Linayus

Got to see some of Bo's highlights. So glad he's 100% our guy. His stats weren't great in that last game but he threw some pretty passes and looks like he'll definitely be a strong leader when he takes over at AU.

Since we only have one OT listed, is there no one else on our board now? I mean, we don't necessarily need them TODAY (arguably), but it's mighty strange to only see a single name at a position we sorely need. :/

Appreciate your insight as always. I definitely think this o-line combination with Kim at center has given us the best results. He's not the strongest, as you said, but they seem to work a little better together. Hopefully this progress will continue into the spring and summer workouts. I didn't like that holding call against Sal, as most Auburn fans would not be, even if it was legit. Those are rarely ever called unless egregious and it just adds to the fire that Bama gets the benefit of the calls in all their games. I did think it got better after that but I was certainly not happy early on with how the game was getting called. (Especially since I have been waiting on that Shivers run all freaking season only to see it get called back! LOL) I noticed Coynis Miller more in this game as well. Looking forward to seeing him in the future! Hope you continue these next season! War Eagle!

I'll be watching these for sure. I've liked what we've already seen from JSS and he definitely has soft hands so we could actually use him more in the passing game in the HB or TE role. I really hope Manning and Hamm come along in the spring and earn spots on our o-line. I've been rooting hard for Hamm!

Single season or career? Deshaun should easily break 100 this weekend and I'm sure Anders will kick at least one more FG this year. JD will also likely get 2 more tackles.

I only watched the 1st quarter this weekend. What was our issues on 3rd down? And were most of those with backups in the game or were there plenty with the 1st string offense?

@WarTiger - I'd like to hear this as well. It seems like everything is skewed to hinder the defensive players while the ball carrier gets away with stiff-arm/facemasks, leading with their helmet, etc.

I'm just going to say here that I'm not bashing our defense AT ALL. Yes, we were sloppy in places but when your offense goes 3 and out over and over and the other team controls the time of possession on offense for 2/3 of the game, what can you do? They still held a really good football team to 27 points. Jesus Christ.. if we had the Nick Marshall offense with this defense we'd be destroying the SEC. But this crap show of an offense is destroying us and our defense is completely gassed. Thank God they can rest a bit against Liberty (I HOPE) and might be more fired up for the Iron Bowl.

Take away Ryan Davis' insane ability to make tacklers miss within those first 2-3 yards and our passing offense the last 2-3 years would be ATROCIOUS.

I know we don't get to do a lot of kick returns so Iggy hasn't had many opportunities this year but he had been doing so much better until this game. He looked just as blind as he did when he first started doing returns. It's like he can't see outside the one lane he tries to hit and the defenders just nail him (or he runs into one of his own blockers). I'm not a fan of our 4-2-5 defense when you have one LB on the outside and only one LB in the middle who runs straight into the lineman and gives the RB 5+ EASY yards. With a talented back like Swift, it was a disaster. Our only hope against Alabama is if both Tua and Jalen are too banged up to make enough plays. We could make it a tight game in that scenario. Not saying we'd win even then, but it'd be a closer game than it will if Tua is healthy.

Okay, confession time.. I never really paid attention to those of you who claimed Gus couldn't game plan after the first couple of "scripted" drives but it's finally sinking in when @StatTiger throws out these horrible statistics. He's relying on pure talent and one-on-one match-ups to make things happen for him instead of the other way around. I know we have Gus for another year or two (unless things get really bad) but if the man won't get an OC who he'll let actually run the offense, we're screwed. I'll even hop on the Hugh Freeze train if Gus will give over the entire offense to him, and that says A LOT from me because I don't want coaches at Auburn like him, Art Briles, Petrino, etc.

Since I'm too lazy to research it myself - anyone know how many routes we hit over the middle?

I don't know the numbers (maybe @StatTiger does) - but Deshaun Davis has passed Coach T-Will in career tackles! War Damn Deshaun!

I thought about that last night, probably around the time you were typing up this reply actually, that because it's an unsportsmanlike penalty then they are all treated separately. But just to clarify, if two or three guys jumped offsides or all lined up in the neutral zone at the same time, only one penalty is enforced correct?

@WarTiger - Care to expound a bit on this whole play? Was it really targeting? (I really don't think it was myself, but that's just my opinion.) And should the two LSU players involved in the celebratory unsportsmanlike penalty (basically an NFL-like celebration) both be called for the penalty or should it technically be "one" foul? I mean, State retains possession because of the "targeting" call and gains 45 yards on top of it!

I have this serious love/hate relationship with Stidham this season. My biggest gripe this week was his lack of "playing to win" and I think that can be said just about every week, but it stood out to me more this week. For example: third down and Stidham keeps the ball and takes off but instead of even trying to reach the 1st down marker (which he very likely would make) he gives up on the play and we end up with a 4th and 2. Or on other plays where he rolls/scrambles to the sideline he'd rather just run out of bounds (sometimes for a loss) instead of cutting up field for a couple of yards or at the very least, throwing the ball away. I think it's plays like these where people start assuming he's trying to avoid contact as much as possible. OR.. as this has suddenly occurred to me, perhaps his fumbling issues from last season (mostly when he DID keep the ball and run into contact) has made him overly cautious about attempting it this season. Hmm...

I meant accurate beyond 45 - he's definitely nailing anything shorter. But we both agree he doesn't need to keep attempting 50+ yard FGs, no matter what the issue is.

