au302

Hard to take away much, but a few things. - Tate looks really athletic out there. Too early to tell how he'll turn out, but he's got more upside than Brahms. - After sleeping on it, TJ does look better in his accuracy, but it's gonna be hard, understandably, for Hars/Keys to stomach those decisions. Competition is good. - Sideline ops were a lot smoother. Ike was intense and running the WR ship tight. Last year we had massive issues with having the right receivers, or even enough, in the game at one time. Bedell is also an intense dude and I love it. - Kiesau showed me that he is a student of the game. Will he be a good OC? Not sure, as our personnel is still bad on offense, but you can tell he's worked under a diverse tree of coaches. In other words, he's not really a disciple of any tree. He's worked for pro-style coaches, spread coaches, etc. His play design on some plays was fantastic. Way more dynamic in the run game too than last year. - Cam Riley can be that dude. Was not expecting that from him, even vs Mercer. Still impressed. Willing to say that he may be better than OP. WR's- Aside from Ike running a tight ship, they played faster. Can't take away much about certain guys not getting touches, etc since Hars/Keys were trying to work it in slowly. Not much to go around with how the game flowed. They'll be tested a lot more in the coming weeks. Var Johnson is really good though. - Defense was fine. Feel better about LB's. They were tweaking with the secondary with all the new bodies. A lot of young bodies that took some rookie lumps. I expect to see these units continue to improve. We have the bodies and athleticism. Scott and James are good and will give Pritchett a big run for his money here. -Overall it was well-organized, albeit not a great test. The team looks more in sync than last year. I think Harsin and Kiesau are good X/O coaches. It's really just a matter on if they can survive long enough to get their personnel fully stabilized imo.

I think we are more talented in several areas, notably receiver. DB was shaky, but a lot of it was young guys in their first ever action making rookie mistakes. Only one that played bad who was experienced was Pritchett. QB is what it is. Last year TJ got thrown in a bad situation and was not set up for success. That's not to excuse him, but it's true. But tonight there is no excuse. I could tell Harsin and Kiesau were trying to ease him in, and they made things relatively easy. He simply did not see the field and made some dumb decisions. Would be catastrophic vs a good team.

The appeal of Finley was leadership, getting everyone lined up, and keeping the ball clean. Basically a game manager. I don't know. I really like TJ as a person, but if he can't keep the ball clean his appeal is gone and Harsin gets driven nuts by that stuff, as does any coach.

He's got the mentality. That deep ball was the best one I've seen here in years. Question is can he execute intermediate game? I still think Calzada needs a series or two just to see if he's a gamer. At the very least, we have a full blown QB controversy

This ain't the days of having Cord Sandberg, Grant Loy, Chayil Garnett, and even Dematrius Davis on the sidelines folks! We have at least backup caliber options now. Love him or hate him Harsin is not one to play favorites. If a starter ain't cutting it, he's gonna give another guy a shot.

QB aside I'd like to give Kiesau some props. I know it's Mercer and their D isn't the hardest to prepare for, but I'm impressed with some of these play designs

Harsin is not playing around this year. Apparently Ashford and Calzada were taking snaps on the sideline while TJ was standing around. He's gotta leave no stones unturned this year

That ball was perfectly placed. Right in the basket. We have not seen that sexy of a deep ball since maybe Stidham

I would at least like to see Calzada get some snaps. Support TJ, but need to have all options open right now

Lot to like, lot not to like. Need to see this second half and see how we come out

I agree but think it's telling that this is his first game with multiple interceptions since 2020. He didn't have one with us last year. Think it shows that Harsin and co actually did a pretty damn good job, albeit quietly, with him last year. Really damn good job

Bates ain't the only former player to call out our boosters. Cubelic did it too back in February. He says an AD gotta make compromises from the beginning with these boosters to avoid future power struggles. His examples... "No booster I cannot allow you to call the plays, but I will get you a headset. It won't have a mic so you can't talk, but you'll hear everything the coaches are saying." "No booster I cannot get you a locker in the players locker room, but I'll have a custom made replica sent to your office so that you can dress up and play the fight song before work" "No booster I cannot have Coach Harsin have Sunday brunch after every game, but I'll make him go to Sunday brunch with you after 3 or so games this year." "No booster I cannot have Coach Harsin send you a goodnight text every night of the week, but I'll have him send one 3 nights a week."

Dilly Dilly offense too simplistic. Gus 2.0. Nix only got 2 reads max and is thus locking in on guys. UGA secondary too smart and talented for that, and thus, that second pick.

Think he's running outta options. UGA got sick of him as OC, failed miserably as MWC HC at CSU, and then got canned after a year as P5 OC. His only options may have been to take a G5 OC job or P5 analyst position. With his son a freshman, it makes sense. Then maybe he can convince Kirby to promote him to OC if/when Monken moves on.

Wish all of them well, but I've moved on and ready to support our players this season.

Jimbo in the same mold as Gus, Bobo, Derek Mason, etc. Very good coaches a decade ago, but have been passed up a bit, and are too stubborn to adapt. That said Jimbo still got a ton of talent on both sides of the ball, so they'll win a lot due to that.

Was thinking about that last night. The most talented WR Gus left us did not even get a catch, as he appears to be at least 3rd on the depth chart over there. Guys like MAR, Gatewood, Lee Hunter, etc. still aren't getting any run. Basically he thinks the guys he recruited here in the SEC are not even G5 caliber.

And we made him look like Tom Brady. I guess a lot of college QB's will look like that though when you put absolutely zero pressure on them. Dude had all day.

Wow. Looks like Derek Mason had an embarrassing debut, to put it kindly. Their fans are already calling for him to be canned. Said he made no adjustments all night. Their QB tore them up. Having PTSD just reading their comments.

It appears you have not read my posts in this thread. I literally told the guy that I thought it was horrible to tear down a good Auburn man in ex-ADAG's character on his way out with a bunch of unfounded rumors about him showing up to work or not. Multiple things can be disturbing to a person at once.

What I think is disturbing is that we assume each others races on the internet. That just seems like a dangerous can of worms to open and unfair thing to do. We don't know the racial breakdown of this board. It could be 90% white/10% other, 70/30, 50/50, etc.

Pink says Sorey will be coming into town this weekend. Overall it's a quiet one though before slowly picking up next weekend and then a massive recruiting weekend for Penn State. Things are slowly heating up. JLee and co putting in flip prediction for Tyler Scott, and prediction for Adam Hopkins. WR haul fixing to be really good if we get him. Also a lot of buzz with Colton Hood. Zach is a beast. Plus, JLee says a player reached out and told him he's planning on committing to us next week before SJSU. He asked JLee not to give any info on who he could be, and Jlee is of course respecting that.

TJ Finley and Tate Johnson. How they play and work together leading the offense and OL respectively. Specifically, looking at TJ's mechanics and decision making closely, and need to see him throw the deep ball well. Looking at Tate to see if he plays mean and calls the right protections.

Catching up. There were some really good points brought up in these past few pages, but I've noticed that there seems to be a disturbing trend of assumptions of the racial demographics of this message board. Unless there was a poll question posted at some point asking everyone to identify their race, we don't know the breakdown. This is an anonymous message board. It's faceless. Assuming each others races is a very dangerous thing to do, imho.

Where is your proof? If you have some and can provide it, I'll gladly accept it and change my tune. And not "an insider/my sources said so". Until then it has not merit.