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Things I Think I Saw: Auburn vs Alabama....


JMR

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JMR,

 

You write the best, most insightful post game analysis of any I've read.  Are you a football coach?  You really seem to know your stuff.  Appreciate what you do as it helps the average spectator understand better.  Thanks and War Eagle!

David

 

 

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Thank you for these jmr. hope you'll do the bowl game. it's always nice to watch a game, read your thread, then watch the replay, then be the smartest guy in the room. war eagle

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Thanks for your posts.  I really enjoyed reading them this year and we really appreciate your insights.  You see a lot of things most of us miss.  

What I Saw Saturday was a Bammer Dline that kicked our Oline's butts all day long.  Couple that with our lack of an effective QB and it was not a pretty sight on offense.  Our defense held up as long as it could and made some great plays in the first half to keep us in the game but as a result of the offense doing nothing they eventually wore down.  Our QB development is absolutely atrocious.  Gus either recognizes that and brings in a real OC who can develop some QB's and install a passing attack or he will be gone after next year.  We can't just line up and run over teams like Bammer, LSU and UGA that are on our schedule every year.  We wasted the best young group of receivers we ever had this year and that is inexcusable.  

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Such good stuff. Bama is not invincible, but they are exceptionally good.

I felt great about Taylor  and J Davis, and I feel great about next year's D. 

It's clear we have work to do in our offensive backfield, but I'm hopeful.

One question: why does it seem Bama runs such sophisticated pass patterns? Louisville does too. You'd think other teams would copy.

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18 hours ago, JMR said:

This may have been the worst game I’ve seen Braden Smith play.

I hate to agree, because he's actually a hometown boy for me (went to high school no more than 15 minutes from my house), but he struggled both against bama and Georgia. There were several plays where he was left standing there, while his man was somewhere in the backfield causing havoc.

 

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Bright spots: Javaris Davis, Daniel Thomas, Stephen Roberts, Eli Stove, Daniel Carlson

Black spots: QB shuffle/play, O-line play, DE play

I'm going to assume that we allowed Hurts to dump the ball to his safety valve all game long because we had someone spying on Hurts and they had to commit to him or the other and couldn't do both, but good Lord that play killed us. It didn't help that Bama's receivers had our DBs locked up on most of those. Is grabbing the shoulder pads like that even legal or should that be called as holding?

Overall, our defense played well. If we could've sustained a drive for more than 3-5 plays on offense they would've looked even better. Here's hoping we get healthy for the bowl game and look more like the team that destroyed Arkansas than the team that couldn't move the ball against Georgia.

War Eagle and thanks for these posts, JMR!

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22 hours ago, AUjamstan said:

You nailed it when you say that we lost this game at the line of scrimmage. We did.

I thought our dline played average, but below their capability.

Our oline got dominated.

So yeah, we did lose at the line of scrimmage.

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Spot on assessment of our DE technique.Its an old school read that is not good these days. Hey what do you think about the lack of use of our TE?

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5 hours ago, Linayus said:

Bright spots: Javaris Davis, Daniel Thomas, Stephen Roberts, Eli Stove, Daniel Carlson

Black spots: QB shuffle/play, O-line play, DE play

I'm going to assume that we allowed Hurts to dump the ball to his safety valve all game long because we had someone spying on Hurts and they had to commit to him or the other and couldn't do both, but good Lord that play killed us. It didn't help that Bama's receivers had our DBs locked up on most of those. Is grabbing the shoulder pads like that even legal or should that be called as holding?

Overall, our defense played well. If we could've sustained a drive for more than 3-5 plays on offense they would've looked even better. Here's hoping we get healthy for the bowl game and look more like the team that destroyed Arkansas than the team that couldn't move the ball against Georgia.

War Eagle and thanks for these posts, JMR!

I think that single play or variation thereof accounted for half of their yardage. Drove me nuts we never adjusted.

