerous and they'd have a reason to worry about our length. Because of that, there really isn't too much to worry about so long as they keep our backfield in check as far as routes are concerned.  

 

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1 hour ago, corchjay said:

If only we had a short and long crossing route in our route tree to combat most of these defensive alignments Flex would use against us.  I know we have the dig route but it's run very deep to take the safety out not the line backers.  If we had a short and medium cross it would make the linebackers have to watch for them.  From what I've seen most linebackers against us play with the nickel inside contain and the linebackers either play down hill on the run or drop into zones on the pass.  Short and medium crossing routes would require them to choose which they cover.  Potentially opening up both.  The route tree has been beat to death though. Hoping it has expanded a little.  

Can't remember the route tree off the top of my head, but there are a few. Still, with most of the intermediate crosses, defenses that play strict assignment football and read as well as match patterns with their zones will simply pass them off and stay disciplined. But you're right about the typical strategies. With coaches WAY more knowledgeable than you and I, there's probably a system of which they'd default to to make sure that their backers don't do too much thinking and end up on separate pages. Still, you're right, the route tree might be lacking a bit of finesse that other route trees have. I'd say though that the Wing-T, or the variation of it that we run, makes most of it's money on either quick high percentage throws or long 50/50s. Not too much in between because the YAC is supposed to take care of that. Plus the QB is typically not going to ever have time to go through the FULL progression to check down to a middle of the field route which they kind of want to keep open anyways to create space for the RBs in the case of a handoff. Either way, it's a pick your poison kind of deal. Our game-plan unfortunately is to inflict tiny cuts and nicks at high speed before finally busting open the defense with a haymaker. Rather than the more traditional surgical dissection that most purist West Coast Systems and Pro-Style Offenses thrive on. 

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Agreed Flex.  The main thing is has defenses caught up to the tendencies of our wing-T based offense.  Are we telegraphing our plays, have our signals been compromised, all that sort of stuff...  Last year even outside of the QB position we executed poorly.  So for me this year gives me an idea if our offense has been "figured out" or was it just an execution thing last year.  

Is Gus another Jack Pardee or will he be able to adapt to the adaptations the defenses make?

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From my memory  clemson runs 4 as their base coverage. To me, 4 allows you to be much more multiple in your coverages and lends itself to being able to easily disguise them as you do.  From 4, you can run 2,3,4, and 6 while giving the same presnap look. 

 

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1 hour ago, bigbird said:

From my memory  clemson runs 4 as their base coverage. To me, 4 allows you to be much more multiple in your coverages and lends itself to being able to easily disguise them as you do.  From 4, you can run 2,3,4, and 6 while giving the same presnap look. 

 

Ah! I probably let that slip past me then. Again I'm not too versed in quarters. I know they used 2 extensively on some early down calls (didn't know they ran it out of a 4 look though), but you'll definitely have to bring me up on the nuances on Quarters. 

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^"Hey Bird..."
"Yeah, Flex?"
"Wanna school these newbs on actual football stuff?"
"Sure, nothin' better to do til they actually name a QB."
"Cool, I'll go first."

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With 4 your 4 secondary are responsible for a quarter of the field, hence the common vernacular "quarters". They are typically lined up about 10 yards deep across, meaning they are all on the same plane.   This is a very balanced coverage. However, when one side is overloaded, say with Trips, it is eazy to adjust by rolling the coverage to the trips side and locking the backside corner in man coverage. As I said earlier, it lends itself to disguise due to aligning in 4 and being able to run multiple coverages from it. You can run man easily from 4. It is easy to roll to 3 by bringing either safety down depending on the reason (strength/motion/ blitz) while giving the presnap  4 look.  Cover 2 is also easy to convert to from the presnap 4 look with corners taking the short zone and safeties dropping to the deep zones.  Cover 6 (cover 2 on one side and cover 4 on the other) is another easy adjustment from the presnap 4 look.  The way to attack 4 are the quick passing game, multiple levels and play action.  Specific routes and route combinations are medium crosses behind the backers and in front of the safeties...Crack corners/outs, slant/bubble, curl/flats, and fade/outs.  In 4, the backers should get the curl/flats, but in the quick passing game can't get there quick enough.  That is why, as Flex mentioned, pattern reading is so important and if used with good communication corners and safeties can typically cover the routes utilizing the backers in the throwing lanes to disrupt.

 

Why I like 4, is that when the QB looks over the safeties, every call will look the same presnap. You can confuse and force the QB to throw into wrong coverages.

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30 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

^"Hey Bird..."
"Yeah, Flex?"
"Wanna school these newbs on actual football stuff?"
"Sure, nothin' better to do til they actually name a QB."
"Cool, I'll go first."

I'm sure that sounded funny in your head..

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22 hours ago, Auhud08 said:

What do A&M and UGA have that makes them so good this year? Same for Arky? The only three teams I actually think are tough are Clemson, LSU, and Bama. And LSU's OLine is getting worse by the day

I think with UGA it was because it is in Athens and their defense should be pretty stout.  I can buy that reason for now.  As far as A&M I have no clue.  I think we win that game even though it is a road game.

