"This game will likely cost us our jobs"

[Scotty2Hotty 520]

On 10/18/2017 at 10:35 AM, AUDevil said:

His teams generally lose focus at halftime.  He might consider leaving the team on the field and the coaches in the press box.  That way at least whatever happens at halftime to ruin the momentum doesn't keep happening.  They're not spending time together making adjustments anyway.

What's funny is coming out after halftime, he says this a lot to the radio crew:

"We've got a good feel of what they're doing."

As if the oppoent is incapable of adjusting and will continue their 1st half gameplan. 

[Scotty2Hotty 520]

15 hours ago, IronMan70 said:

 

There is no question that our offense was better in the '13 NCG compared to our offense in the '17 LSU game. In one game it was the defense that couldn't hold up and in the other it was the offense. But both had big leads and both were lost.

Yet both games were ultimately lost on a special teams TD.

[WarDamnEagleWDE 12,737]

3 minutes ago, Scotty2Hotty said:

Yet both games were ultimately lost on a special teams TD.

You don't blow 20 point leads and blame the special teams. 

[Scotty2Hotty 520]

Just now, WarDamnEagleWDE said:

You don't blow 20 point leads and blame the special teams. 

Where in my statement did I blame the special teams?

[WarDamnEagleWDE 12,737]

1 minute ago, Scotty2Hotty said:

Where in my statement did I blame the special teams?

"Yet both games were ultimately lost on a special teams TD."

 

[auelvis87 96]

20 hours ago, WDE_OxPx_2010 said:

This all started in 2013 with the Georgia game. 

 

We happened to catch a Hail Mary at the end so it was ok on that day. FSU proved the real Gus.

And don't forget we gave up a 20 point lead in the 4th quarter.  If we had kept playing to win instead of playing to not lose we wouldn't have been in the situation to throw a hail Mary.

[AUCE05 369]

I am not going to start another thread, but I am still fuming over the LSU loss.   If Gus ran the table, I would still want him fired.    Quotes like the one in the OP are not making me feel any better.    It might take a few weeks before I can watch another AU football game.  

[IronMan70 3,277]

22 hours ago, IronMan70 said:

Actually the comparisons not only don't stop there, they go even further. In both games we lost a big lead. In both games we had a DB show lack of situational awareness and instead of keeping the receiver in front of him and making a sure tackle on 5 yard pass, he allowed it to turn into a 50 yard gain. Both occurred with little time on the clock, both at critical points in the game, both allowed the opponents' offense to get to the RZ and both resulted in an eventual TD. In both games there was a breakdown on special teams on a kick which resulted in giving up a TD. There are more but suffice it to stay the loss after a big lead isn't the only one.    

 

12 hours ago, FullBloodedTiger91 said:

Auburn had several possessions after the Carlton Davis dive attempt on the hitch to rebound. The defense locked down in the second half but the offense did as well.

Against FSU, Auburn had seconds to try an pull another miracle out. Besides I remember two defenders colliding with the FSU receiver which sprung him free. What sucked about that was not only the gain, but the 15yd penalty for the horse collar. 

The comparison that was being made in my original response was that the FSU and LSU losses were both conservative Gus decisions. That’s why I said that comparison stops after the large blown leads.

Yes, those are the 2 DB plays I had referred to that allowed the opposing offense to gain a large amount of yardage with little time left on the clock. One with little time left in the 2nd (LSU) and one with little time left in the 4th (FSU). Oh yes, I definitely remember that horse collar.

[ellitor 33,085]

1 hour ago, WarDamnEagleWDE said:

You don't blow 20 point leads and blame the special teams. 

Especially when there were 2 blown block in the back calls missed on the play.

[Beaker 2,457]

1 hour ago, IronMan70 said:

In both games we had a DB show lack of situational awareness and instead of keeping the receiver in front of him and making a sure tackle on 5 yard pass, he allowed it to turn into a 50 yard gain. 

You would think for $5 mil/year you could learn and teach some critical things based on lessons learned during big wins or losses.  Kind of a professional thing to do.   Davis (Carlton) has been here a while.   

Unless your head and mind is engrossed across the hall in the Offensive rooms all the time.  

[Scotty2Hotty 520]

3 hours ago, WarDamnEagleWDE said:

"Yet both games were ultimately lost on a special teams TD."

