Shoney'sPonyBoy

Well, then you win the internet. Congratulations!

I don't think it was "prevent" that was responsible for the increased production. If you go back and look, most of the throws he made were contested by DBs playing right on the WR in man. What the end of the game showed me is that Thorne can be effective with a short passing attack. Why we don't run it until the game is out of reach, I have no idea.

Been saying the same thing for weeks now. And they did that Saturday...once, early in the game. Might even have been the 1st possession. I would be doing it every play he was on the field. It solves the problem of the pocket collapsing, Ashford throws better when he's moving than he does when he's standing still, and they have to worry about both threats in that scenario, it gets him out of traffic into a more open field environment where his elusiveness can he helpful, etc.

I will respectfully disagree. If he was doing that people would be calling him "stubborn, inflexible, etc." and roasting him worse. I have no problem with him departing from the script...we're in an unusual situation and it wouldn't really be all that reasonable to expect to NOT have to depart from the script IMO. I don't think he's adapting well, however. I don't think his attempts to try something different are working out well so far.

I went into the OM game wanting to see Ashford play more and I came out of the game satisfied to keep seeing him less. And the difference I saw was this: When Thorne is in the game there are at least two elements that defenses are somewhat uncertain about. They think he might actually throw the ball, and they don't expect him to run it so they are always caught off guard when he keeps it on the zone read, and he has room to run when he drops back to pass b/c they are actually defending the pass. When Ashford is in the game everyone...EVERY. ONE. knows what's coming on every play. So it's not that I think that Thorne is playing so much better than Ashford, it's that I don't think we can/will use Ashford in a productive manner. We're going to trot him out there with a sign around his neck that says "I'm about to run the ball," and rely on his athleticism to produce anyway despite the fact that the defense automatically spies him. Terry Bowden used to do the same thing with Dameyune Craig before he became the starter and it used to make me want to beat his hiney. Now Freeze does it with Ashford. So if that's how we're going to use him, sure, I'd rather see Thorne. Of course, what I would rather see is us figure out what defenses expect and try to utilize what we've got to exploit the opposite when Ashford is in the game like we do when Thorne is in the game (to some extent, at least), but that doesn't seem to be something we think we can/should do, so...

I think "they" mean championship caliber defense win championships, not any defense with a pulse win championships.

I think Freeze doing this is great—we should be doing anything we can think of to deal with the dire personnel situation we've got. However, I don't think in general a coach NOT doing this is being derelict in duty. It's actually a pretty extraordinary thing to do (in a good way) and by definition nothing that anyone should expect. Professors or student advisors don't call every student's parents in their classes/under their advisement and the education part of all of this is supposed to be the more important part. Plus, people weren't nearly as soft even 15 years ago.

It's interesting how tone deaf you are to the fact that us not having the talent level we'd like and the fact that Freeze doesn't seem to have made the most of the talent he does have are two different things.

This type of thinking is reflective of the societal narrative that has trended since social media came about that says that everyone's opinions are equally valid. Everyone's opinions are NOT equally valid. Some opinions are backed up by sound reasoning, facts, etc., and others are not. The poster to whom you are replying may have very good, logical reasons for feeling like the PROBABILITY that the outcome would have been different (better) had the two QB system been instituted differently. Of course, the possibility also exists that he may not have those logical reasons. None of us know without him explaining his reasoning. But what I DO know is that the fact that the future is unknowable does not negate the general reality that some outcomes are more likely than others in any given situation and very often can be predicted with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Was that whining? I thought it was a simple observation and an ironic parting comment.

That sure is a lot of whining about other people whining. Funny how that always seems to happen.

This.

SUPERFANISM isn't synonymous with positivity—it's more about fans who think college football is about something important than what it is (a form of show business entertainment) virtue signaling that they have superior character and loyalty—and I don't think we have any effect at all on recruiting online. I think recruits taking visits at the game need to see an exciting atmosphere and a full stadium, but I doubt many recruits are lurking on this board reading posts. And if they are, they're seeing exactly the same thing on every other losing team's fan board in the country. I agree that there is no reasonable approach to our situation except to give it some time. But I also understand why people are underwhelmed so far. I'm not real impressed myself so far.

