On a positive note

[austudnt23 1,432]

From the games I saw yesterday we should and can win out and make the iron bowl very interesting. UAT looks to be in their own stratosphere as far as teams in the SEC. We have the talent and are capable of beating all the teams up to the iron bowl, and you never know what will happen in that game.  I haven't seen a defense this good at Auburn since 2004. That offense we played against last night is VERY good led by the best player in the country. They also had a stud RB and stud WR. We basically shut them down minis the back shoulder throws. A couple of questionable pass interference and holding calls cost us dearly. And Tray Matthew's wth are you thinking. 

I am just as dissapointed in our coaching last night as anyone trust me. There was no excuse for what I saw last night on the offensive side of the ball. The substitutions at QB at the absolutely wrong time that killed drives. I knew that they planned to play all 3 QBs but the way they went about it was absolutely ridiculous and an embarrassment. JJ should not see the field again this year IMO. He looked good at first but then looked like the 2015 JJ. I do think a combo of JF3 and SW could be a pretty good option. However, from what I saw out of us and other teams last night we are capable to win out until the UAT game. Texas A&M looked good at times, LSU looks worse than us on offense, and UGA has a worse qb situation than we do. If we had Trevor Knight we would have won by 10 last night and there is no telling how good we would have been imo. I think Gus will get this fixed offensively. I had been told JF3 wasn't quite ready and it showed on a couple of the reads he made last night where if he would have kept instead of giving the ball he would have had a big gain. Man it was nice to see those big running lanes when he was in the game though. SW also looked like he can be a serviceable qb. He has to get better in the red zone and not miss open guys for td's. His overthrow on the throwback to COX was very costly. That was a sure fire TD that we ended up getting 0 points from after JJ came in and got stopped on 4th down. 

The defense was better than even I expected and the offense was alot worse. I think we can and will get some sort of offense that we can win alot of games this year. Remember if you want to lose a game the first game of the year against the number 2 team and best player in the nation is the time to do it. Now let's get the offense fixed and win.

[jared52 4,354]

Thanks 23. I'm with you on all that. If the players execute, then maybe Gus doesn't lose his mind trying to fix it. Everyone wants to jump on Gus (not necessarily wrongly) but the OL was really not there in the first half and none of the QBs handled the game well at all. Just first game jitters that a more experienced Clemson team didn't have as badly. 

Thanks for being a light in this very dark place. 

[Pedaler 1,001]

With this defense, I also like our chances in most of the SEC games this year. With such high powered offenses becoming a staple over the past decade, I had come to dread watching while we were on defense, just clinching my fists. Last night, however, I had that old feeling I used to have with Dye's defenses: I was excited to watch what they could do against great competition, expecting them to do well. On offense, we need to go forward with letting SW get all 1st-team snaps with the occasional JFIII at the right spots on the field. Our o-line needs to develop rhythm and identity around one main guy.

(Hi, I'm a new poster, long time reader)

[austudnt23 1,432]

2 minutes ago, jared52 said:

Thanks 23. I'm with you on all that. If the players execute, then maybe Gus doesn't lose his mind trying to fix it. Everyone wants to jump on Gus (not necessarily wrongly) but the OL was really not there in the first half and none of the QBs handled the game well at all. Just first game jitters that a more experienced Clemson team didn't have as badly. 

Thanks for being a light in this very dark place. 

Even with the shite show we saw last night on offense we should have won the game. I am not sure how many times we got inside the red zone and came away without any points. I know there were at least 3 times that we could have at very least kicked a field goal so that is 9 points right there. You throw in 2 questionable pass interference and holding calls that resulted in td's for them I believe. I know 1 for sure did. Tray Matthew's terrible decision to get a PF cost us the last TD. Even with the pf it took Watson hurling the ball on a 3rd and 17 into the endzone to score. Another costly penalty was the block in the back call on Cox with the opening kickoff on the 2nd half. It went from us having the ball on the 50 yard line to us having the ball on our own 5. This gave them great field position after we derp 3 plays and punt. I believe that resulted in a fg for them.

Even with the terrible offensive strategy we moved the ball in the 2nd half. I believe we had around 230 yards offense in the 2nd half compared to 30 in the first. Gus deserves all the criticism he is currently getting but make no mistake we have the talent on both sides of the ball to win alot of games this year. 

