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abw0004

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Good morning all,

I hope this finds you in better spirits, if nothing else than the fact that the weather is finally cooling down.  There were a few points I had thought of and wanted to bring to the table for discussion.

Playcalling:  I feel like this is the low-hanging fruit for many on here and it is misinformed to a degree.  I feel like many are just wanting to use this as an excuse to get mad at Malzahn, but let's look into it a little further.  Many plays just were not working against this defense, true.  But, the plays in particular I wanted to bring to light were two of the interceptions and the plays prior.  The first long play we had was a bomb to Seth Williams, but unfortunately he was a tad overthrown leading to a circus catch.  Had Bo be on the money that would have been a touchdown.  This lead to two plays later of an interception.  If you go back and re-watch the interception, Anthony Schwartz was wide open in the end zone, four steps ahead of his defender.  The next set of plays I would like to discuss is in the endzone.  Again this was a great play drawn up to Sal Canella on the slant but the pass was inaccurate, and we all know the next play was an interception with the ball thrown too low to Canella again.  These plays were set up to be successful, which is what you want to do as a playcaller.

Defense:  That very well may be the best defense we play all year, if not the best defense in the country right now as they are all healthy.  LSU's defense is not very good this year, giving up points to almost every opponent.  UGA's secondary is very inexperienced, and thin.  Notre Dame exposed them and something we can take advantage of.  By the time we play them they should not be inexperienced anymore, but the depth issue will still be there.  Alabama's defense should have been the best defense we play, but with all of their injuries they have a lot of holes.  Holes that probably will not be remedied this year.

Personnel:  We may have had to adjust our groupings at the last minute.  This is just speculation so do not take this as gospel.  Many noted the lack of playing time from the Florida players.  It became obvious Florida was not letting Anthony Schwartz ever touch the ball.  As stated above the one time he burned them, Bo did not see him.  Worm may have been held out of the game after his warm-up scuffle with the Florida players.  I love Worm, but based on the video Worm was the one who reached out and grabbed the facemask of the Florida player first and hit both Florida players first.  Worm, in my opinion, was standing up for himself.  As a coach, you may not have a choice but to scratch him, especially when Gus has a reputation for no-nonsense.  This may be why we saw everyone in the game but Worm and DJ Williams (unrelated).  To be fair, I would have liked to see Joey Gatewood in there for a drive or two.

I am not creating an excuse for our loss.  It still hurts today.  However, it is not as bad of a loss as we might think.  Certainly not as bad as some are making it out to be and are creating multiple threads per day to make sure people know their stance.  We have lost one game with the toughest schedule in the country.  Any other schedule we are 6-0.  Many of you predicted we would be 3-3 by this point in the season before Fall Camp started.  Why so mad when we have out performed your own expectation?  We have two weeks to heal up, look at ourselves in the mirror, and get ready for Arkansas.  The season isn't over.  Far from it.  Our path to our goals are still ahead of us and there is a scenario where we have a rematch with Florida believe it or not.

:wareagle:

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A silver lining in the loss is that it probably wont be night game at LSU.  Had we both been undefeated it would surely have been a prime time game.  We still control our own destiny.

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Just now, Newbomb said:

A silver lining in the loss is that it probably wont be night game at LSU.  Had we both been undefeated it would surely have been a prime time game.  We still control our own destiny.

I actually might think this makes our game the night game.  I always felt the biggest SEC game was picked up by CBS for the 3:30 PM slot, and the second biggest game at 7:30 PM.  I am okay with it being a day game as the temperature should be cooler than years past when we played them during the day earlier in the year.  This is why I feel moving LSU back in the schedule from now on will benefit us.

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6 minutes ago, Newbomb said:

A silver lining in the loss is that it probably wont be night game at LSU.  Had we both been undefeated it would surely have been a prime time game.  We still control our own destiny.

It will still be the 2:30 game on CBS most likely if I had to guess. They have the first choice of every SEC game each week. Does it really matter though what time the game is in all honesty? morning, afternoon, night, overnight whatever we are going to get our ass kicked in Red Stick just like we have for the past 20 years down there. 

