One burning question.......

[musicitytiger 281]

Like everyone else, I was frustrated with the last two games.  However, I may be able to look at it a little more objectively because once I recognized something..........I turned both games off.  (Secc in the 3rd quarter and bowl game at halftime)

 

Not only did both opponents know when we were running the ball, but in many cases they knew what gap to hit.  In the Secc game, there were examples of 3 uga defenders hitting the hole before the play developed.

 

On the surface, it’s easy to blame the  Oline, but if you’ve ever tried to block someone that knows where you’re going.......it’s a whole different task.

 

To me.........there’s only one offseason question.  Is Auburn prepared to invest into a more effective strategy of studying our own schemes and tendencies?  It cost us a National championship this year.........will we adapt?

[autigeremt 6,569]

We will or we will finish 8-5 next season. All we can do is wait and see.

[M E R L I N 53]

[AURealist 2,185]

3 minutes ago, musicitytiger said:

.........will we adapt?

No.  Nobody does insanity like we do insanity.

[auburnphan 6,050]

Gus is a creationist and does not believe in evolution.........his offense is proof......so the answer would be no unless there is some sort of divine intervention.  So I guess there is hope.   

[lionheartkc 6,150]

Second burning question... if our offense is so obvious, why did the two teams playing in the national championship not take advantage of that when we beat them? What made it suddenly so obvious AFTER we beat bama?

[BJCrawford 1,568]

I have a question. Excuse my ignorance if it is dumb. Is it possible for teams to figure out those ridiculous play boards we use? I would love to see us run a play without looking like a team of meerkats (yes I think some successful teams do it as well).  Or is this more about how we line up as others have said. I’ll say again that Georgia figured out what okie was doing and addressed it second half (and us second game). 

[BigWhiskey91 632]

There are plenty of tells in our offense. Some based on alignment and some based on personnel groupings. 

Then you have tendencies that can give teams an advantage in terms of what is coming as well. 

This all is masked to some degree when we use pace. In a sense, the offense at time feels like it’s throw a variety of plays at the defense until one breaks off for 10+ yards. When that happens, go full pace and work the inside zone. As a fan everyone sees what is unfolding. 

Examples of some of the tells:

1) RBs. Based on which RB is in, it’s a near automatic tell of run/pass. If it’s KJ it’s more balanced than the others due to volume. But Barrett is almost 99% swing pass. Martin is usually a dive in relief role, but when brought in randomly, it’s usually a pass as well. 

2) Cox. The alignment of our H back has been another tell as well. I need to go back and refresh, but depending on if he’s lined up behind the guard or tackle is an indicator or run/pass.

3) Hastings. Unless we are going tempo after a big play, Hastings usually is scripted to be the main target. Usually stacked behind another WR or lined up off the LOS. He usually runs a post or an option route. Atleast with the option route, there is variability as he reacts to the defense. 

4) Big Plays - more so now, but after a big pass or run, it’s almost always followed up with an inside give to the rb. Sometimes we get an RPO or RPO look atleast.

 

Having tells on your offense can be okay if they are there by design. For this to be “beneficial” you have to some type of counter punch to it. Like when we would sugar huddle and always run a toss sweep. We finally ran a boot off it and threw a drag route to a WR. Or running a slant after going tempo when you normally are heavy run.

Our offense can be incredibly fun to watch when it’s hitting on all cylinders and things are being mixed up. However, when we slow things down and go “base” offense, it exposes a lot of the window dressing and makes us look very pedestrian. My favorite coaching/scheming move this season was the second half of the UGA game. We had a lead and wanted to drain clock, but instead of showing our formation, we went sugar huddle and stayed in it till the last moments for two drives or so. IT was beautiful and allowed us to stay “up tempo” and drain clock. It caught UGA off guard and worked flawlessly until Stidham fumbled down in the redzone.

[aubaseball 2,583]

When is everyone going to learn that football is a game that is won by players making plays.   First UGA game,  I don’t think we missed a tackle.     Second game we missed plenty.    UCF was no blocking and someone didn’t study enough film to know that their qb could run.   Terrible game planning on him.  