[AUFlyer99 647]

Unless the offense progresses I can't see winning out at all, and the Iron Bowl would be ugly.  Lots of three and outs with a gassed defense giving up at least two touchdowns in the fourth.  

[AidiAU 1,270]

Thank you for the insight. I always appreciate your comments and am glad that you have faith. I too have faith (even though I almost lost my mind last night in the stadium), but am so proud of the team considering everyone thought it would be a blowout. 

[AUApostle 7,651]

7 minutes ago, austudnt23 said:

Even with the shite show we saw last night on offense we should have won the game. I am not sure how many times we got inside the red zone and came away without any points. I know there were at least 3 times that we could have at very least kicked a field goal so that is 9 points right there. You throw in 2 questionable pass interference and holding calls that resulted in td's for them I believe. I know 1 for sure did. Tray Matthew's terrible decision to get a PF cost us the last TD. Even with the pf it took Watson hurling the ball on a 3rd and 17 into the endzone to score. Another costly penalty was the block in the back call on Cox with the opening kickoff on the 2nd half. It went from us having the ball on the 50 yard line to us having the ball on our own 5. This gave them great field position after we derp 3 plays and punt. I believe that resulted in a fg for them.

Even with the terrible offensive strategy we moved the ball in the 2nd half. I believe we had around 230 yards offense in the 2nd half compared to 30 in the first. Gus deserves all the criticism he is currently getting but make no mistake we have the talent on both sides of the ball to win alot of games this year. 

I think it was twice in the RZ w/o points...lost out on 6 points.

[CR 2,442]

Always respect your take on things, but I just don't see how anyone can have faith in Gus at this point. I was hoping Hand would help shake things up offensively but that performance last night was an absolute disaster. O-line was blown up, QB looked to be picked by rock-paper-scissors, Pettway non-existent...just bad. Defense was lights out but I don't know how long they can go with no assistance from the offense. And Gus seemed defiant after the game about sticking to his plan.

[jared52 4,354]

10 minutes ago, austudnt23 said:

Even with the shite show we saw last night on offense we should have won the game. I am not sure how many times we got inside the red zone and came away without any points. I know there were at least 3 times that we could have at very least kicked a field goal so that is 9 points right there. You throw in 2 questionable pass interference and holding calls that resulted in td's for them I believe. I know 1 for sure did. Tray Matthew's terrible decision to get a PF cost us the last TD. Even with the pf it took Watson hurling the ball on a 3rd and 17 into the endzone to score. Another costly penalty was the block in the back call on Cox with the opening kickoff on the 2nd half. It went from us having the ball on the 50 yard line to us having the ball on our own 5. This gave them great field position after we derp 3 plays and punt. I believe that resulted in a fg for them.

Even with the terrible offensive strategy we moved the ball in the 2nd half. I believe we had around 230 yards offense in the 2nd half compared to 30 in the first. Gus deserves all the criticism he is currently getting but make no mistake we have the talent on both sides of the ball to win alot of games this year. 

I'm having a big of a hard time with the critiques of the game plan. The OL didn't block in the first half. If they execute, maybe the plays work. I don't know what was adjusted at halftime but it got better. Once it did, Gus clearly wanted to throw out different QBs to maybe keep Clemson guessing. It was the wrong decision. Unfortunately, the offense didn't get going in time for things to work out.

Trey shouldn't have seen the field after that stupid outburst. Yeah, they guy should have gotten a taunting penalty, but Trey made a very selfish decision. It seemed all night that the penalties that AU had were very costly while Clenason's didn't really hurt them. The little things lost the game. The QB switching was just the part that most folks want to latch on to. 

[WDE_OxPx_2010 5,295]

I'm with you 23. The offensive play calling (QB carousel) was the ONLY problem from last night that I saw throughout the game. The O line got better as the game went on and you have to wonder if part of the initial struggle was the play calling situation. I honestly think Gus thought he had to be cute to win. Not a lot of faith in his guys.

 

The D will win games. LSU, MSU, and Ark come to mind. We will win those games 10-9 or 17-14. UGA is going to get better, aTm and Bama look good. 