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I was thinking about our 2017 Georgia game and how inept Georgia looked in that game, including their very good running game. The crowd was a big factor for us, they made mistakes, Fromm had a rare bad game and their play calling was called into question. I say this to say that hopefully we had a bad game and the atmosphere was over whelming. We will know soon enough.additionally, everyone thought LSU would run Florida out of the stadium last year and that did not happen. Guess we will see how good Florida’s defense really is this weekend...

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30 minutes ago, GwillMac6 said:

It will still be the 2:30 game on CBS most likely if I had to guess. They have the first choice of every SEC game each week. Does it really matter though what time the game is in all honesty? morning, afternoon, night, overnight whatever we are going to get our ass kicked in Red Stick just like we have for the past 20 years down there. 

If CBS is wanting to air the Iron Bowl again, then isn't there a limit to how many times a team plays in their game each season? That would make 4 for AU if AU/LSU is their game. I don't know what the magic number is though.

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2 minutes ago, ChltteTiger said:

If CBS is wanting to air the Iron Bowl again, then isn't there a limit to how many times a team plays in their game each season? That would make 4 for AU if AU/LSU is their game. I don't know what the magic number is though.

I think it is 5 each season. Or at least I thought it used to be. That week is a really weak schedule. There is not another game that CBS would remotely want to be the 2:30 game. The other SEC games that week are Arky at Bama. Cowbell U at TAMU. Mizzou at Kentucky and South Carolina at Rocky Top.

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All of our goals for the season are still in front of us, just win out. I don't think it's likely, but all is not lost, even after that debacle. 

I think we most likely lose to LSU and Bama. UGA is not that impressive to me. We smoke the three bad schools and finish up 9-3. Not too bad for this seasons schedule with a Freshman. 

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Our freshman QB will learn from this game and get better.  My main concern is that our o-line is pretty much playing as well as they're going to play, which isn't great.  Will they be good enough to go the rest of the way without dropping another one?  With this group of offensive linemen being seniors and in their second season playing together as a unit, what does that tell us about next year's o-line if this is the best we've got? 

I haven't lost hope, but I'm not optimistic.

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1 hour ago, abw0004 said:

Good morning all,

I hope this finds you in better spirits, if nothing else than the fact that the weather is finally cooling down.  There were a few points I had thought of and wanted to bring to the table for discussion.

Playcalling:  I feel like this is the low-hanging fruit for many on here and it is misinformed to a degree.  I feel like many are just wanting to use this as an excuse to get mad at Malzahn, but let's look into it a little further.  Many plays just were not working against this defense, true.  But, the plays in particular I wanted to bring to light were two of the interceptions and the plays prior.  The first long play we had was a bomb to Seth Williams, but unfortunately he was a tad overthrown leading to a circus catch.  Had Bo be on the money that would have been a touchdown.  This lead to two plays later of an interception.  If you go back and re-watch the interception, Anthony Schwartz was wide open in the end zone, four steps ahead of his defender.  The next set of plays I would like to discuss is in the endzone.  Again this was a great play drawn up to Sal Canella on the slant but the pass was inaccurate, and we all know the next play was an interception with the ball thrown too low to Canella again.  These plays were set up to be successful, which is what you want to do as a playcaller.

Defense:  That very well may be the best defense we play all year, if not the best defense in the country right now as they are all healthy.  LSU's defense is not very good this year, giving up points to almost every opponent.  UGA's secondary is very inexperienced, and thin.  Notre Dame exposed them and something we can take advantage of.  By the time we play them they should not be inexperienced anymore, but the depth issue will still be there.  Alabama's defense should have been the best defense we play, but with all of their injuries they have a lot of holes.  Holes that probably will not be remedied this year.

Personnel:  We may have had to adjust our groupings at the last minute.  This is just speculation so do not take this as gospel.  Many noted the lack of playing time from the Florida players.  It became obvious Florida was not letting Anthony Schwartz ever touch the ball.  As stated above the one time he burned them, Bo did not see him.  Worm may have been held out of the game after his warm-up scuffle with the Florida players.  I love Worm, but based on the video Worm was the one who reached out and grabbed the facemask of the Florida player first and hit both Florida players first.  Worm, in my opinion, was standing up for himself.  As a coach, you may not have a choice but to scratch him, especially when Gus has a reputation for no-nonsense.  This may be why we saw everyone in the game but Worm and DJ Williams (unrelated).  To be fair, I would have liked to see Joey Gatewood in there for a drive or two.