[BigWhiskey91 632]

27 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

Second burning question... if our offense is so obvious, why did the two teams playing in the national championship not take advantage of that when we beat them? What made it suddenly so obvious AFTER we beat bama?

My guess would be a mix of execution, scheming and potentially sequencing?

The UGA and Alabama games felt like the offense had a flow. Every play felt like an extension of the previous play. We were showing new looks and running new plays off of our base formations. 

Against UCF, it just felt like our RT was getting burnt all day, and our slow developing plays were getting blown up every time. Ucf sat on the short stuff and left the middle wide open fairly often. A dedicated effort to exploit that didn’t come until we were down 14 points. Then Hastings shows up and gets a massive amount of targets over the middle. 

Im still not sure how our OL was getting trashed at the tackles all game. 78 was the usual suspect but 73 got pushed around a few times. 77 was lost on a few plays where he pulled, but it wasn’t as frequent as 78. 

Hindsight makes it easy to say what we should’ve done though. The staff adjusted but were probably hesistant to do so as the game unfolded until it was painfully obvious that we needed to score. It was like watching us face LA Monroe honestly.

[BJCrawford 1,568]

I sometimes wonder if malzahn does not game plan for lesser teams as much. Did he think UCF could not stay on the field with Auburn? The Mercer game was too close and ULM was 14-7 at the half.  I would say the same thing about the 2016 Vandy game.  

[Tiger 8,817]

28 minutes ago, BJCrawford said:

I sometimes wonder if malzahn does not game plan for lesser teams as much. Did he think UCF could not stay on the field with Auburn? The Mercer game was too close and ULM was 14-7 at the half.  I would say the same thing about the 2016 Vandy game.  

IMO something about sounding and looking like a duck applies here.

Throughout his tenure he has shown to have too much confidence in some games and not enough nuts in others and we look subpar and lose because of it. It's incredible.

[jAUSon 2,836]

1 hour ago, lionheartkc said:

Second burning question... if our offense is so obvious, why did the two teams playing in the national championship not take advantage of that when we beat them? What made it suddenly so obvious AFTER we beat bama?

I believe we were highly successful in the hurry-up, and had zero success, even against the likes of Mercer, when standing in our sets for 10 seconds pacing the game. No matter the plays, no matter the opponent, in our hurry-up we killed them, and only then. 

[lionheartkc 6,150]

37 minutes ago, FullBloodedTiger91 said:

Im still not sure how our OL was getting trashed at the tackles all game. 78 was the usual suspect but 73 got pushed around a few times. 77 was lost on a few plays where he pulled, but it wasn’t as frequent as 78. 

This is the big difference and I don't know how to explain it. Georgia 1 and the Iron Bowl, our line came to play. Stidham had all the time he needed and Kerryon had holes on top of holes. It's even more inexplicable because they were doing it against far better defensive lines than UCF. For the SEC Championship, fatigue seemed to be the biggest culprit. For this game, that doesn't carry. It's almost as if everyone besides Braden and Casey just stopped trying... especially James. 

[NorthGATiger 1,801]

1 hour ago, lionheartkc said:

Second burning question... if our offense is so obvious, why did the two teams playing in the national championship not take advantage of that when we beat them? What made it suddenly so obvious AFTER we beat bama?

Gus coaching for his job.  Gus getting a pay raise.  Gus thought he could play UGA again and run the exact same offense with no changes and win.  UGA changed their plays and attacked us on the edges and we still have not made an adjustment.  UGA started run blitzing in the second game and made Roquan Smith look like the love child of Ray Lewis and Dick Butkus.  Not one time did Gus adjust by having hot routes or more importantly throwing the ball where Roquan was coming from.  Thats how you beat it.  Throw where the LB is vacating.  Football 101.  The short answer is Gus actually out coached Kirby while fighting for his job.  When we played UGA the 2nd time Gus got schooled badly and was unable to make any changes to his 3 week old plan that he used the 1st time.  Very very piss poor coaching effort.  With KJ at 50-60% in the second game and with Gus knowing how hurt he was, he chose to not alter anything.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

1 minute ago, jAUSon said:

I believe we were highly successful in the hurry-up, and had zero success, even against the likes of Mercer, when standing in our sets for 10 seconds pacing the game. No matter the plays, no matter the opponent, in our hurry-up we killed them, and only then. 

