FoundationEagle 637 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 I'm disappointed in the Auburn fans that are so quick to turn on Muschamp because he took over a bad D and hasn't made the miraculous improvement they were all hoping for after only 6 games in. Give the man some time. He knows what he's doing. The offense is sputtering still, but has shown signs of life, especially with the youngsters and Barber. Things will get better, but maybe not much better this season. We have a lot of holes to fill in on both sides of the ball. War Eagle gentlemen! Honestly, the defense has been horrendous for the first half of the season. However, there seemed to be alot of positive signs in the KY game. They didnt show up in the stats so much, but the D-Line and LBs had a much better game overall. They had some breakdowns, but there was actual pass rush which CEJ could never manage last year with the same guys. Dbs are doing well at man coverage now, still need ALOT of work on zone awareness. As noted several places in this thread, it seemed as though the proverbial light started to come on. I expect improvement in all areas weekly from here on out. The trouble with the defense this year was a mentality had to be changed. It's like the old saying, it gets darkest just before the light. Well, it got very dark between LSU and San Jose St. It was at the point of extreme darkness that people starting jumping ship because the light seemed so far away. Then those of us that were hanging on by a thread (myself included) saw a glimpse of the light against KY and climbed back on ship. More will rejoin the ship over the next several games and most will be on board next year if I had to guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thaitopher 807 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 I'm disappointed in the Auburn fans that are so quick to turn on Muschamp because he took over a bad D and hasn't made the miraculous improvement they were all hoping for after only 6 games in. Give the man some time. He knows what he's doing. The offense is sputtering still, but has shown signs of life, especially with the youngsters and Barber. Things will get better, but maybe not much better this season. We have a lot of holes to fill in on both sides of the ball. War Eagle gentlemen! Honestly, the defense has been horrendous for the first half of the season. However, there seemed to be alot of positive signs in the KY game. They didnt show up in the stats so much, but the D-Line and LBs had a much better game overall. They had some breakdowns, but there was actual pass rush which CEJ could never manage last year with the same guys. Dbs are doing well at man coverage now, still need ALOT of work on zone awareness. As noted several places in this thread, it seemed as though the proverbial light started to come on. I expect improvement in all areas weekly from here on out. The trouble with the defense this year was a mentality had to be changed. It's like the old saying, it gets darkest just before the light. Well, it got very dark between LSU and San Jose St. It was at the point of extreme darkness that people starting jumping ship because the light seemed so far away. Then those of us that were hanging on by a thread (myself included) saw a glimpse of the light against KY and climbed back on ship. More will rejoin the ship over the next several games and most will be on board next year if I had to guess. I will be a very happy man if your prediction comes true. it may be hard to see the actual results on the field when we play A&M since its offense is so potent, but the other games (especially Arkansas) I would hope to see improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUApostle 7,651 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Da Vinci couldn't paint the Mona Lisa with mud and toilet paper. Bingo BS...I bet he'd come close...and it would be better than anything else the other painters of his time could do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FoundationEagle 637 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Da Vinci couldn't paint the Mona Lisa with mud and toilet paper. Bingo BS...I bet he'd come close...and it would be better than anything else the other painters of his time could do. Has it gotten so bad on this board that we argue over what DaVinci could have done with what? Good grief I'm really hoping this is a tongue in cheek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strychnine 1,802 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Muschamp so far? Way, way, way, way better than expected. Every AU fan should be very happy. If the offense would have shown up we could have been 5-1 at worst. When we get a real OC AU will be much better. Hope that any school will hire RL. Could the NFL be calling GM? Hope so. Why? Into the 3rd year and the eye candy offense is just that eye candy. Every DC can see that we run the same few plays with the same keys. We put a man in motion that almost always runs away from the direction of the play. Hmmm? One less blocker and a key as to where the play is going. That is hard to grasp for DCs that have been studying film for 20 years. GM's offense only works when AU has a QB with 4.3 speed and can pass. Hmmm? All you have to do is recruit one Heisman candidate to come play the zone read rather than a pro-style offense. How is that working this year? How many of the 128 schools have one of those? Any? This team has talent and some heart. Coaching staff is sorely lacking on offense. We should be averaging 40 a game. If you play scared, kicking field goal after field goal in the red zone!!!, it infects the entire team. Takes more than one trick to be at the top in the SEC West. It has only cost us $10,000,000+ to figure this out. JJ should have really opened up the check book in 2013 and signed a proven winner. He was only $100,000,000 and 160 miles away. We would have 2 more NC, another Heisman winner, and the toothless group would be crying in their warm beer in the back of their red pickups with their sisters. Insufficient Titan. This is more appropriate: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strychnine 1,802 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 I'm disappointed in the Auburn fans that are so quick to turn on Muschamp because he took over a bad D and hasn't made the miraculous improvement they were all hoping for