I believe Daniel was in town this weekend. Hopefully he was able to help Anders out some. It could be mental, but like I said, he's never been as accurate as Daniel though I think he has a far stronger leg.

I think they still stand with Gus. But I don't have a direct locker room connection this year (though I could ask). As for Anders.. he has never been accurate from beyond 45 as much as I've seen him warm up but Gus always asked Daniel where he felt comfortable that day. I can't believe he'd not do the same for Anders so I don't know whether to blame Gus or just feel bad for Anders wanting to prove he can make those kicks and continually missing. I do believe though at some point Gus has to say "I know you have the leg but let's give you a break from beyond 45 for now."

If we had an offensive line that was even average - we'd not be struggling so bad. It all starts up front and that's a total disaster for us this year. THAT I can see us putting blame on the coaches. We're not the team we were hoping to be but the coaches have at least gotten us in position to win those games despite the struggles. Also, think back to 2010 and even 2013 - we were certainly not the most complete teams then and needed some lucky plays to be great and get where we were at the end of the season. Yes, those offenses were definitely better, but they weren't exactly dominant either. They did however have a pretty good o-line. lol I think we are all wishing we'd have just given Gus a year or two extension. He might have us on a roller coaster as a program but he's done a good job regarding any NCAA and off the field issues and recruiting has been solid with him (except for o-line and QB unfortunately). The players love him too. Unfortunately, all that really matters to the majority of the fan base is the W-L column and that's certainly not where we wanted it to be at this point in the season.

I'm pretty sure I said he deserves criticism for various aspects of our offensive failures (staff, recruiting, possibly some play calling), but what I'm specifically annoyed with is when you know the mistakes are on the players (i.e. Stidham's horrible interceptions against TN) and we get a "Fire Gus!" Gus didn't kill that drive. He didn't throw that ball. I'm pretty sure we've all seen him get frustrated and say things like "Just throw it away!" instead of taking an unnecessary sack or forcing a bad throw that's picked off. Our offense was moving steadily down the field several times in recent weeks when suddenly there's a turnover or we have a wide open (for days) WR who is either vastly overthrown or is probably in so much shock the ball is right there that he actually drops it but all we hear is "Fire Gus" again. Auburn has gotten some pretty crappy breaks lately. We haven't been the offensive power we hoped to be and that's frustrating, but we have been in position (yes, thank you defense) and have had the plays dialed up to actually win these games (the exception maybe being LSU). But then Stidham overthrows the wide open receiver for a sure TD. Or Whitlow fumbles trying to dive into the end zone. Or Slayton drops what is probably a TD. The coaches call the plays but the players have to execute and you can't just blame Gus every time someone else f-cks up. Edit: Maybe this will help clarify what I'm saying - If Whitlow doesn't fumble that ball and Slayton catches that TD and Stidham connects on these wide open throws (all big IFs, I know) - we are possibly looking at a 6-1 record with a loss to a suddenly really hot LSU team and we wouldn't have a dozen different threads talking about firing Gus because we'd still be a top 10 team. Instead those things did not go our way, we're 4-3 and out of the Top 25, and everything is Gus' fault because Gus controls everything and everyone associated with Auburn football, his coaches can't work with him, his players hate him, and Gus doesn't give a damn because he's already paid.

I think that decision was just to make our offense more balanced. NM knew he wasn't going to be a QB in the NFL. I do 100% agree here. The dual threat QBs we have recruited just haven't worked out for us and Stidham, while he has great potential and can make throws all over the field when he has time to do so, just isn't the right fit for this offense. Or maybe it's not that he doesn't fit but the coaches are still keeping plays in there that do him no favors (like the zone read when you know he's going to hand the ball to the RB 98% of the time).

More like we got spoiled with Nick Marshall's ability to run it (and defenses lack of discipline to stop it). He was very good. And we actually had a pretty balanced offense back then so teams couldn't just put 7-8 in the box like they would do now if Malik Willis were to come in.

In addition to my responses within the quoted text - I have one more thing to add... I believe that CGM is getting a LOT of unnecessary hate due to the offensive struggles. Does he have to take the blame? Yes, he's the head coach and that's what they do. Is it partly his fault? Yes, he has to approve the recruits and he has to hire the coaches. But what infuriates me are those people who also think Gus is out there throwing those interceptions or putting the football on the turf. The changes we've seen on the offense the last two weeks have been for the better. We're spreading the ball around. We're getting the ball to play makers. We've had some nice runs. All of those things are the result of adjustments by the coaching staff to put us in better positions to be successful. What the coaching staff cannot do - is make every throw. They can't make Stidham throw the ball away or just take a sack instead of trying to make something from nothing and throw pick after pick that kills all of our momentum. They can't block the guy Horton/Troxell/Tega/Cox/Whitlow misses. They can't catch the damn near perfect deep ball that Stidham throws to Slayton. We apparently don't have a QB behind Stidham that can run our offense effectively. That's on Gus. We don't have the talent and experience we need on the o-line. That's on Gus (and Hand/Grimes). Some (not me) argue we don't have a legit RB. That'd be on Gus/Horton. But we have also been in position to win EVERY. SINGLE. GAME. even with an atrocious offensive line. Guess what? That's on the coaches too. They're doing their part to try and salvage what they can but at the end of the day, they aren't on the field. High expectations and sub-par results is unfortunately the Auburn way of life but it sure does bring out the worst in some people.

Too bad we didn't have this footage available for that goal line stop.