Our hurry-up is definitely our bread and butter, but I think the real key is that our offense is rhythm based, and if anyone lets us get going, they can't stop us. In both post season games, we stopped ourselves, and it all came crashing down from there. That being said, our O-Line still played like a completely different group than it did during the season.

[auburnphan 6,050]

3 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

Our hurry-up is definitely our bread and butter, but I think the real key is that our offense is rhythm based, and if anyone lets us get going, they can't stop us. In both post season games, we stopped ourselves, and it all came crashing down from there. That being said, our O-Line still played like a completely different group than it did during the season.

The offensive line was just unexplainable.   I don't think we are as rhythm based dependent as we were in years passed.    Our offense is so dependent on hitting on a big play type of mentality.  We seem to throw the ball either 15 or more yards down the field or behind the line of scrimmage on pass plays.  It is tough to explain the reasoning behind our offense and not utilizing the whole field.  I am hoping we will continue to transition away from the Gusisms and move more into Chip's system.  They tried to blend the two as they transitioned to make it easier for the players this last season and the results were mixed and adjusting was made more difficult from the lack of having a complete CL playbook installed.  Just my thoughts

[lionheartkc 6,150]

3 minutes ago, NorthGATiger said:

Gus coaching for his job.  Gus getting a pay raise.  Gus thought he could play UGA again and run the exact same offense with no changes and win.  UGA changed their plays and attacked us on the edges and we still have not made an adjustment.  UGA started run blitzing in the second game and made Roquan Smith look like the love child of Ray Lewis and Dick Butkus.  Not one time did Gus adjust by having hot routes or more importantly throwing the ball where Roquan was coming from.  Thats how you beat it.  Throw where the LB is vacating.  Football 101.  The short answer is Gus actually out coached Kirby while fighting for his job.  When we played UGA the 2nd time Gus got schooled badly and was unable to make any changes to his 3 week old plan that he used the 1st time.  Very very piss poor coaching effort.  With KJ at 50-60% in the second game and with Gus knowing how hurt he was, he chose to not alter anything.

Coaching for his job and the pay raise have nothing to do with it. Coaching is not a game of see how much you can get paid to lose. In fact, he would have gotten very large bonuses for winning either of the last two games, so that flies in the face of the "getting paid" theory. This whole Gus is Doctor Evil, plotting how he can bilk Auburn out of every penny he can get to sit on his butt and do nothing schtick is beyond laughable.

Also, Chip calls the plays so he is the one who has to make the adjustments. Based on his comments after the game, apparently he's not very good at that. 

I do think that Johnson's extreme talent is part of why we beat Georgia in the first game, and not having that at our disposal hurt us in the second game. Also, watching it again, we got lucky a few times on their offensive miscues. Still... other than repeating the ad nauseum refrain that our coach sucks, that does nothing to explain how an offense that is so predictable took down both teams in the championship game and a coach that many around here claim is the greatest of all time. 

[Barnacle 9,064]

5 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

Our hurry-up is definitely our bread and butter, but I think the real key is that our offense is rhythm based, and if anyone lets us get going, they can't stop us. In both post season games, we stopped ourselves, and it all came crashing down from there. That being said, our O-Line still played like a completely different group than it did during the season.

Rhythm is definitely a big part of it. Hard to watch when we can't get it going. 

