BigWhiskey91

14 hours ago, McLoofus said:

A much more diplomatic way of saying it than mine was.

Interesting that you mention Tulsa. @bigbird has put forth the possibility that Gus might be trying to get back to those roots. Might not happen with Joey under center, but then again, maybe it could. Especially if the threat of Joey running opens stuff up downfield. If we have a healthy Stove and Hastings, then we are well positioned talent-wise to work linebackers to death Patriots-style. Not to mention a really, really poor man's version of- quick, somebody give me an alternative to Aaron Hernandez?- in Sal Canella. (Who was used effectively in that Washington game only to disappear from our offense like so many other things that work just fine everywhere else.)

Red zone. Man. We have *no* excuse not to be at least average in that department this year. None. 

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. 

1 hour ago, bigbird said:

if they had been used in similar fashion with similar play calling behind the same line, then possibly. Those 3 behind last year's line with the vanilla run plays and the inane amount of predictability wouldn't have fared well either. its an unfair comparison.  That said, give me Shivers over OMac and KMart over Fannin

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 😂 

11 hours ago, dyehardfanAU said:

Slant routes and levels would be nice complements to Gus' offense.  I will never understand his fear of passing across the middle.

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.

59 minutes ago, aujeff11 said:

Well you know there has to be some give and  take. There will be times when the defense gets a turnover and the offense doesn’t respond. There will also be times when the offense scores and the defense doesn’t take advantage. That’s football.

We both agree the offense deserves the majority of the blame, but that doesn’t absolve the other side for its own mistakes. The issues with the offense dominated the offseason, so it’s not like the offense is getting off with a pass. Harping on the offense for this particular game really doesn’t make any sense.

During the two game stretch of the Mississippi State- Tennessee games, the defense gave up on average 23 points and 410 yards. Yeah, that may be good enough to keep the team in the game sometimes, but when it’s against teams that formed the mudsill of offensive production in the SEC, it’s simply not good enough. 

 

 

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!

5 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

I think that mentality explains everything, honestly.

Fingers crossed that Purdue is the new truth. 

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.

4 minutes ago, DAG said:

This is all true . But I don’t see how that plays into how the defense reacted in that moment. That is an offensive issue. And it was an issue throughout the year. 

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.

7 minutes ago, DAG said:

What?! After the 1st quarter our offense was a shell of itself. 12 total points in 3 quarters. We were actually down halfway in the fourth quarter . That is the epitome of the defense picking up the slack to keep us in the game . The defense also made a crucial stop in the third quarter and caused a fumble when Washington was in the red zone. Come on now. Don’t argue just to argue. You legitimately can’t argue the defense was a big factor in us winning that game. And they were a big factor in us losing the Mississippi state game. But bigger than that, the offense had been inconsistent-throughout  last year. There is no denying that. Just like the defense was horribly inconsistent in 2014. There is no denying that .

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.

3 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

The person who I initially responded to said that Kevin Steele should have been on the hot seat for that game. He even said that our defense giving up yards against MSU and UT "cost us a good season". (The UT game was less defensible, no pun intended.)

In a game where we scored 9 points and our kicker went 3-4 and only missed from 50, then no that one missed kick is not really a special teams mistake to focus on. He had already missed several kicks from 50 or longer at that point in the season. Gus was making poor head coaching decisions. And that many long field goal attempts not only signify a sputtering offense, but also a defense that is repeatedly having to defend a shorter field, even if "only" shorter by 15-20 yards.

I also have mentioned the muffed punt several times. That was a special teams mistake (made by our best offensive player). But that further illustrates that too much was put on our defense's plate in that game. And the thing is, they still kept them out of the end zone. That was a failure by the stripes.

The defense came prepared to win that day, and they would have with just a little bit of help.

Some more fun numbers. Our offense had one possession the entire game that lasted longer than 2:30. Of our 10 offensive opportunities, 8 of them resulted in either a muffed punt or less than 96 seconds of possession. That's pretty bad unless you're scoring. 