Bama db's lock up receivers like this all the time. Our receivers have to be as physical as they are to defeat them. Did we play our most physical receivers? With regards to if it's a penalty, it can be if it affects a pass reception thrown to the receiver being held. Outside of that, you'll rarely see it called holding. 

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42 minutes ago, 1913-14 said:

Spot on assessment of our DE technique.Its an old school read that is not good these days. Hey what do you think about the lack of use of our TE?

I would imagine my thoughts on our not using the TE are pretty much the same as anyone else. It's ridiculous, even "irresponsible". If I recall Stat Tiger's facts correctly (I may not), we've attempted (and completed) ONE pass to the tight end in the past 25 games. If we don't intend to use the TE in the passing game, we should just line up another offensive tackle there....like we do in our so-called "heavy package" when Horton comes in at right guard and Braden Smith moves out to the end spot.

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Glad to know I wasn't the only one that was not ever angry or upset during the game (except the arm if my couch took a pretty good lick on the Chandler Cox interception). I was hoping I wasn't just becoming indifferent because I just felt nothing. Bama just looked ready for everything and we had no answers or adjustments. I am still a Gus fan but I hope he does some soul searching the next few months. I don't want to change head coaches, I want our head coach to change. War Eagle. 

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Great insight as always. I would like to know your thoughts on one thing. Keep in mind I was slightly intoxicated at this point in the game. After the last Auburn field goal I swear that we called a short 20 yard pooch kick on the next kickoff. I may be wrong as stated above but if this did happen, who made the call for that and why do we decide to give Bama a short field when it's obvious our defense is tired and they are beginning to move the ball?

Edited by LittleTrain
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8 hours ago, LittleTrain said:

Great insight as always. I would like to know your thoughts on one thing. Keep in mind I was slightly intoxicated at this point in the game. After the last Auburn field goal I swear that we called a short 20 yard pooch kick on the next kickoff. I may be wrong as stated above but if this did happen, who made the call for that and why do we decide to give Bama a short field when it's obvious our defense is tired and they are beginning to move the ball?

Your memory function was still intact at that point. Don't know who called the pooch kick, or why. I would think Gus has final say on anything outside the norm, so....

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Unfortunately, this sums up the young mans career at Auburn.

  • From an Auburn standpoint, it doesn’t matter now, but I don’t believe Jeremy Johnson’s passing problems are correctable. As a college senior, he is still staring down his intended target, and is almost always late throwing the ball. In the first half, JJ was 3-of-9 for 7 yards.
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Coach, I've enjoyed your columns all season long.  I think this one was among your best. The cool-headed and objective tone when so many seem to have their hair (figuratively) on fire is much appreciated.  It was not the ending we had all hoped for once injuries piled on to depleted depth through transfer and dismissal at running back. It doesn't help to wonder what might have been at UGA and at bammer with a fully healthy Sean White and KP.  But at UGA, I think a healthy team of Tigers wins easily. At bammer, I'm not so sure that we do anything but make the final score closer than it was regardless.

Going forward, I am still optimistic.  The AU defense with DC Steele appears to be back and I expect it to keep getting better. The AU offense, an unexpected source of issues, is the question mark. That said, with an improving defense, our Tigers need not be an offensive juggernaut. I do hope to see some evolution in the passing game. Passing mostly on third and long after running close to 80% of the time on first down puts the QB and receivers in a tough spot.

Malzahn's offense is supposedly HUNH. I don't know that I've seen what I expected in that regard, but as far as the Iron Bowl, speeding the tempo would seemingly have just meant quicker three and outs.  Offensive futility was the order of the day for our Tigers.

I don't spend hardly any time watching bammer during the season. Now having watched them, $aban's NFL style recruiting, as in "go after the model in terms of height and weight", was apparent. There are some big young men on that team all over the place, and very few "tweeners" or "mighty mites" at least so far as I could see.

Right now the SEC appears to be bammer and everyone else.  Nothing lasts forever, but until our Tigers and some other teams close the gap, I don't see a lot of celebrating SEC Championships by teams not from Tuscaloosa.