I am not creating an excuse for our loss.  It still hurts today.  However, it is not as bad of a loss as we might think.  Certainly not as bad as some are making it out to be and are creating multiple threads per day to make sure people know their stance.  We have lost one game with the toughest schedule in the country.  Any other schedule we are 6-0.  Many of you predicted we would be 3-3 by this point in the season before Fall Camp started.  Why so mad when we have out performed your own expectation?  We have two weeks to heal up, look at ourselves in the mirror, and get ready for Arkansas.  The season isn't over.  Far from it.  Our path to our goals are still ahead of us and there is a scenario where we have a rematch with Florida believe it or not.

:wareagle:

The negative nellies are not going to like this dose of truth you shared. It does not fit their agenda.

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35 minutes ago, triangletiger said:

Our freshman QB will learn from this game and get better.  My main concern is that our o-line is pretty much playing as well as they're going to play, which isn't great.  Will they be good enough to go the rest of the way without dropping another one?  With this group of offensive linemen being seniors and in their second season playing together as a unit, what does that tell us about next year's o-line if this is the best we've got? 

I haven't lost hope, but I'm not optimistic.

It sounds like the OL was completely healthy for UF. Trying not to think about what happens against the Big 3 with a few injuries.

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My thing is if teams devote such effort and planning to take Schwartz out of the game then that in theory should open up the middle/interior portion of the field. They simultaneously shut down the outside plays and Schwartz and the inside. We got no chance if that's gonna happen. I'm starting to think a Tebow/Leak type of timeshare is going to be necessary to get some sort of run game going against the teams we compare ourselves to. Teams already know we are going to be stubborn with the interior runs with the crap OL so why not at least give us a chance to succeed with those with Joey taking those snaps. He's an imposing runner.

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Always appreciate your positive outlook, @abw0004!

As much as I don't like doing it, I have to credit Bo Nix with the loss. He'll learn from it but the moment and atmosphere was just too much for him, I think. His vision of the field narrowed, he was too antsy, and he just tried to do too much when things weren't there.

Still, there are a lot of games ahead of us. The only "goal" that is out of reach now is being undefeated. The rest can still be attained. It won't be easy (it never is), but with our defense as good as it is we will be in every game we play if we limit these mistakes (i.e. multiple turnovers every game).

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4 hours ago, abw0004 said:

The next set of plays I would like to discuss is in the endzone.  Again this was a great play drawn up to Sal Canella on the slant but the pass was inaccurate, and we all know the next play was an interception with the ball thrown too low to Canella again.  These plays were set up to be successful, which is what you want to do as a playcaller.

The execution was not good on these particular plays, however, after the inaccurate throw to Canella why dial up another pass?   We were 4 points behind and a FG would put us within 1 point and show Florida we could have a sustained drive to score.  The Florida defense was reeling and questioning themselves as they just gave up a play of 30+ yards.  It was imperative we score on that drive.  We didn’t have to take the lead (although it would have been nice), but we had to score.

That is the play calling issue I had at the time.  Gus seems to lose situational awareness in games sometimes, not recognizing Bo was unable to hit Canella on a routine play and miss him badly, should have made Gus a little more conservative in his play calling. We needed those points at that time.  JMHO.

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For me, my judgement on Gus is not what he does against the average to cupcakes on our schedule. 

My evaluation is based on Oregon , the Aggies , UF, LSU, Bama and UGA.

For the most part he has done well, but now he has had a dramatic defeat. I want to see his response against LSU. 

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7 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

That is the play calling issue I had at the time.  Gus seems to lose situational awareness in games sometimes, not recognizing Bo was unable to hit Canella on a routine play and miss him badly, should have made Gus a little more conservative in his play calling. We needed those points at that time.  JMHO.

It's one of those things where Gus would be criticized either way if it isn't a touchdown.  If he went conservative, many on here would say "It's the same ole conservative Gus.  You should have kept your foot on the gas!"  Personally I was okay with this as it may have been Gus' way of telling Bo, "I trust you so let's go back to Sal" to get his confidence back up.  Kind of like in the UGA game in 2017 when NCM dropped a huge pass and Chip went back to NCM on the next play to make sure he knew that he trusted NCM to make the play.  Obviously this strategy backfired on Saturday backfired as it was an interception, but that's all you can do really.

