Was Chip a bad OC or did he and Gus not gel?

[AUCE05 369]

I don't care how bad Purdue is.   They are at a minimum UT level.   Chip seemed to have held us back.  

[AuMarine 1,372]

Don’t know the answer to this. I am sure it was on both sides and when you are expected to be certain things and do certain things and you fall flat on your face... I am sure there was tension on the offensive side. Chip is gone.. this is Gus’ ship now (concerting the offense and calling plays etc.) he can sink or sail. He decided to sail today. 

[gr82be 14,402]

Maybe both but apparently they just clashed. Chocolate ice cream is good, orange sherbet is good. They share some common ingredients but do not belong in the same bowl together. I hope that Chip is successful at Kansas. It's not going to be easy there. 

[BigWhiskey91 632]

The talent level became very apparent as our size and speed took over. 

 

That being said, we seemed to attempt many more deep shots in this game than we had in any this season. Everyone was healthy and had time to rest the mind/body. It isn’t so much the play calling as it was the simplicity. The execution of the plays that were called was great. Not many blown assignments and we were converting on our deep ball shots. No turnovers either. We were able to go tempo due to creating explosive plays and that reduced the amount of substitutions which facilitated our faster pace of play.

[alexava 6,973]

Gus has his own very unique offense. Chip, Rhett, Dilly, freeze nor anyone else is going to run this offense as well as they could run their own or as well as Gus can run this one. Gus tried this in 15-18 basically being forced into it. He has to figure out how to delegate other responsibilities to give himself time to fully take control over the offense. 

We cant point fingers at Chip. Gus would be first to say that. 

[bmartin3228 117]

I know we have heard the quote so many times but proved to be right. WR caught everything , Offensive line really seemed to gel and did not have near as many blown assignments.(Maybe Purdue didn't blitz as much) The players executed great today, and think a lot of that has to do with just being on the same page hearing it from one voice. Just my theory but as a player you are coached to do something , well ,other coach tells you how to do same thing differently or with a little tweak, or has different philosophy on something and confuses the hell out of players. This may be completely wrong in this situation cause I by no means have any inside Info, but use of terminology ect have huge impact. Not saying they clashed or didn't clash but  needs to be like it was today with Gus taking bull by the horns or give OC complete control of offense. 

Today it seemed Gus called the play , play was signaled in , play was run. Throughout this past season, plays were being relayed into players a lot slower. Players looking to sideline with hands in air wondering formation and plays. Almost as though Chip call a play , Gus think about it and run it or change it.

Just my theory , not saying this was the case, but look forward in hearing other responses to this topic. 

 

ALSO lot easier to call smoother game with how we started haha

[keesler 5,924]

The flow of communication was much improved and the players appeared well prepared to do their job.  Execution was super, resulting in the offense showing out and confidence grew.  I’m glad to send the seniors out on a high note and happy for Gus to chalk up a good, record breaking bowl win.  WDE!

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,641]

A system where you can do something yet have a middle man to catch flack vs a system where you can do something and arent scared of being criticized and it’s just you doing something....that’s vastly different

Gus was “allowing” these guys to run his offense, the way he wanted, when it just didn’t make ******* sense unless you’re him. A clash in LOGIC is why Gus doesn’t need a true offensive coordinator. Only Gus thinks like Gus

[WarEagle1983 2,185]

I don't think we can safely say either way from just one game. Even if Purdue would've been a top 10 team, I don't see how we can decipher that question from one game. I'm glad we got it together to get the win. However, we need A LOT more proof (games). 

[au302 2,669]

Read in an article that the biggest difference with Gus taking over is that he’s making the guys rep plays over and over until they nail it. No doubt that helped lead to the better execution we saw today. Makes me wonder why Gus didn’t do this throughout the season. I guess he left it to Chip and maybe Chip did not have them rep it enough? Who knows, glad to see the better execution and hope it carries over 

[AUFriction 1,179]

Was it Chip or was it just a philosophical mismatch?

Yes.

From comments from players, it seems like Chip was not drilling things in practice for consistency. Mental errors were a major problem this year on offense and I think a lot of that was on Chip.

I think tempo was stifled by disagreement between Chip and Gus. As our coaches say, this is a rhythm offense. It’s hard to get in rhythm when we are taking forever to decide on a play.

[meh130 1,043]

Chip was a pretty good OC in 2017, as seen by our offensive performances against UGA and Bama, two great defenses.

I think there was considerable friction between Malzahn and Lindsey which came to a head in 2018.

[cole256 17,039]

The only thing I saw different was we threw the ball deep. I'm guessing if you watch film on this team you can beat them deep.....if they played us alot I'm assuming they would adjust like everybody else has in conference. We'll see. Don't think anybody can really make an educated call from one game

[WarDamnEagleWDE 12,737]

7 hours ago, au302 said:

Read in an article that the biggest difference with Gus taking over is that he’s making the guys rep plays over and over until they nail it. No doubt that helped lead to the better execution we saw today. Makes me wonder why Gus didn’t do this throughout the season. I guess he left it to Chip and maybe Chip did not have them rep it enough? Who knows, glad to see the better execution and hope it carries over 

They did this all spring, summer and fall. Just a lot of the plays that were practiced were not used in the game. 

I do beliveve that Gus changed this up quite a bit for bowl practice. Did not do the reps over and over and over. Like before. 

[around4ever 4,139]

1 hour ago, meh130 said:

Chip was a pretty good OC in 2017, as seen by our offensive performances against UGA and Bama, two great defenses.

I think there was considerable friction between Malzahn and Lindsey which came to a head in 2018.

Gus was the boss.  If there was a problem between him and Chip, he should have let Chip go or taken away responsibilities.  Why let personal or professional differences affect the entire team all season?  

