BigWhiskey91

I think in some ways we tried to go back that route even last year. I will say that I am highly encouraged by the way we attacked offensively in both the bowl game and spring game. I’ve said it before but I still can’t believe how much we threw the ball in the spring game. Gus has never done that while at Auburn. Not only that but we threw a lot vertically at that. If we keep that approach this fall and minimize how often we rotate personnel, you’re gonna see a fast explosive offense. Just have to hope for luck in the injury department. For some reason I have this bad feeling that our defense is going to have a drop off in performance. That being said, I’ll take a slight drop if it means our offense is lethal again.

Yup the only thing comparable between Omac and Worm is speed. I think Shivers needs way more touches. Dude has home run threat written all over him and has great instincts in between the tackles. It’s funny watching the film on him from last year because you can see the opposing LBs trying to spot him after the snap 😂

Honestly he does incorporate these items and they were outlined in some of his powerpoints from one of his coaching clinics when he was at Tulsa. He also likes to use the Mills concept (Post on the outside, Dig by the slot) as well. One of the items I liked that we started doing in short yardage/red zone was the introduction of a rub route. Part of the reason you haven’t seen us attacking the middle that often is because of his over protective focus on reducing turnovers. That being said, when teams would leave that area of the field un protected, we have attacked there. Washington was a huge example of this as they set their safety extremely deep so we ran posts and deep slants and had great production out of it. Sadly our red zone perfomance continues to struggle when the run game is absent.

What was sad was our offense was actually moving the ball well at times during the Tennessee game. Turnovers killed us. Stidham had a rough game that day to say the least!

And in the case of Purdue, a large part was our talent level being violently superior than theirs. So in essence we did what we were supposed to. That being said, it was refreshing to see with how that season had gone. IMO, idc who starts at QB. I just want to see limited personnel grouping changes to facilitate faster pace of play. Joined at HBack/RB/Slot is promising because it gives him a variety of attack options. He could be very dangerous on Wheel/Seam routes. If anyone is interested, I found a YouTube vid of a PowerPoint/film session that Gus gave at a coaching clinic after his 2007 season at Tulsa. It’s very in depth and fascinating honestly.

It’s really been an issue for Malzahns offense as a whole. In games where we score 30+ points, I believe we would see a large portion coming from explosive plays. But yeah I was just saying that maybe he was referring to the offense moving the ball as being productive. Ultimately points are points, but the offense started out 2019 looking good. Lots of intermediate routes and checksown options to the RB and H back. Then once we realized we couldn’t run the ball, things fell apart.

I think what he is saying is that the offense moved the ball very effectively throwing the ball in the first half. We could never get the run game going to compliment the passing attack we had going. We were never able to force UW to drop a safety into the box so they were playing a safety almost 25yds away from the line of scrimmage to take away our deep ball. That’s why early in the game you saw us ripping them apart between the 20s on back shoulders and skinny posts. But once we got to red zone they were able to compact our offense. If we cannot run the ball, our red zone offense has suffered, and it’s always been that way sadly.

Woaaaahhh. I’ll have to go back and look at that, but I didn’t see someone say Steele should be on the hot seat. That is absurd. I agree that the number of field goals attempted from 50+ was poor in hindsight and ultimately Gus stopped doing that. We had a late bye week this past season and I’ll have to go back and check but I believe those insane fg attempts stopped shortly after our bye. That being said, all the talk that spring from special teams was about how great Anders was looking. That being said, he did the same thing with Daniel as he was a weapon. It feeds into the thought that he tends to be less aggressive when he has other things to rely on. It’s almost like everything he hasn’t done in the last threee years was an attempt to reduce turnovers and just collect points when given the opportunity. That IMO would go against everything Gus was about when he was hired in 2009. I think that was why the bowl game was so refreshing. I get the opponent we faced, but we took deep shots on EVERY possession and kept the foot to the floor. It got to the point where Purdue fans boo’d Gus because he took timeouts to hit 50pts before half. Part of that seemed to transition over to spring as well. Idk if anyone has mentioned it, but we didn’t score a single rushing TD in the spring game. Almost all the impact/explosive plays came through the air. Easily the most exciting spring game in Gus’s time here.

Who exactly is saying that loss was exclusively on the defense? They aren’t the sole reason, but it was a team loss which does include them.

Ultimately I just want W’s. If that means we score only through special teams to beat someone, then I will take it. Doesn’t mean it’ll be pretty or I will like it. Im not blaming Steele at all. Hell, his system is like Gus’s on O in that it’s about simplicity and letting the boys play. When it comes to stopping the run, that’s about wanting to stop the run. Just like Gus couldn’t do much about Stidham overthrowing a WIDE open Slayton and whitlow fumbling going into the end zone. The miss state game was just a game of what could go wrong did go wrong.

Who is blaming the defense solely? If you look at StatTigers score card, I’m pretty sure all three phases failed. The offense was snoozing and missed out on the opportunities it had. The defense couldn’t stop the run and special teams had a missed FG and a turnover deep in our territory. None of those helped us win. Continuing to say the defense was fine it was everyone else’s fault isn’t logic.

Which is maddening. That’s why we see polar results from the offense. Rarely is it hot and then cold or cold then hot during a game unless it was on purpose. Whats further maddening is reading and watching some Malzahns offensive philosophy breakdowns and explanations. In his Tulsa break down, he mentioned “we are a passing team, we like to throw the ball to open the run. We want the DEs in rush mode and the LBs thinking pass”.

If you’re advocating that Malzahn should slow his offense down to protect his defense or change the way the offense is designed to attack, I don’t know what to tell you. The offense is design around generating impact/explosive plays. There are several things that go into facilitating the explosive play generation as well. Pace, repitition and execution. Slowing down the pace exposes some of the designed simplicity which makes the offense easier to defend. The only time you’re going to see a Malzahn offense chewing up clock, is when we are trying to get out of a game by running the ball to death. The DSOR did get flack on the O side of the ball. If you go back and look at the game thread for the iron bowl that year, several clowns were complaining about the red zone offense in that game too.

It was a 50yd fg, and prior he had just made a 47yd fg. He was a redshirt freshman and had hit from further away. Yes, field goals are attempted when the offense runs out of downs to move the ball. Be careful, if you keep grinding your axe, eventually you’ll run out of material.

It’s all about timing. The fumble before the end of the first half was crucial. Gave State a short field and they were able to max out and score a TD before half. Then the come out in the second half with a long drive and a FG. Auburn’s first 3 possessions in the second half totaled 177yds and should’ve been 13pts. The Whitlow fumble was crushing. Game would’ve been tied at that point. State responded by putting together two drives totaling 131yds, one ending in a missed fg and the last ending with a TD and 7 min off the clock.