This. And this is what concerns me about Freeze. I get it that he doesn't have what he needs to really do much yet. But he's been very disappointing IMO so far about making the best use of what he's got. The end of the game demonstrated that we could have utilized a dink-dunk short passing game all night last night. Instead we went into the fourth quarter with only 6 attempts and 5 passing yards. We rolled Robbie Ashford out on a run-pass option once...ONCE last night. I would do that with him every play he's in the game. Even if it's just to loosen up the defense so that the running game will be more effective...how many games do we think we can win averaging 2 passing attempts per quarter? Whether people like it or not, recruiting is largely in the hands of fundraisers now, so Freeze doesn't 100% control his own destiny when it comes to getting the players he wants/needs to do what he'd like to do. And I don't have any real knowledge about how we stack up against other teams when it comes to dishing out NIL money—so this may not be the case at all—but it would be a very Auburn thing to do to have a faction of old white boosters who resent paying players and who would rather sabotage or neglect that process just to prove they could rather than lean into and pay for the players we need. We should be offering more money than anyone else in the conference right now given the ground we've got to make up. If we're not, then Freeze is going to have to learn how to make do with what he's got a whole lot better than he has demonstrated the ability to do so far.

I love a good SUPERFAN post/thread.

Yeah, you couldn't see downfield given the camera angle, but I don't believe that no one was open. I think Thorne can't anticipate when receivers are about to get open. And by the time they ARE open he hesitates to throw it and the window of opportunity closes.

It's not good. But it's understandable.

This is what I think. He doesn't need the money or the notoriety—he's already got both. And I think he sees his role in the historically black schools as a leader participating in a movement.

I don't think that's what it would mean. It might mean we were witnessing the biggest thrown game in history. It might mean 3/4 of the UGA team were out with COVID. It might mean we should be watching for the StayPuff Marshmallow Man to rampage through town any minute. But it wouldn't mean we were wrong about Harsin.

They just wanted it more than we did. The loss, that is.

Honestly I don't remember all the details. The gist of it is that the reason he left after one year in a three year contract that was unusually generous for a coordinator is because he had personality conflicts with...someone (I really don't remember the full story). That despite the fact that it would have been in his best interest to work out that contract and THEN try to find another HC position he aggressively searched and took the first thing he could find to get out as quick as he could. And he reportedly made some sort of show of leaving and insulted Auburn on his way out the door in some way. But really, that's not the big reason I wouldn't hire him. He's just not a good HC.

There's really no reason to think that. Muschamp as a head coach fields much weaker defenses than Muschamp the DC. At Florida his defenses ranked top ten in total team defense only once. His season rankings were 21st, 5th, 15th, 20th. At South Carolina the highest they ever ranked was 25th and the majority of the years he was there they were ranked in the 50s and 60s, and the last year they were ranked 109th. The defenses got worse every year he was there. Similarly, he started out recruiting lights-out at UF. But his 3rd and 4th class dropped from 3rd in 2011 and 2012 to 9th and then 21st his last year. At USCe he hovered right around 20th in recruiting every year he was there. I think Muschamp would be a bad hire for three reasons. 1. He's a bad HC. He may be a great DC, but he's a bad HC. Two different skills sets. 2. I think we need an offensive specialist, not a defensive one. 3. The way he went about leaving Auburn the last time was very jerky. Clearly there is someone associated with the program he can't get along with. I think we'd be guaranteeing problems of that kind by hiring him again.

Yes. If there was a reason for Auburn fans to be familiar enough with a man to spell his name correctly when there are at least 8 different ways his name could be spelled (that I can think of off the top of my head), then we definitely would.

Yeah, but when you think about championship teams—even some of the dominant ones uat has put up over the past 15 years—they usually have at least one game a season in which everything goes wrong and they have to hang on by their fingernails to survive that one game. Our 2010 team had a few of those. Hell, we didn't win against Kentucky that year so much as they lost. Same with MSU. Yet we were able to beat good uat and Oregon teams to win the title. In 2013 we had two miracle plays in one season to make the title game. Anyway, the point is that when you play in a harder conference the chances that you don't survive those "survival games" to get a chance to play a top opponent in the championship game are higher. As are the chances of injury to key players over the course of a season.

Some of us may not have realized that. I know I didn't. I honestly chose Kiffen because none of the names on the list really excite me, I thought (wrongly, it seems) that Kiffen did attract talent, and he seems to be innovative offensively, which is the best way in today's version of the game to make up for lack of talent while we're rebuilding it. I don't know who we need to hire. For some reason it seems like the list of coaches who would be considered great hires is smaller than it has been in the past.