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The only way to get better is to accept the truth and work on it. So yes, the truth is some of Gus's play calling was certainly to blame and needed to be better. He needs to correct that. However it's also true his play calling provided Bo with several wide open WRs. Truth is Bo was off all night with high, low, over, under throws which resulted in 3 missed TDs and 3 INTs. Truth is play at the QB position has to get better.  

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17 minutes ago, abw0004 said:

It's one of those things where Gus would be criticized either way if it isn't a touchdown

This greatly depends on if we won or not.  At that point in the game if we kicked the FG, Florida would have felt they dodged a bullet and our defense would have had more confidence in the offense to score the next time it had the ball.  The game was still in the balance, after the interception not so much.

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I'm not sure if the play where Nix threw the pick in the end zone when he was targeting Sal was called by Gus. Just prior to the play we got a false start penalty and Gus was agitated. The camera was on him and you can tell he's pissed he's yelling into the mic "What do you want?! The same play!?". I'm assuming he was talking to Dilly. But that's just pure conjecture on my part.

That penalty was a punch in the gut. To go from 3rd and relatively short to 3rd and long hurt us. I'm not sure if we lined up in the same look when the false start was called but just something to think about. Either way, it sucks we turned it over.

And as @I_M4_AU said above, Gus loses situational awareness at times. I'd even take it a step further and say he lacks situational awareness most times.

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5 hours ago, abw0004 said:

Good morning all,

I hope this finds you in better spirits, if nothing else than the fact that the weather is finally cooling down.  There were a few points I had thought of and wanted to bring to the table for discussion.

Playcalling:  I feel like this is the low-hanging fruit for many on here and it is misinformed to a degree.  I feel like many are just wanting to use this as an excuse to get mad at Malzahn, but let's look into it a little further.  Many plays just were not working against this defense, true.  But, the plays in particular I wanted to bring to light were two of the interceptions and the plays prior.  The first long play we had was a bomb to Seth Williams, but unfortunately he was a tad overthrown leading to a circus catch.  Had Bo be on the money that would have been a touchdown.  This lead to two plays later of an interception.  If you go back and re-watch the interception, Anthony Schwartz was wide open in the end zone, four steps ahead of his defender.  The next set of plays I would like to discuss is in the endzone.  Again this was a great play drawn up to Sal Canella on the slant but the pass was inaccurate, and we all know the next play was an interception with the ball thrown too low to Canella again.  These plays were set up to be successful, which is what you want to do as a playcaller.

Defense:  That very well may be the best defense we play all year, if not the best defense in the country right now as they are all healthy.  LSU's defense is not very good this year, giving up points to almost every opponent.  UGA's secondary is very inexperienced, and thin.  Notre Dame exposed them and something we can take advantage of.  By the time we play them they should not be inexperienced anymore, but the depth issue will still be there.  Alabama's defense should have been the best defense we play, but with all of their injuries they have a lot of holes.  Holes that probably will not be remedied this year.

Personnel:  We may have had to adjust our groupings at the last minute.  This is just speculation so do not take this as gospel.  Many noted the lack of playing time from the Florida players.  It became obvious Florida was not letting Anthony Schwartz ever touch the ball.  As stated above the one time he burned them, Bo did not see him.  Worm may have been held out of the game after his warm-up scuffle with the Florida players.  I love Worm, but based on the video Worm was the one who reached out and grabbed the facemask of the Florida player first and hit both Florida players first.  Worm, in my opinion, was standing up for himself.  As a coach, you may not have a choice but to scratch him, especially when Gus has a reputation for no-nonsense.  This may be why we saw everyone in the game but Worm and DJ Williams (unrelated).  To be fair, I would have liked to see Joey Gatewood in there for a drive or two.

I am not creating an excuse for our loss.  It still hurts today.  However, it is not as bad of a loss as we might think.  Certainly not as bad as some are making it out to be and are creating multiple threads per day to make sure people know their stance.  We have lost one game with the toughest schedule in the country.  Any other schedule we are 6-0.  Many of you predicted we would be 3-3 by this point in the season before Fall Camp started.  Why so mad when we have out performed your own expectation?  We have two weeks to heal up, look at ourselves in the mirror, and get ready for Arkansas.  The season isn't over.  Far from it.  Our path to our goals are still ahead of us and there is a scenario where we have a rematch with Florida believe it or not.