[NorthGATiger 1,801]

1 minute ago, auburnphan said:

The offensive line was just unexplainable.   I don't think we are as rhythm based dependent as we were in years passed.    Our offense is so dependent on hitting on a big play type of mentality.  We seem to throw the ball either 15 or more yards down the field or behind the line of scrimmage on pass plays.  It is tough to explain the reasoning behind our offense and not utilizing the whole field.  I am hoping we will continue to transition away from the Gusisms and move more into Chip's system.  They tried to blend the two as they transitioned to make it easier for the players this last season and the results were mixed and adjusting was made more difficult from the lack of having a complete CL playbook installed.  Just my thoughts

I agree.  Someone stated that Gus said that the reason he does not use the middle of the field is because thats where he wants to run the ball and that he either throws deep or laterally to keep the defense vacated from where he wants to run.  If this is true he is an idiot of monstrous proportions.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

1 minute ago, auburnphan said:

The offensive line was just unexplainable.   I don't think we are as rhythm based dependent as we were in years passed.    Our offense is so dependent on hitting on a big play type of mentality.  We seem to throw the ball either 15 or more yards down the field or behind the line of scrimmage on pass plays.  It is tough to explain the reasoning behind our offense and not utilizing the whole field.  I am hoping we will continue to transition away from the Gusisms and move more into Chip's system.  They tried to blend the two as they transitioned to make it easier for the players this last season and the results were mixed and adjusting was made more difficult from the lack of having a complete CL playbook installed.  Just my thoughts

Part of me wonders if our problem utilizing the whole field is on the receivers and route running. The only guy who consistently gets open across the middle is Hastings, and we all saw him panting on the sidelines after 4 plays. I was hoping to see more of that kind of play from Davis, but he seems to like the sidelines.

[NorthGATiger 1,801]

3 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

Coaching for his job and the pay raise have nothing to do with it. Coaching is not a game of see how much you can get paid to lose. In fact, he would have gotten very large bonuses for winning either of the last two games, so that flies in the face of the "getting paid" theory. This whole Gus is Doctor Evil, plotting how he can bilk Auburn out of every penny he can get to sit on his butt and do nothing schtick is beyond laughable.

Also, Chip calls the plays so he is the one who has to make the adjustments. Based on his comments after the game, apparently he's not very good at that. 

I do think that Johnson's extreme talent is part of why we beat Georgia in the first game, and not having that at our disposal hurt us in the second game. Also, watching it again, we got lucky a few times on their offensive miscues. Still... other than repeating the ad nauseum refrain that our coach sucks, that does nothing to explain how an offense that is so predictable took down both teams in the championship game and a coach that many around here claim is the greatest of all time. 

Maybe I did not explain in words what I was thinking very well.  Gus coached lights out and on fire in the first UGA game.  New plays, an actual gameplan to exploit UGA.  He was fighting for his job and he knew it.  You could almost tell he was sticking it to Kirby for all of the negative things Kirby tells recruits about him.  Gus enjoyed it.  In the second game Gus was not fighting for his job by any means and he had absolutely no game plan other than what he did before.  Nothing new, no wrinkles, no answer to anything, no adjustments.  It does not matter if you and I are playing football, playing checkers, or chasing the same woman; If I know what you are doing before you do it then I am going to win every time and vice versa.  It makes the O-Line look bad but the truth of the matter is the Defense knows whats coming before the snap of the football and UCF, Mercer, GA Southern, Clemson, or UGA can make Auburn look like Furman when Gus is so predictable.

[BJCrawford 1,568]

But his contract came after the sec championship ...correct? Wouldnt he still be coaching. for his job if this was the case?

[TAYLORKEETON 786]

How can we....fans on a message board, see what needs fixing but our coaches don't??

[BigWhiskey91 632]

32 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

This is the big difference and I don't know how to explain it. Georgia 1 and the Iron Bowl, our line came to play. Stidham had all the time he needed and Kerryon had holes on top of holes. It's even more inexplicable because they were doing it against far better defensive lines than UCF. For the SEC Championship, fatigue seemed to be the biggest culprit. For this game, that doesn't carry. It's almost as if everyone besides Braden and Casey just stopped trying... especially James. 

I know after the game, Golson and Braden Smith continually said communication was an issue. So I assume that they were referring to the twists and stunts and 78/OL not communicating the assignments effectively? Sounds like a focus issue to me and something that Hand should/could’ve addressed and maybe he did? Because there were moments when the OL was holding up fine in pass pro. But my god they were getting tossed in run blocking all game.