"Ultimately lost" doesn't equal blaming the special teams.

They were huge momentum-changing deathblows. 

[Eagle-1 3,821]

On 10/18/2017 at 11:00 AM, bigbird said:

What I see happening this week is Gus will step back and let Chip run the O. We will look like world beaters and we will all become even more incensed over last weeks loss. That or Gus will run things, we will lose and look inept doing so, leading us to become more incensed he was not fired this week.

 

Either way, it won't be a good week for AU fans.

If he gets out of the way, and we throttle Arkansas, I fully expect the sunshine pumpers will be back in full force. Same as last year, then they blamed Gus's Georgia debacle on injuries.

[CR 2,442]

I think the AU assistants see the handwriting on the wall. And they don't have 6 million dollars in buyout money to ease their pain.

[Eagle Eye 7 2,535]

9 hours ago, Scotty2Hotty said:

Yet both games were ultimately lost on a special teams TD.

Not picking on your comment but in fairness to the special teams, if you punt 9 times in the second half due to the offense quiting, then the odds dramatically increase that a blown coverage or as I feel in this case a missed block in the back by a ref, can happen. If you don’t want to give up a punt return then get first downs and don’t punt.

[Tiger 8,819]

14 hours ago, Eagle-1 said:

If he gets out of the way, and we throttle Arkansas, I fully expect the sunshine pumpers will be back in full force. Same as last year, then they blamed Gus's Georgia debacle on injuries.

Some people enjoy being let down I guess. At what point do you recognize you're stuck in this loop and stop falling into the trap?

[AURealist 2,185]

On 10/19/2017 at 1:20 PM, FullBloodedTiger91 said:

In my original post, I stated that it’s fine that Auburn fans are melting down about the loss. It sucked, it was uncalled for. I even said that it was extremely likely that he gets fired from it. The whole point of he original post was that with as many things Auburn fans have to complain about with Gus, that it was silly at how many people are grasping for anything to throw in the fire.

The FSU title game and the Audible talks are silly and blown way out of proportion. StatTiger even referred to that and had data behind it. The offense averaged more yards per play in the second half vs FSU than it did in the second half.

 

I saw StatTiger's numbers and don't see how 1st half vs 2nd half numbers relate directly to my post about Gus choking or about FSU'14 vs LSU'17.  Except that he did say Gus' 1st down play calling was predictable.  But more importantly, his responses and the responses of others here have led my thoughts to other possibilities in the same vein.

I'm sticking to my beliefs overall, though.  But I may have to change my definition of choking.  Yeah, I guess I'm stubborn and hard to work with.  

I'll probably be fired...

A New View on Gus Choking

What if Gus has or has developed destructive play-calling tendencies that not only cost us the LSU'17 game, but other games as well?   What if it's been there all along, but we couldn't see it because our early offense was good enough to overcome bad coaching?  What if Gus hasn't changed a thing, but our team just can't deliver under his mistaken assumptions?

What if it's not choking, per se, but unproductive play-calling tendencies that lie outside the probabilities for success?  

In other words, what if he's playing the odds (as he sees them)?  What if he plays the odds the same way every game and is truly surprised when he loses?

What if calling runs on 17 consecutive 1st downs is the percentage play?  Is it?  

First question:

What is the optimal run:pass ratio for first downs?

-whoops gotta run.  

More later...

[Guest]

I personally don't think it comes down to an optimum ratio on 1st down. However, when the play is so predictable that the D knows what's coming, you only truly give your O 2 plays to make 10 yrs before a punt. Guess what one of them is, a bomb. Down to one play that the D has to worry about. With Gus, high percentage it's a run as well. 

[Win4AU 4,052]

16 hours ago, Eagle-1 said:

If he gets out of the way, and we throttle Arkansas, I fully expect the sunshine pumpers will be back in full force. Same as last year, then they blamed Gus's Georgia debacle on injuries.

UGA was largely based on injuries which resulted in bad play calling and coaching overall.  I have no doubt Auburn beats UGA easily last year with a healthy Sean and Bubba.  Clemson both times and LSU can’t be blamed on injuries.

[DyeCampAlum 335]

Just finished that part of the podcast. Remarkably, it wasn't that different from several threads here. I feel pretty much awful.