On to Ark St and getting better. WDE

[WeagleAU 594]

1 hour ago, austudnt23 said:

From the games I saw yesterday we should and can win out and make the iron bowl very interesting. UAT looks to be in their own stratosphere as far as teams in the SEC. We have the talent and are capable of beating all the teams up to the iron bowl, and you never know what will happen in that game.  I haven't seen a defense this good at Auburn since 2004. That offense we played against last night is VERY good led by the best player in the country. They also had a stud rb and stud wr. We basically shut them down minis the back shoulder throws. A couple of questionable pass interference and holding calls cost us dearly. And Tray Matthew's wth are you thinking. 

I am just as Dissapointed in our coaching last night as anyone trust me. There was no excuse for what I saw last night on the offensive side of the ball. The substitutions at qb at the absolutely wrong time that killed drives. I knew that they planned to play all 3 qbs but the way they went about it was absolutely ridiculous and an embarrassment. JJ should not see the field again this year imo. He looked good at first but then looked like the 2015 JJ. I do think a combo of JF3 and SW could be a pretty good option. However, from what I saw out of us and other teams last night we are capable to win out until the UAT game. Texas A&M looked good at times, LSU looks worse than us on offense, and UGA has a worse qb situation than we do. If we had Trevor Knight we would have won by 10 last night and there is no telling how good we would have been imo. I think Gus will get this fixed offensively. I had been told JF3 wasn't quite ready and it showed on a couple of the reads he made last night where if he would have kept instead of giving the ball he would have had a big gain. Man it was nice to see those big running lanes when he was in the game though. SW also looked like he can be a serviceable qb. He has to get better in the red zone and not miss open guys for td's. His overthrow on the throwback to COX was very costly. That was a sure fire TD that we ended up getting 0 points from after JJ came in and got stopped on 4th down. 

The defense was better than even I expected and the offense was alot worse. I think we can and will get some sort of offense that we can win alot of games this year. Remember if you want to lose a game the first game of the year against the number 2 team and best player in the nation is the time to do it. Now let's get the offense fixed and win.

I agree on this: Auburn has the talent to win every game to the iron bowl; that one is a toss up.  No excuses for the offensive game plan and performance last night, it plain sucked.  If Gus pulls out another 2-6 SEC record again this year with this much talent, I believe he is done for.  He needs to stick with Sean White and right this ship quick.

[JBiGGiE 2,488]

Put simply, we can be a much more competitive team than what we saw last night. Let Sean White be the stater and cut out the gimmicky play-calling. Throw the "package for every quarterback" game plan in shredder. Pepper in JF3 for seasoning.

Good job, me. I fixed the offense.

[AEAugirl 9,632]

I honestly think this was truly Gus Malzahn's gameplan last night.  I have never seen such insanity in my life.

And I hope to God I never see that Cox whirlybird snap again....ever.  

Gus Malzahn needs to get out of his own way. 

 

 

[wareagleguy 1,393]

10 minutes ago, AEAugirl said:

I honestly think this was truly Gus Malzahn's gameplan last night.  I have never seen such insanity in my life.

And I hope to God I never see that Cox whirlybird snap again....ever.  

Gus Malzahn needs to get out of his own way. 

 

 

Ha! That looks way too organized and thought out compared to what I saw last night! 

That being said, I agree with 23 and others. If the Oline improves from here and Gus figures out the QB issue, I think we can win lots of games.

[Eagle Eye 7 2,535]

austudent23 I agree with you . If we just line up and run power sweeps and off tackle and hit a few short passes we win that game and all the rest this year with the defense we have. I think Gus feels that he must convince people how smart he is after the dismal two years at offense. I think he is his own worse enemy and Rhett does not have the gall to stand up to him. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe that is why Craig and Grimes are no longer here. Maybe they called it to his attention. So instead of faceing the truth he went and got some yes men in Herb and Kodi. Whatever it is, someone need to slap some sense into him. WDE

[ScottsboroAuburnFan 462]

we were in the red zone 6 times and score 10 points. We can win games, JJ and White are almost the same QB. I saw last night the problem, Whites decision making is very very slow. His int in end zone, guy was open and he stared for 5mins befor throwing. JJ's INT was one inch underthrown but it was almost a TD. Idk if either QB is very good, but white can handle rush maybe a little better. Either way JF3 once a drive and 1 QB the rest of the time will work. Our D is Top 5 SEC. That might just win us 2 games on their on.