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.

35 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

And exactly. The people who said that the Iron Bowl was the offense's fault that year were clowns just like the people who say that the Mississippi State game last year was the defense's fault are clowns. 

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.

6 minutes ago, DAG said:

All I know was the defense definitely did not live up to par during the Mississippi State. It sucks. However, it is a sad state of affairs when the defense has to be the one to bail the offense out CONSISTENTLY on a team whose head coach is an offensive mind. The whole point of team victories and losses is the need for balance. When the defense got blasted in the running game, this was the time the offense really needed to bail them out, sort of like what the defense did during the UW game. I think some people wanted the defense to bail the offense out every game. Well, unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Things like that hurt us in 2014 and caused someone to get fired.

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. 

4 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

Actually, a lot of teams punt when they're not in their kicker's range. Also, the entire point is that the offense couldn't move the ball but folks keep blaming the defense.

No need to be a smart ass. No axe grinding here. Just logic. 

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. 

2 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Which is what we've seen the last 4 years. The O never adjusted after the new substitution rules.

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”. 

11 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

Timing, exactly. Auburn's first 3 drives of the 2nd half also averaged less than 2 minutes each. Even when the offense participated they didn't give the defense much of a break. Contrast that against Tuberville not letting Steve Spurrier have the ball for an entire 3rd quarter one time. 

Yeah, MSU had a good drive out of the half. We still kept them out of the end zone. By the time they iced the game our guys had been on the field way too long. 

If the offense had gotten off the bus our defense would had a good outing minus an unusual number of rushing yards.

One thing that's funny is that Ellis Johnson's defense is universally blamed for the losses in 2014, except for the DSOR. Nobody ever says that offense should have just scored even more every week.

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.

20 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

No, it wasn't a major mistake, and it was Gus's decision to keep trotting our rookie kicker out for 50+ yd attempts the first half of the season because his offense couldn't move the ball.

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.

8 hours ago, McLoofus said:

The defense didn't play their best but they played well enough to win and almost certainly could have kept the MSU offense to much less painful numbers had the offense even made an attempt to stay on the field. Even most of our "long" drives in terms of yardage barely used up any clock. 

 

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. 

5 hours ago, McLoofus said:

Not to mention the only major mistake on special teams I can remember went right through the hands of our best wide receiver.

Not that it was a major mistake, but the missed 50yd fg didn’t do anyone any favors. 

Just now, gr82b4au said:

So Bo Nix only the 2nd 5* Qb we have signed in the Rivals era. The other was Cam.

Keep going!!!

Tonight was the most soulless unimaginative effort I’ve seen from both the players and coaches on offense. Their has to be something going on behind the scenes. We looked much better against Washington.

15 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

So who'd you have to fight? Did you have to tell some rapscallion to put up his dukes? Did you have to give a bit of the business to a no count ne'er-do-well?

Golf verbally fought me over some PBRs but not sure if he fought anyone else.

55 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

I believe my exact words (of hope) early on were "Corey Grant with hips and vision". Somebody will probably say "Corey Grant weighed 200-205." Okay. I stand with Worm and Whiskey. 

At 5’ 7”, Worm is still comparable. This is an awful metric but Grant at 205 gives him a 2.9 Lb/inch density. Worm at 180lbs would give him a 2.7 Lb/inch density. A 6’ 2” 225lb back would have a 3.0 Lb/inch density. 

FWIW, Kam Martin at 195 gives him a 2.8lb/inch density so I think we’re okay!

2 minutes ago, WFE12 said:

I do wonder how many chance he will even get to run up the middle. Gus might strictly use him for outside runs at the this first season.

Maybe it’s my brain forcing the comparison but I picture him being a Corey Grant that’s better between the tackles. Hope we get to see him on the return team too.

4 minutes ago, AUIH1 said:

We will sign enough talent in this class other than OL to win championships.  It all comes down to coaching.

wde

Hopefully a GT on the OL could add to that talent though!