after only 6 games in. Give the man some time. He knows what he's doing. The offense is sputtering still, but has shown signs of life, especially with the youngsters and Barber. Things will get better, but maybe not much better this season. We have a lot of holes to fill in on both sides of the ball. War Eagle gentlemen! Considering that the last time I had real faith in an Auburn defense was also the last time Muschamp was here, I think anyone that was expecting a miracle in the offseason was way too optimistic. The defense has not really surprised me, aside from holding Mississippi State to 17. The sputtering offense has been the surprise. Every game played would have been winnable (including LSU) if the offense performed as it was expected to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger 8,818 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Statistically the D has been bad but minus the LSU game the number of points the D has given up in each game (100% the only stat that truly matters) should never be a problem to surpass with a normal Gus offense. I don't see a whole lot of people on here realizing that (I see you up there Strychnine!). Yes we embarrassingly give up 3rd and 15+ routinely and tackle poorly and have zero pass rush but we somehow keep them out of the endzone enough times that in every single year except for 2011 a Gus led offense should be able to exceed the number of points that the D is surrendering. IN SPITE of how poorly the D has played from a yardage standpoint. This was not the case under Ellis Johnson, as last year of the 5 losses four of them can be pinned on the defense being worse than the offense was good. And our offense was pretty damn good last season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strychnine 1,802 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Statistically the D has been bad but minus the LSU game the number of points the D has given up in each game (100% the only stat that truly matters) should never be a problem to surpass with a normal Gus offense. I don't see a whole lot of people on here realizing that (I see you up there Strychnine!). Yes we embarrassingly give up 3rd and 15+ routinely and tackle poorly and have zero pass rush but we somehow keep them out of the endzone enough times that in every single year except for 2011 a Gus led offense should be able to exceed the number of points that the D is surrendering. IN SPITE of how poorly the D has played from a yardage standpoint. This was not the case under Ellis Johnson, as last year of the 5 losses four of them can be pinned on the defense being worse than the offense was good. And our offense was pretty damn good last season. I think even the LSU game would have turned more in Auburn's favor had they been able to answer LSU's early strikes, and definitely would have ended up close enough that Auburn had the chance to win it. The QB can't throw for only 100 yards, AND be the leading rusher with only 41 yards, AND win in Tiger Stadium when you let LSU rush for over 400 yards. LSU's offense would have been surmountable if Auburn's offense played as it should. Defense might have stepped up some too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger 8,818 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Statistically the D has been bad but minus the LSU game the number of points the D has given up in each game (100% the only stat that truly matters) should never be a problem to surpass with a normal Gus offense. I don't see a whole lot of people on here realizing that (I see you up there Strychnine!). Yes we embarrassingly give up 3rd and 15+ routinely and tackle poorly and have zero pass rush but we somehow keep them out of the endzone enough times that in every single year except for 2011 a Gus led offense should be able to exceed the number of points that the D is surrendering. IN SPITE of how poorly the D has played from a yardage standpoint. This was not the case under Ellis Johnson, as last year of the 5 losses four of them can be pinned on the defense being worse than the offense was good. And our offense was pretty damn good last season. I think even the LSU game would have turned more in Auburn's favor had they been able to answer LSU's early strikes, and definitely would have ended up close enough that Auburn had the chance to win it. The QB can't throw for only 100 yards, AND be the leading rusher with only 41 yards, AND win in Tiger Stadium when you let LSU rush for over 400 yards. LSU's offense would have been surmountable if Auburn's offense played as it should. Defense might have stepped up some too. Yup it definitely goes hand in hand. A more productive offensive output would've kept the LSU O off of the field for longer stretches. I'm also a believer in the D being more engaged if the O is helping them out on their side of the ball. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
auburnatl1 4,874 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 The only thing I fault Muschamp and Gus for is not better managing preseason expectations. (Plus the media hype around 3 players - JJ, Lawson, and Duke, all panning out to be 1st round talents - and heathy - was always a pipe dream). That being said this is a nationally respected, innovative, and high caliber coaching staff. They'll grow from this season. Anyone calling for heads needs to switch to decaf and immediately seek professional help. If we do lose to Arky, good luck and thank you to the mods. I'll revisit the board again in December. Got a feeling that the 10% crazies of our fan base will be doing 90% of the posts for the remainder of the season. I'll skip that phase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