[austudnt23 1,432]

1 minute ago, ScottsboroAuburnFan said:

we were in the red zone 6 times and score 10 points. We can win games, JJ and White are almost the same QB. I saw last night the problem, Whites decision making is very very slow. His int in end zone, guy was open and he stared for 5mins befor throwing. JJ's INT was one inch underthrown but it was almost a TD. Idk if either QB is very good, but white can handle rush maybe a little better. Either way JF3 once a drive and 1 QB the rest of the time will work. Our D is Top 5 SEC. That might just win us 2 games on their on.

Our D is top 2 SEC along with UAT. LSU is right there with us but I would take our defense. Adding Stephen Roberts will add another DB that would have started last night if not for the arrest. I expect him back after Arky State game, and he may play Saturday imo. Hosley looked like he needs to be the starter opposite CD.  

[JGLEATON 1,244]

Well, I think we are lucky to have a week to find our offensive Identity before SEC play.

I am hoping to see more confidence in letting SW run the offense and a better game plan / play calling for him to execute. Better O line play is obviously a must and our young receivers need to get more opportunity's and experience. USE both KJ and KP at RB along with cox as HB.

Work the package in with JFIII at the QB with KJ as the main running back behind him for a speed running package, but let him throw (safe throws) a little and keep it on the ZR if it's wide open.

I would love to see KJ back as the true wildcat QB. He is dynamic.

KJ played the wildcat VERY effectively last year in the RED ZONE and SHORT YARDAGE.... and THIS could be simply used out of the JFIII package keeping JFIII on the field and moving him over for this to the slot and then motioning over to KJ at QB for the snap. this would be an effective change up to the JFIII package and the Defense could not just key on KJ just running it because you have a speedy running QB motioning over who could pass or run also... 

Could even use the KJ Wildcat with SW for short yardage with SW moved out to the slot and motioned back or left wide etc... 

So you really only have two QB packages... but ALL with the SAME personnel on the field with NO substitutions to play faster with little substitutions which I think is the key for us to be effective on Offense with what we have... that and leaving the package out there for sustained drives.

just my opinion...  and what I see we could actually run based on the players we have.

I just hope the coaches figure something effective out...  and it ain't 5 QB's.

[jw 4 au 526]

17 minutes ago, JGLEATON said:

Well, I think we are lucky to have a week to find our offensive Identity before SEC play.

I am hoping to see more confidence in letting SW run the offense and a better game plan / play calling for him to execute. Better O line play is obviously a must and our young receivers need to get more opportunity's and experience. USE both KJ and KP at RB along with cox as HB.

Work the package in with JFIII at the QB with KJ as the main running back behind him for a speed running package, but let him throw (safe throws) a little and keep it on the ZR if it's wide open.

I would love to see KJ back as the true wildcat QB. He is dynamic.

KJ played the wildcat VERY effectively last year in the RED ZONE and SHORT YARDAGE.... and THIS could be simply used out of the JFIII package keeping JFIII on the field and moving him over for this to the slot and then motioning over to KJ at QB for the snap. this would be an effective change up to the JFIII package and the Defense could not just key on KJ just running it because you have a speedy running QB motioning over who could pass or run also... 

Could even use the KJ Wildcat with SW for short yardage with SW moved out to the slot and motioned back or left wide etc... 

So you really only have two QB packages... but ALL with the SAME personnel on the field with NO substitutions to play faster with little substitutions which I think is the key for us to be effective on Offense with what we have... that and leaving the package out there for sustained drives.

just my opinion...  and what I see we could actually run based on the players we have.

I just hope the coaches figure something effective out...  and it ain't 5 QB's.

This sounds like a great plan, problem is I feel Gus is either to stubborn to accept someone else's ideas like this or to stupid to believe in the merits of someone else's ideas like this. We certainly have the athletes on offense, just not the coaching last night. The musical chairs at quarterback is a joke but common sense would have told you to rotate running backs more and he did the opposite. Just mind boggling!  The entire night, mostly first half, was worse than last season all put together regarding offensive coaching. At the same time, Gus deserves credit as the head coach for the defensive play. He needs to delegate more on offense like that in my opinion. 