[cole256 17,039]

8 minutes ago, WarDamnEagleWDE said:

They did this all spring, summer and fall. Just a lot of the plays that were practiced were not used in the game. 

I do beliveve that Gus changed this up quite a bit for bowl practice. Did not do the reps over and over and over. Like before. 

What strategy did you see that was different. I only ask you because you seem to be someone that may know and not have any agendas attached one way or the other....

The only thing I saw was we attacked deep and it worked more times than nought but of course that's something that we could've done anytime we wanted during the season. 

I haven't gone and looked at Purdue games....to be honest I really don't want to but logically I can't help but to think is that just something Purdue wasn't good at, defending the deep ball, or did we actually see some different approach or strategy? Because we really didn't run the ball on some dominant level or anything. I thought it was just apparent we had the better athletes. What did you see?

[KolchakAU85 430]

I wonder if Les Miles is happy now.

And I wonder how something like this might affect Chip going forward.  This kind of offensive performance had to be possible against teams like Tennessee.

Would you want to hire Chip Lindsey after he was unable to get a performance even half this good all season long?  Gus handles:

• Recruiting
• Overall game planning
• Deals with idiots like Josh Moon and his absurd stories
• Deals with an angry fan base stirred into a frenzy by idiots like Josh Moon and his absurd stories
• Deals with playing LSU, UGA, and UA every freaking year

And on top of all that, takes over for Chip and creates an impressive offensive game plan that Chip could only drool over.

What is the overall verdict: Does this make Gus look good, Chip look bad, or both?  Can't be neither.

ETA: The answer is "Both".

[MaitlandTiger 325]

I am no football guru but some things seem so obvious that you do not have to have a pedigree in coaching football to see it. You will never convince me that Jarrett Stidham was not somewhat injured all year. He was absolutely petrified to take a hit all year long and he did not have any touch whatsoever on his passes up until this game. Of course he had plenty of time to heal up prior to this ball game. I firmly believe that he played scared, or rather he held back—-by design—all year meaning that all involved knew a couple of big hits may have knocked him out for the year. I absolutely don’t think we had a back up we trusted.  I believe that he knew that he was hurt, and was just trying to make it through the year. If you take a look at a major league baseball pitcher who dominates all year up until the point where he can’t seem to win a baseball game, you typically find out that he was nursing a nagging injury. You have to be 100% in the SEC in order to shine.  

[AU64 10,122]

4 hours ago, AUFriction said:

Was it Chip or was it just a philosophical mismatch?

Yes.

From comments from players, it seems like Chip was not drilling things in practice for consistency. Mental errors were a major problem this year on offense and I think a lot of that was on Chip.

I think tempo was stifled by disagreement between Chip and Gus. As our coaches say, this is a rhythm offense. It’s hard to get in rhythm when we are taking forever to decide on a play.

out of "likes" so here is one.

JMO but there were still some of the same problems with execution.....overthrown or underthrown passes.....but receivers were very good.  Seems that JS played his best game of the year and not just in the way of stats.     Don't recall even once when he headed toward the sidelines when he saw signs of trouble and rarely dumped the ball out of bounds when his primary receiver appeared covered.  He was much more in command even on the few occasions when Purdue got a pass rush on him. The plays seemed to develop quicker also but maybe that was just from better protection by the OL?  

As for Chip.....he's where he is 100% in charge and does not have to worry about what Gus would do or think....just go out there and do his thing.   Hope he does well but I still put our QB problems on him.  

As important in my view.....Purdue was a very good offensive team and our D never let them get started.   Great job by the DL and LBs.

[MaitlandTiger 325]

Take the most dominant pitcher in major league baseball and give him a dime size blister on his throwing hand and he will not be able to win a baseball game. That is how fine the line is when you get to this level of play. 

[jAUSon 2,836]

One thing looked different- we used all our weapons. Not sure if it made for success, or success allowed for it, either way, everyone got in on it early.

[auburnphan 6,050]

I don't think you can come to any conclusions off of one bowl game.  Period.

The team executed against a much slower defense (like they should) and dominated.   that was good to see.

Purdue basically had no answer for our speed and we really just gave them a small taste of it, Gus could have throttled them with the deep balls all game long if he wanted to. 

Stidham was throwing a better looking ball, finally healthy, I had heard all season he was playing with injuries. 

I liked Gatewood's quick decision making and reads, even when he didn't make the right one.  Can he be a leader and win the team over?

I so badly wanna see Malik get the ball in space, he just floats out there when getting the ball.

The defense looked like what I thought they would this year, flying around, interior d-line disrupting plays, linebackers cleaning up.  We are losing some damn good ones on that side of the ball.

[Scotty2Hotty 520]

10 hours ago, bmartin3228 said:

Almost as though Chip call a play , Gus think about it and run it or change it.

^^^ THIS ^^^

[AURealist 2,185]

1 hour ago, cole256 said:

What strategy did you see that was different. I only ask you because you seem to be someone that may know and not have any agendas attached one way or the other....

The only thing I saw was we attacked deep and it worked more times than nought but of course that's something that we could've done anytime we wanted during the season. 

I haven't gone and looked at Purdue games....to be honest I really don't want to but logically I can't help but to think is that just something Purdue wasn't good at, defending the deep ball, or did we actually see some different approach or strategy? Because we really didn't run the ball on some dominant level or anything. I thought it was just apparent we had the better athletes. What did you see?

That's it, right there.  We dominated at every position.  The players realized this early and played accordingly.

[Tiger 8,817]

Honestly it was our OL. They played the best game of the season and that's why we looked so good IMO. Good blocking will make any coach look smart.