auburn4ever 1,266 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Can Muschamp's defense stop Arkansas' running game? We've been having an awful time stopping the run all season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger 8,818 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 I keep seeing people saying Gus/WM should've managed expectations. How? "Coach, you have a Heisman candidate at QB and are ranked #6 this pre-season. You must be feeling pretty confident about the season." CGM: "Actually we are very average this year and the Heisman candidate is actually not even the best QB on our roster and he tries to read defenses with his eyes closed. But he's got this throw the ball backwards 18 yards thing down pat" Is that the type of response people wanted? I really don't get it. What is he supposed to say? He certainly mentioned we are young and will go through growing pains. He said JJ has a chance to be very good QB. He wasn't going to throw the team under the bus before a single snap. If he tried to state truths it would go directly against what they are telling HS kids on the recruiting trail. I personally think some people are mad that they bought the pre-season hype and now have to answer to their co-workers at the water cooler after thumping their chest all summer long about how JJ was an All-American, Muschamp will to turn the atrocious defense around in 8 months, and how AU was going to win the SEC and now are wishing Gus told them "don't do that" without forcing people to read between the lines or actually looking at our roster and the potential pitfalls that could've come up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
auburnatl1 4,874 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 oI keep seeing people saying Gus/WM should've managed expectations. How? "Coach, you have a Heisman candidate at QB and are ranked #6 this pre-season. You must be feeling pretty confident about the season." CGM: "Actually we are very average this year and the Heisman candidate is actually not even the best QB on our roster and he tries to read defenses with his eyes closed. But he's got this throw the ball backwards 18 yards thing down pat" No. That would not be a good response. However, there were many, many media opportunities to gracefully and consistently downplay the hype. The bottom line, in any profession, when there is such a MASSIVE difference between reality and expectations (if you know there is) - something, somewhere, some how could probably have been handled just a little better. IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homersapien 11,357 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 I agree. CGM totally mishandled expectations. I assume he will learn from it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger 8,818 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Maybe I'm missing where he actually hyped our team up. During his pre-season interviews it seemed like he was using the same old coachspeak vague non-committal responses and literally said we are young and there would be growing pains. What else could he have done? If he said we aren't worthy of a top 6 ranking that would have looked pretty bad as well and would've hurt us even more in recruiting. I'm not challenging anyone I'm just curious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AuburnNTexas 7,133 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Statistically the D has been bad but minus the LSU game the number of points the D has given up in each game (100% the only stat that truly matters) should never be a problem to surpass with a normal Gus offense. I don't see a whole lot of people on here realizing that (I see you up there Strychnine!). Yes we embarrassingly give up 3rd and 15+ routinely and tackle poorly and have zero pass rush but we somehow keep them out of the endzone enough times that in every single year except for 2011 a Gus led offense should be able to exceed the number of points that the D is surrendering. IN SPITE of how poorly the D has played from a yardage standpoint. This was not the case under Ellis Johnson, as last year of the 5 losses four of them can be pinned on the defense being worse than the offense was good. And our offense was pretty damn good last season. Tiger you are correct. Statistics also don't tell the whole story. We had good run defense against Miss. State and KY. I know everybody sees total yards but if you tale away the one big run early. KY averaged less than 3 yards a carry. That is very solid. A few times if DB turned around instead of pass interference we get interceptions because the DB was where he should have been last year they were not in position to interfere or turn around aand make interception. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strychnine 1,802 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 I agree. CGM totally mishandled expectations. I assume he will learn from it. I believe he had good reason to assume that the expectations had merit. In hindsight, he and many others were clearly wrong. No one expected JJ's interception festival that started the season. If anyone did, they were an extreme minority. There was absolutely no reason to believe that by the Kentucky game, Auburn would have been taken to OT against an FCS team in Jordan-Hare, blown out by LSU, failed to score a single TD at home against Mississippi State, JJ end up being benched in favor of a freshman, Duke largely MIA in a few games he played in, or that Duke would have been kicked off the team. It wasn't Gus pouring tall glasses of Kool-Aid that led me to buy in to those expectations, and I don't think anything he said affected the preseason ranking either. The sports media world talked about JJ all last season too. Based on their observations from an admittedly limited sample size, they had good reason to. Who envisioned that a lack of offensive production and scoring would be the reason that Auburn under Gus would lose two games early? The poor play of the team (mostly the offense) falls squarely on the coaches, and that definitely includes Gus. I also think Gus and the rest of the staff should have seen this coming, and I'm not sure whether they actually did or not (that does leave me concerned). I don't blame Gus for the expectations or how they were handled. I've never seen Gus animated enough in any press conference to accuse him of being a hype machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AU64 10,122 Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 I agree. CGM totally mishandled expectations. I assume he will learn from it. I believe he had good reason to assume that the expectations had merit. In hindsight, he and many others were clearly wrong. No one expected JJ's interception festival that started the season. If anyone did, they were an extreme minority. There was absolutely no reason to believe that by the Kentucky game, Auburn would have been taken to OT against an FCS team in Jordan-Hare, blown out by LSU, failed to score a single TD at home against Mississippi State, JJ end up being benched in favor