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1 hour ago, McLoofus said:

^"Hey Bird..."
"Yeah, Flex?"
"Wanna school these newbs on actual football stuff?"
"Sure, nothin' better to do til they actually name a QB."
"Cool, I'll go first."

bird was just copy paste figured you knew that loof

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52 minutes ago, McFU said:

I think with UGA it was because it is in Athens and their defense should be pretty stout.  I can buy that reason for now.  As far as A&M I have no clue.  I think we win that game even though it is a road game.

I think TAMU is a home game this year...and I do believe A&M will be better than some think 

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Just now, PoetTiger said:

I think TAMU is a home game this year...and I do believe A&M will be better than some think 

They probably will be...there is some sort of weird dynamic with the series between AU and A&M where the road team wins.  It has been that way for the past 4 years so that might be a Loss for AU if they don't take them seriously.

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I watched the AU vs Memphis game again yesterday and here are a few takeaways:

Our Defense was awesome in that game!  Lawson, Lawrence, Russell, and Holland were camped out in the UM backfield all day.  The coverage was great!  CD was a stud in that game!  Their only TD was the pick 6 and the only other score was a 53 yard FG after the drive continued because Rudy got called for a facemask on 3rd and 25.  They did come up empty on 2 trips to the RZ (an INT in the Endzone and a blocked FG)

Our OL looked good for the most part.  They made some good blocks, but when they stack the box you can't block all of them with 5 guys.  

I really think with KP, KMart, and KJ behind that line we can have an effective run game regardless of who plays QB.  We didn't attempt many passes in that game, UM stacked the box and we still ran the ball well.  SW was up and down in that game.  He did a few good things.  He made some clutch 3rd down throws (I really hope someone can take Melvin Ray's place as our big bodied clutch 3rd down receiver). And he made some bad plays too. 

I really do think that IF we get solid QB play we can compete with bama for the SECW Title. 

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3 minutes ago, AUpreacherman22 said:

I watched the AU vs Memphis game again yesterday and here are a few takeaways:

Our Defense was awesome in that game!  Lawson, Lawrence, Russell, and Holland were camped out in the UM backfield all day.  The coverage was great!  CD was a stud in that game!  Their only TD was the pick 6 and the only other score was a 53 yard FG after the drive continued because Rudy got called for a facemask on 3rd and 25.  They did come up empty on 2 trips to the RZ (an INT in the Endzone and a blocked FG)

Our OL looked good for the most part.  They made some good blocks, but when they stack the box you can't block all of them with 5 guys.  

I really think with KP, KMart, and KJ behind that line we can have an effective run game regardless of who plays QB.  We didn't attempt many passes in that game, UM stacked the box and we still ran the ball well.  SW was up and down in that game.  He did a few good things.  He made some clutch 3rd down throws (I really hope someone can take Melvin Ray's place as our big bodied clutch 3rd down receiver). And he made some bad plays too. 

I really do think that IF we get solid QB play we can compete with bama for the SECW Title. 

 

I's love to say that the Memphis game was a good judgement of where AU is but we have to remember that almost all of the staff from Memphis was gone to Virginia Tech. Had to get a true read on that game. But the D did play a great game. 

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1 hour ago, bigbird said:

The way to attack 4 are the quick passing game, multiple levels and play action.  Specific routes and route combinations are medium crosses behind the backers and in front of the safeties...Crack corners/outs, slant/bubble, curl/flats, and fade/outs.

As is widely mentioned, we have historically run very little of this, other than the bubble and a VERY rare slant. Do you think there's a chance, with our new receiver corps and the potential of a drop back passer starting, that we will see Gus add a lot more routes to combat this kind of defense, or do most coaches stick to what they do?

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1 minute ago, lionheartkc said:

As is widely mentioned, we have historically run very little of this, other than the bubble and a VERY rare slant. Do you think there's a chance, with our new receiver corps and the potential of a drop back passer starting, that we will see Gus add a lot more routes to combat this kind of defense, or do most coaches stick to what they do?

I hope Gus will be more flexible with his offense. The WR's are going to line out wide this year. Hoping we see lots of new wrinkles with the O. Just have a sinking feeling we will see more of the same from last year. Guess that's just me being a pessimist.  

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I think that he stick with what he does.  That said, we have had a lot of receiver running wide open the past few years. We just haven't necessarily been able to consistently get them the ball.  For a good example, cox's wheel route during A-day. For a bad one, NM missing Ricardo in the championship game.

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17 hours ago, Auburn2Eugene said:

Isn't this similar to what Louisville tried against us last season first play? It didnt fare so well, if memory serves me

You are correct and I almost wrote that but I didn't want to throw that possible outcome into the universe lol. I was hoping more for 2014 vs LSU when we ran a similar play to Coates deep I believe it was near the end of the first half.

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