[AUIH1 1,515]

3 hours ago, austudnt23 said:

From the games I saw yesterday we should and can win out and make the iron bowl very interesting. UAT looks to be in their own stratosphere as far as teams in the SEC. We have the talent and are capable of beating all the teams up to the iron bowl, and you never know what will happen in that game.  I haven't seen a defense this good at Auburn since 2004. That offense we played against last night is VERY good led by the best player in the country. They also had a stud rb and stud wr. We basically shut them down minis the back shoulder throws. A couple of questionable pass interference and holding calls cost us dearly. And Tray Matthew's wth are you thinking. 

I am just as Dissapointed in our coaching last night as anyone trust me. There was no excuse for what I saw last night on the offensive side of the ball. The substitutions at qb at the absolutely wrong time that killed drives. I knew that they planned to play all 3 qbs but the way they went about it was absolutely ridiculous and an embarrassment. JJ should not see the field again this year imo. He looked good at first but then looked like the 2015 JJ. I do think a combo of JF3 and SW could be a pretty good option. However, from what I saw out of us and other teams last night we are capable to win out until the UAT game. Texas A&M looked good at times, LSU looks worse than us on offense, and UGA has a worse qb situation than we do. If we had Trevor Knight we would have won by 10 last night and there is no telling how good we would have been imo. I think Gus will get this fixed offensively. I had been told JF3 wasn't quite ready and it showed on a couple of the reads he made last night where if he would have kept instead of giving the ball he would have had a big gain. Man it was nice to see those big running lanes when he was in the game though. SW also looked like he can be a serviceable qb. He has to get better in the red zone and not miss open guys for td's. His overthrow on the throwback to COX was very costly. That was a sure fire TD that we ended up getting 0 points from after JJ came in and got stopped on 4th down. 

The defense was better than even I expected and the offense was alot worse. I think we can and will get some sort of offense that we can win alot of games this year. Remember if you want to lose a game the first game of the year against the number 2 team and best player in the nation is the time to do it. Now let's get the offense fixed and win.

Agree with most of this except that I think uga is going to be set at the QB position once Smart makes Eason the QB.  Smart's handling of QBs yesterday was not great but it was light years better than what Gus did last night.  

[austudnt23 1,432]

Just now, AUIH1 said:

Agree with most of this except that I think uga is going to be set at the QB position once Smart makes Eason the QB.  Smart's handling of QBs yesterday was not great but it was light years better than what Gus did last night.  

Eason does not have the talent to play as a freshman imo. Kid played high school football in Washington state. Didn't he pull him late in the 4th I was at the game and wasn't watching it on jumbotron.

[ausburn 159]

 

3 hours ago, austudnt23 said:

From the games I saw yesterday we should and can win out and make the iron bowl very interesting. UAT looks to be in their own stratosphere as far as teams in the SEC. We have the talent and are capable of beating all the teams up to the iron bowl, and you never know what will happen in that game.  I haven't seen a defense this good at Auburn since 2004. That offense we played against last night is VERY good led by the best player in the country. They also had a stud rb and stud wr. We basically shut them down minis the back shoulder throws.

 

Talked to one of Dabo's brothers before the game and  he said Dabo had told him this Clemson offense was the best he had every been around.

[DyeCampAlum 335]

I'd like to agree, and I was very proud of the team. I fear our combination of vulnerable QB and iffy OL play are an ugly combination. Clemson knew that neither 13 nor 6 could handle chaos, so they just loaded up. Our OL couldn't do anything, and our QBs weren't competent enough to get rid of the ball quickly into hot receivers. (On TV you can't tell if the receivers are at fault too.)

Teams like A&M and LSU can bring pressure too, and I just don't see what our answer to that would be. You could see things open up with Clemson afraid of 5 -- but he's not ready to run the offense. I believe 13 can look good when he has room to throw, but he's awful when things cave in. All QBs suffer from pressure, but you need a plan to hurt the defense for loading up and a QB who can pull it off.

[WDavE 332]

I thought the Clemson playing should have been called for taunting. Standing over a player down and bumping his gums.

 

That doesn't forgive our player for the personal foul call but I can see what caused it.

[austudnt23 1,432]

3 minutes ago, WDavE said:

I thought the Clemson playing should have been called for taunting. Standing over a player down and bumping his gums.

 

That doesn't forgive our player for the personal foul call but I can see what caused it.

I don't care what the Clemson player did you don't commit that penalty on what was about to be a 3rd down in a close ball game under any circumstances. That eventually resulted in a TD although it did take DW throwing a 3rd and goal from the 17 I believe TD pass.