of a freshman, Duke largely MIA in a few games he played in, or that Duke would have been kicked off the team. It wasn't Gus pouring tall glasses of Kool-Aid that led me to buy in to those expectations, and I don't think anything he said affected the preseason ranking either. The sports media world talked about JJ all last season too. Based on their observations from an admittedly limited sample size, they had good reason to. Who envisioned that a lack of offensive production and scoring would be the reason that Auburn under Gus would lose two games early? The poor play of the team (mostly the offense) falls squarely on the coaches, and that definitely includes Gus. I also think Gus and the rest of the staff should have seen this coming, and I'm not sure whether they actually did or not (that does leave me concerned). I don't blame Gus for the expectations or how they were handled. I've never seen Gus animated enough in any press conference to accuse him of being a hype machine. Boy do I disagree with the bold statement...we had lost the entire backfield and a total of 26+ seniors/juniors from a 5 loss team and we were going to be better this year? That just never sounded realistic.....JMO but there was probably some other reason for the overly optimistic commentary.....not sure what that might have been however. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homersapien 11,357 Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 I agree. CGM totally mishandled expectations. I assume he will learn from it. I believe he had good reason to assume that the expectations had merit. In hindsight, he and many others were clearly wrong. No one expected JJ's interception festival that started the season. If anyone did, they were an extreme minority. There was absolutely no reason to believe that by the Kentucky game, Auburn would have been taken to OT against an FCS team in Jordan-Hare, blown out by LSU, failed to score a single TD at home against Mississippi State, JJ end up being benched in favor of a freshman, Duke largely MIA in a few games he played in, or that Duke would have been kicked off the team. It wasn't Gus pouring tall glasses of Kool-Aid that led me to buy in to those expectations, and I don't think anything he said affected the preseason ranking either. The sports media world talked about JJ all last season too. Based on their observations from an admittedly limited sample size, they had good reason to. Who envisioned that a lack of offensive production and scoring would be the reason that Auburn under Gus would lose two games early? The poor play of the team (mostly the offense) falls squarely on the coaches, and that definitely includes Gus. I also think Gus and the rest of the staff should have seen this coming, and I'm not sure whether they actually did or not (that does leave me concerned). I don't blame Gus for the expectations or how they were handled. I've never seen Gus animated enough in any press conference to accuse him of being a hype machine. Well, by "managing expectations", I didn't mean to imply that Gus was the one responsible "hyping" the press. Other than that, it sounds like we agree. A coach should manage expectations even if he personally believes they are high. And you alluded to the reason why: you can be wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AU64 10,122 Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 I agree. CGM totally mishandled expectations. I assume he will learn from it. I believe he had good reason to assume that the expectations had merit. In hindsight, he and many others were clearly wrong. No one expected JJ's interception festival that started the season. If anyone did, they were an extreme minority. There was absolutely no reason to believe that by the Kentucky game, Auburn would have been taken to OT against an FCS team in Jordan-Hare, blown out by LSU, failed to score a single TD at home against Mississippi State, JJ end up being benched in favor of a freshman, Duke largely MIA in a few games he played in, or that Duke would have been kicked off the team. It wasn't Gus pouring tall glasses of Kool-Aid that led me to buy in to those expectations, and I don't think anything he said affected the preseason ranking either. The sports media world talked about JJ all last season too. Based on their observations from an admittedly limited sample size, they had good reason to. Who envisioned that a lack of offensive production and scoring would be the reason that Auburn under Gus would lose two games early? The poor play of the team (mostly the offense) falls squarely on the coaches, and that definitely includes Gus. I also think Gus and the rest of the staff should have seen this coming, and I'm not sure whether they actually did or not (that does leave me concerned). I don't blame Gus for the expectations or how they were handled. I've never seen Gus animated enough in any press conference to accuse him of being a hype machine. Well, by "managing expectations", I didn't mean to imply that Gus was the one responsible "hyping" the press. Other than that, it sounds like we agree. A coach should manage expectations even if he personally believes they are high. And you alluded to the reason why: you can be wrong. I guess this was all about marketing...selling tickets, etc. Auburn Fast !....that turned out to be a joke for certain and Gus did nothing to "temper" expectations, no matter where that irrational exuberance originated. Still, anyway you look at it...back in August there were way too many unknowns to be hyping our QB or the team. I'm in the small minority that figures the team has done about as well as could be expected with so many new starters and with some key players who failed to come even remotely near their pre-season hype. Hoping for a good performance tomorrow...every game an opportunity for a little improvement and sequence of the remaining games seems to be in our favor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenlee36 1,654 Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 Muschamp got tore up today but he will improve even if it's for the simple fact it can't be worse. I think EJ would done just as good thus far, but next year and the year after is when we will feel the effects. As of now he's definitely overpaid 7 games in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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