Thanks again for all your work in putting these columns together.  Again, much appreciated!

War Eagle!

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19 hours ago, LittleTrain said:

Great insight as always. I would like to know your thoughts on one thing. Keep in mind I was slightly intoxicated at this point in the game. After the last Auburn field goal I swear that we called a short 20 yard pooch kick on the next kickoff. I may be wrong as stated above but if this did happen, who made the call for that and why do we decide to give Bama a short field when it's obvious our defense is tired and they are beginning to move the ball?

 

11 hours ago, JMR said:

Your memory function was still intact at that point. Don't know who called the pooch kick, or why. I would think Gus has final say on anything outside the norm, so....

The Pooch Kick was after the 3rd field goal. Auburn had cut the lead 10-9. Kick gave them great field position at around the 35. Went down and kicked a field goal to increase the lead to 13-9 going to halftime.

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I finally watched the game for the first time.  I was stuck on the road due to an interstate detour after visiting family, and therefore missed the entire day of college football.  I think in this case it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I didn't get wrapped up on the stress of the game and checked in from time to time on the score. 

Watching the game, knowing we already lost, it allowed me to just enjoy the defensive play from really the entire game.  Our guys did a fantastic job sniffing out some typical Bama home run plays.  We were getting tackles for loss in the 4th quarter.  They played their guts out.  I especially liked the defense on the wide runs Bama tried to sneak in with the QB keeper.  One play in the red zone,  Ford blasted away from the block to bring Hurts down for a 3 yard loss.  Forced another FG.  We really only lost contain 2-3 times where it really hurt us.  The interceptions were big time, smart plays by Thomas.  That got me excited. Great job special teams as well.  I think the pooch was basically an attempted onside kick. Bama was disciplined.  We get it,  we likely lead at half with at least a FG there.  

Offensively,  I admire JJs effort.  He gave his best.  He just had to be perfect and it didn't happen.  I only saw 2 attempts to go deep with him. Should have tried a few more sideline fades with him. Pass rush was too quick to take 5-7 step drops for a deep post route. JF3 probably should have kept more than he gave. There were a lot of 5+ yards runs left out there.  He gave a nice spark near the end.  His pass to Stove was on the money and a thing of beauty. 

Overall I am proud of this team and can understand why we didn't take a big tumble in the ranking that matters. This game would have been a lot more interesting if we had healthy horses on offense that could move the chains a little more.  I think we would have scored a few TDs and gave the D some needed rest.  Better game than I thought it was going to be. The officiating was actually pretty fair compared to recent Iron Bowls. The only true disagreement there was the overturning of the fumble we got.  I can see both sides of that argument bit didn't think it was conclusive enough to overturn. 

War Eagle.

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16 hours ago, aufan57 said:

The Pooch Kick was after the 3rd field goal. Auburn had cut the lead 10-9. Kick gave them great field position at around the 35. Went down and kicked a field goal to increase the lead to 13-9 going to halftime.

Huge problem with the team this year.  We didn't trust our kick return D... Not sure what the deal is there.

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2 hours ago, lionheartkc said:

Huge problem with the team this year.  We didn't trust our kick return D... Not sure what the deal is there.

Your right about the kick return protection worries, but I think this kick was a different scenario.

As I mentioned above, I think that was an "Onside kick" to catch them off guard, and put them a little further back than the traditional onside kick if it didn't work.  The reason I say this is because of how the gunners attacked the position on the kick.  They were running for the ball there.  I think if Gus's onside kick was still legal, we would have tried it there.  I am referring to the kick where the kicker recovers.  Now the gunners cannot block the receiving team before the ball goes 10 yards. 

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2 minutes ago, AUBwins said:

I think if Gus's onside kick was still legal, we would have tried it there.  I am referring to the kick where the kicker recovers.  Now the gunners cannot block the receiving team before the ball goes 10 yards. 

That's a VERY hard kick to master.  Also, when it's done right, you can do it without blocking before it gets 10 yards.

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