[Woodstock Tiger 131]

1 hour ago, AURealist said:

 

What if it's not choking, per se, but unproductive play-calling tendencies that lie outside the probabilities for success?  

In other words, what if he's playing the odds (as he sees them)?  What if he plays the odds the same way every game and is truly surprised when he loses?

What if calling runs on 17 consecutive 1st downs is the percentage play?  Is it?  

First question:

What is the optimal run:pass ratio for first downs?

-whoops gotta run.  

More later...

Cole Cubelic put it best when he said something along the lines of "AU needs to do better job of self scouting" and eliminating the tendencies/trends that have been developing (such as, oh I don't know, 17 CONSECUTIVE FIRST DOWN RUNS!!!  DOH!!)  I love running the ball but when a defense can gamble and put 9 in the box because they know with VIRTUAL CERTAINTY, AU is going to run here, the results are going to be predictable as we saw Saturday.  I don't know how many times the middle of the field was wide open, but it seemed to be quite a few, and after the run for a 1 yard gain occurs yet again with 9 in the box, the TV scans to him grimacing, as if he's truly shocked it didn't go for 20 yards.    

[Strychnine 1,802]

1 minute ago, Woodstock Tiger said:

Cole Cubelic put it best when he said something along the lines of "AU needs to do better job of self scouting" and eliminating the tendencies/trends that have been developing (such as, oh I don't know, 17 CONSECUTIVE FIRST DOWN RUNS!!!  DOH!!)  I love running the ball but when a defense can gamble and put 9 in the box because they know with VIRTUAL CERTAINTY, AU is going to run here, the results are going to be predictable as we saw Saturday.  I don't know how many times the middle of the field was wide open, but it seemed to be quite a few, and after the run for a 1 yard gain occurs yet again with 9 in the box, the TV scans to him grimacing, as if he's truly shocked it didn't go for 20 yards.    

 

I do not think self-scouting (or lack thereof) is an issue.  Gus' tendency to run on first down is so blatantly obvious that it would require conscious effort to still be oblivious to it.  I tend to think he must rationalize it as bad execution.  It is irrelevant that 80,000+ spectators, everyone watching on television, and the opposing team knew with relative certainty what the offense was going to do.

When you consider some of the head-scratching debacles the last few years, you quickly reach the conclusion that Auburn is paying Jared prices for Dollar General costume jewelry.

[IronMan70 3,277]

51 minutes ago, Woodstock Tiger said:

Cole Cubelic put it best when he said something along the lines of "AU needs to do better job of self scouting" and eliminating the tendencies/trends that have been developing (such as, oh I don't know, 17 CONSECUTIVE FIRST DOWN RUNS!!!  DOH!!)  I love running the ball but when a defense can gamble and put 9 in the box because they know with VIRTUAL CERTAINTY, AU is going to run here, the results are going to be predictable as we saw Saturday.  I don't know how many times the middle of the field was wide open, but it seemed to be quite a few, and after the run for a 1 yard gain occurs yet again with 9 in the box, the TV scans to him grimacing, as if he's truly shocked it didn't go for 20 yards.    

That's exactly right. The worst part in all of it is when they know they won't have to pay the price for their tactic since we won't exploit the area they vacated. It's just mind boggling.

[Scotty2Hotty 520]

20 hours ago, Eagle Eye 7 said:

Not picking on your comment but in fairness to the special teams, if you punt 9 times in the second half due to the offense quiting, then the odds dramatically increase that a blown coverage or as I feel in this case a missed block in the back by a ref, can happen. If you don’t want to give up a punt return then get first downs and don’t punt.

Again, not blaming the special teams. Point is, the D did their job. But ultimately, both games were lost on special teams.

[Eagle Eye 7 2,535]

I’m just more inclined to say both games were really lost due to lack of offense. We will just agree to disagree. War Eagle!

[jAUSon 2,836]

7 hours ago, AU04ever said:

I personally don't think it comes down to an optimum ratio on 1st down. However, when the play is so predictable that the D knows what's coming, you only truly give your O 2 plays to make 10 yrs before a punt. Guess what one of them is, a bomb. Down to one play that the D has to worry about. With Gus, high percentage it's a run as well. 

Jam the run on 1st, tight man cover with safety help on 3rd, whamo- you have yourself an entire game of one down posessions (2nd down).