* Official Auburn vs. Houston Game Thread *

[Mims44 1,869]

Great all around showing by Auburn today. Much better than expected.

Congrats to all the seniors on a successful year!

[Tigerpro2a 5,650]

16 minutes ago, PoetTiger said:

Love the kid but he is is missing the “it” factor to be a big time SEC QB.

Maybe just semantcs, but "The It" factor you speak of is so far out of reach for TJ and there are a laundry list of bigger issues before ever even getting to the It factor.

[boisnumber1 2,819]

2 minutes ago, yngwie1995 said:

That was an awesome attempt to utilize Shenker's blazing speed.

It was to the short side, so had nothing to do with speed. The issue, as usual, was the LB was completely untouched. Doesn't matter who was running it. You call desperate things when your OL can't even block air consistently.

[AUx 3,006]

4 minutes ago, PoetTiger said:

I loved the calls, just poor execution.

Definitely. Just, on almost every offensive play, some part of it is compromised by being out of position, missing block, not at the expected point in the route, or ball off-target. Almost miraculous when a productive play materializes. They rarely can assert their will (yes - like most of the last decade). No doubt this is beyond painful. I have faith. Not calling "off with his head" for any person or unit. It has been a painful year. 

[murpjf88 506]

1 minute ago, ScotsAU said:

It can be a lot worse than a 6-7 season. See 2012.

If Finley is starting next year, this team won't win more than three games.

[augolf1716 21,135]

9 minutes ago, JDUBB4AU said:

I quit this board . I’m done . Never again 

Could you take bird with you?

[jluvah 665]

2 minutes ago, GwillMac6 said:

I'm bullish on the Arkansas win. I think that was a really good win. On the road and we looked fantastic TBH. It's hard for people to see because all people look at is wins and losses and the 5 game losing streak cloud's people's judgement but this season was so close to being a 9 win season in spite of very marginal talent at every position on offense besides RB. We just didn't have the talent to close game's out. It's not like we were getting annihilated every game. We just found a way to lose in the most painful way possible each game. We just need to upgrade the talent immensely on offense and FINISH. Going to take a couple of year's though. 

THIS!!

[au302 2,669]

It can be true that Bo is light years better than Finley but that he is not the long term answer either. I'm just ready for us to get a fresh start. The portal QB is the biggest decision of Harsin's career

[gr82b4au 5,568]

9 minutes ago, JDUBB4AU said:

I quit this board . I’m done . Never again 

Just don’t go to these game threads. This is the first one I have been to all year and I realize I have made a mistake. 

[wcware 1,365]

I’m going to keep saying this and I wish I wouldn’t but we might not win a conference game next year if we don’t fix the Oline. Absolutely nothing matters if you can’t block. Nothing matters

[CCTAU 3,326]

Yes. It looked just as bad in person. 
if Harsin is calling plays, we’re done. 

[PoetTiger 1,896]

1 minute ago, Tigerpro2a said:

Maybe just semantcs, but "The It" factor you speak of is so far out of reach for TJ and there are a laundry list of bigger issues before ever even getting to the It factor.

“It” can be whatever we want. He is just not a starting SEC QB, at least not now.

[JDUBB4AU 5,121]

Just now, augolf1716 said:

Could you take bird with you?

Bird get in . Move those bottles out of the seat . Don’t step on my mail 

[gr82b4au 5,568]

Just now, wcware said:

I’m going to keep saying this and I wish I wouldn’t but we might not win a conference game next year if we don’t fix the Oline. Absolutely nothing matters if you can’t block. Nothing matters

An issue that has been 4 years in the making. It cannot be corrected overnight, but the staff better do something in the portal.

[e808 3,025]

16 minutes ago, AuCivilEng1 said:

Our defense has been doing absolutely everything it can. They shut Bama down, and they shut down Houston. This whole “Mason needs to be accountable “ crap is getting ridiculous. Mason fielded an SEC defense. Harsin and Bobo fielded a high school offense. 

Being short handed they gave it their all. In todays world of high powered offenses u can’t keep giving teams the ball back constantly without taking time of the clock or giving ur defense a rest. The defense had two turnovers and the offense did nothing. 