:wareagle:

The point is what do you do when your QB keeps overthrowing and under throwing? Do you just keep on letting him throw it. I’m pretty sure oSaben or Kirby or any winning coach is not going to go that route. I’ve seen Saban pull hurts or Tua. Saw Dabo pull Watson . All of them were pulled at least temporarily for making a stupid mistake that a QB with Their knowledge has to be able not to make. I guarantee any other QB besides Bo would have been pulled . If Bo is a true player he should have told Gus to pull him anyway. He should own those mistakes and tell Gus if the situation happens again to treat him like any other member of the team and bench him. If I was him I would not want any special deals because of who my dad was. I would want to be treated like every other player including getting called out when I do something stupid.

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Just now, Eagle Eye 7 said:

The point is what do you do when your QB keeps overthrowing and under throwing? Do you just keep on letting him throw it. I’m pretty sure Saben or Kirby or any winning coach is not going to go that route. I’ve seen Saban pull hurts or Tua. Saw Dabo pull Watson . All of them were pulled at least temporarily for making a stupid mistake that a QB with heir knowledge has to be able not to make. I guarantee any other QB besides Bo would have been pulled . If Bo is a true player he should have told Gus to pull him anyway. He should own those mistakes and tell Gus if the situation happens again to treat him like any other member of the team and bench him. If I was him I would not want any special deals because of who my dad was. I would want to be treated like every other player including getting called out when I do something stupid.

This post sounds super personal btw. If Bo was a true player? Really?

 

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People saying bo will learn from this and improve. I want to believe that. But he was missing big. I mean he has to improve but those misses can’t keep being that bad. If they do we have to re evaluate something. My biggest concern was the 3 rd and short plays we didn’t convert. That’s on the coach when you have that many. But still it’s not the end of the season. 

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Considering how bad development of QBs have been under Gus and his inability to fix it I am starting to think the issue is greater than the position. I dont know enough to watch a game and say if it is mechanics on throws, lack of practice and muscle memory to make the connection, the lack of understanding the offense and check downs or something else. Bo didn't have these accuracy issues in HS. He could also check down and improvise and throw to open spots. So could Kiehl Frazier, Jeremy Johnson etc. So I dont think it's the player so much as a lack of preparedness and the system they are using. I agree with the thought that with average QB play AU beats UF by 7. And if Dan Mullen was our Offensive coach and Gus was UF"s O coach, AU wins by 24.  I also think when Mullen said that Gus knows how to scratch where it itches he was being condescending on the down low. I'm being harsh on Gus and I have always thought he had potential to be a legendary coach. But here in year 7 this ineptitude we witnessed is starting to be intolerable.

BTW there was another confrontation pregame down in the North endzone. I have not seen any videos and not sure what happened. I didn't notice until several players were massed up already. 

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5 minutes ago, Eagle Eye 7 said:

The point is what do you do when your QB keeps overthrowing and under throwing? Do you just keep on letting him throw it. I’m pretty sure oSaben or Kirby or any winning coach is not going to go that route. I’ve seen Saban pull hurts or Tua. Saw Dabo pull Watson . All of them were pulled at least temporarily for making a stupid mistake that a QB with Their knowledge has to be able not to make. I guarantee any other QB besides Bo would have been pulled . If Bo is a true player he should have told Gus to pull him anyway. He should own those mistakes and tell Gus if the situation happens again to treat him like any other member of the team and bench him. If I was him I would not want any special deals because of who my dad was. I would want to be treated like every other player including getting called out when I do something stupid.

Well you asked about Kirby.  When has Kirby done that?  He didn't do it against us in 2017 when they were in the exact same position as us with a true freshmen in Jake Fromm.

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12 minutes ago, DAG said:

This post sounds super personal btw. If Bo was a true player? Really?

 

No I’m saying I wouldn’t want any special favors over my team. I do believe Bo is a true player . I think honestly if you asked him he probably wished that he would have been pulled also. It’s not fun making yourself look bad on national tv. I think Gus did Bo a disservice. And I think of Joey on the side line wondering what the heck did I do not to  even get a touch in the game. Same as Worm or Anthony. Do you think Gus was fair to the other players on the team?

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