Edited December 28, 2021 by e808
Typo

[GwillMac6 20,677]

6 minutes ago, CCTAU said:

Yes. It looked just as bad in person. 
if Harsin is calling plays, we’re done. 

Offensive talent problem. Not coaching problem. I thought everyone knew that and it was obvious. We just do not have the good players besides RB on that side of the ball. Which also neutralizes our RB talent.

Plays were there all year. The actual play calls are not the problem. I don't get why fans first reaction is always blame the coaches. When guys are open and the play is wide open but the execution is bad? Yah that's on the player's. Coaches can only do so much.

[Dan-0 479]

I can´t see TJ being anything other than maybe a serviceable backup QB. And that´s if our O-line and receivers improve drastically. He misses way too many easy throws, doesn´t seem to read coverage well, and still throws into heavy traffic. 

[au701948 998]

Back to hoping that my belief in Harsin and his coaching staff is warranted. Have to hold on to that. They seemingly did a fine job for the Defense during Recruting's Early Period. Now we can hope that there are enough decent players to be found in the Second Recruiting Period and the Portal to give us a few missing key players of need.

[alexava 6,973]

2 minutes ago, murpjf88 said:

If Finley is starting next year, this team won't win more than three games.

If he doesn’t improve, you are correct. This new QB coach is going to have to be Socrates. 

[AuburnNTexas 7,147]

Defense played pretty darn good. Play calling was not as bad as some people were saying. There were three times we called for the deep ball on 1 Dawson had 3 steps on his man on the other 2 one wr had 2 steps and the on the other wr had a step on his man. If Finley hits even one of them we win the game. Some bad officiating, multiple times not calling holding including on the TD they showed the hold on that TD but there were actually two holds on that play as outside man was held also. Also intentional grounding not being called. 

Statistically Finley had a good game but it was in crunch time that he didn't make plays. 

What I did like is Riley and Steiner made some plays today as we only had one regular starter at LB Wooten. Ro Torrance stepped up and O-Line blocking was better on run plays today. Considering the key D players that were missing and what we have picked up so far the D should be really good.  I was sad to see Smoke get tossed but this may have been the best game he played all year up until that point.  Mason also did more blitzes similar to what he did in Iron Bowl.

I am not happy ending the season with 5 losses and I am not happy with QB play today even though statistically it was solid. I am also unhappy that even though O-line blocked better today they couldn't block on 3rd and short. I feel good about Defense next year. We need a QB be it Davis, Geriner or transfer as we can't win with Finley and we better get some Portal O-line or we will lose a lot of close games next year as our Defense will keep us in games, but our Offense won't score.  

Edited December 28, 2021 by AuburnNTexas

[jptiger 481]

1 minute ago, gr82b4au said:

An issue that has been 4 years in the making. It cannot be corrected overnight, but the staff better do something in the portal.

I agree. Gonna have to start making that portal work for you. 

[W.E.D 11,070]

Gus left us in a God awful position and Harsin didn't do enough to fix the issues in offense.

F by our past coach and D- by pur current staff. 

We'll see if this mythical culture starts to show up. Unless recruiting changes, I'm not sure I see it. Not much inspiring to go off of

[autiger88 3,777]

3 minutes ago, CCTAU said:

Yes. It looked just as bad in person. 
if Harsin is calling plays, we’re done. 

Hey ? Do you think if Harsin is calling plays next year you think we are done? Because youve said that twice, you wanna say it again?🤷🤦

[JBiGGiE 2,488]

Just left the game and had no service to voice my displeasure. I don't think I've seen a worse official hosing since the 2018 LSU game.

I should be ashamed of the things I yelled at the refs... I assure you I am not.

[TigerHorn 1,351]

7 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

Yup.

The reason the "hope you're happy" Bo thing made me laugh is because of the logical fallacy. I know you understand this, but for the benefit of others, the fact that TJ was so bad today doesn't mean that we shouldn't been satisfied with Bo. We might've jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, but the whole point of that expression is that the frying pan was already less than ideal.

Hey @TigerHorn, with your no-contributing downvoting ass, hope this helps. 

Coming from @McLoofus, the living embodiment of quantity does not equal quality. Sorry I hurt your widdy biddy feelin's bro. I gave you another downvote to help you toughen up some.