so what happened?

[aubiefifty 17,100]

Passing and catching has been bad to put it nicely. the statistics do not lie. so why the sudden change? thorne and company played off the charts. eleven receivers caught balls. that is amazing. the players have been saying they have great practices and have struggled. do what is the difference? did they finally coach up to thornes strengths? was it just thorne and he suddenly woke up? i was not crazy when we let up and i was afraid it would come back to haunt us but we got it done.as an aside i want to point out something about coach roberts. i know him and crimedog had a problem and one would think he was a total jerk. one of his players said in an interview in the last week that the defense loved roberts and would run through walls for him. i just wanted to add some balance. so what do you folks think?

[WillMunny 1,384]

My guess is a combination the following:

Poor opponent + no Will Rogers + us playing at home + more Freeze involvement in game week prep + PT playing almost all snaps.

[Win4AU 4,055]

JaVarius Johnson was back too.  

[JerryAU 1,694]

1 hour ago, aubiefifty said:

Passing and catching has been bad to put it nicely. the statistics do not lie. so why the sudden change? thorne and company played off the charts. eleven receivers caught balls. that is amazing. the players have been saying they have great practices and have struggled. do what is the difference? did they finally coach up to thornes strengths? was it just thorne and he suddenly woke up? i was not crazy when we let up and i was afraid it would come back to haunt us but we got it done.as an aside i want to point out something about coach roberts. i know him and crimedog had a problem and one would think he was a total jerk. one of his players said in an interview in the last week that the defense loved roberts and would run through walls for him. i just wanted to add some balance. so what do you folks think?

Playing a weak opponent without their starting QB in JHS helps Auburn shine in every facet of the game.  Cutting out that idiotic QB carousel helped the offense shine, Freeze should've listened to his fans many weeks ago and made that change much earlier. 

Relative to McGriff/Roberts, there's 2 sides to every story.  At the end of the day these are veteran coaches in their profession.  I think Freeze handled the altercation well and managed it as well as he could.  

 

[SphyNxXx 96]

I saw where Freeze said they tweaked the offense to match what we saw during the final series of Ole Miss. Kinda reminds me of how Gus figured out the 2013 offense at the end of LSU.

[gabo4au 228]

Well, I hope it continues. I will have to say that my Wife is a Michigan St graduate and so is all her family. As such, I think I watched every PT game he played there. He was a strange one to figure out at times. At MI ST, he had games like this one where he seemed very accurate and always on point, and he had games where he could not throw it anywhere near whoever he was trying to throw it to. Even if he had time to throw, there were just some games where he could not get his accuracy under control and other games where he was spot on every time.

I hope that's behind him and his struggles at AU were just not being comfortable with the system, fingers crossed..

[KillenTime 127]

The biggest difference is the OL was able to handle Miss St's defensive front.  A pattern we have seen for years.  Poor teams usually struggle in the trenches.  Miss St. is a poor team thus we were able to compete in the trenches.  PT had time and delivered.  We had some quick routes and he made the throws which opened up some other avenues.  We actually completed a crossing route in the middle of the field while the WR was running full speed.  I nearly fainted.  Every team in the country does it yet Freeze and Gus do not have it as a major part of their schemes.  That allows the LBers too much freedom.  Glad to see us use it and give credit to Montgomery which used it at Baylor.  Changes the game when you use the middle of the field.  

All in all, Miss St is not very good especially with their best offensive weapons sidelined.  Thank God they were out or we may not be celebrating a win.   

Actually looked like Freeze was less involved in the play calling and game plan until the second half.  Then we basically kneeled on it for the whole half.  

I agree with stopping the QB substitutions.  That was a big help in the look and feel of the game.  

 

 

 

[tigeraddikt 1,621]

2 hours ago, WillMunny said:

My guess is a combination the following:

Poor opponent + no Will Rogers + us playing at home + more Freeze involvement in game week prep + PT playing almost all snaps.

DINGDINGDINGDINGDING

[woodford 3,678]

Not having Will Rogers hurt them, but idk if they're winning that game with him. This is not Will Rogers with the Pirate running the show. 

MSU is a mess. Let's hope they whiff on a hire this off-season.

[Dwayne Pride 379]

10 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

Passing and catching has been bad to put it nicely. the statistics do not lie. so why the sudden change? thorne and company played off the charts. eleven receivers caught balls. that is amazing. the players have been saying they have great practices and have struggled. do what is the difference? did they finally coach up to thornes strengths? was it just thorne and he suddenly woke up? i was not crazy when we let up and i was afraid it would come back to haunt us but we got it done.as an aside i want to point out something about coach roberts. i know him and crimedog had a problem and one would think he was a total jerk. one of his players said in an interview in the last week that the defense loved roberts and would run through walls for him. i just wanted to add some balance. so what do you folks think?

I am crediting a small amount of meth. 

[aubiefifty 17,100]

11 hours ago, Dwayne Pride said:

I am crediting a small amount of meth. 

you serious? we have a couple in the hood. they are zombies pretty much.and they dance a weird dance............

[Auburn93 584]

22 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

Passing and catching has been bad to put it nicely. the statistics do not lie. so why the sudden change? thorne and company played off the charts. eleven receivers caught balls. that is amazing. the players have been saying they have great practices and have struggled. do what is the difference? did they finally coach up to thornes strengths? was it just thorne and he suddenly woke up? i was not crazy when we let up and i was afraid it would come back to haunt us but we got it done.as an aside i want to point out something about coach roberts. i know him and crimedog had a problem and one would think he was a total jerk. one of his players said in an interview in the last week that the defense loved roberts and would run through walls for him. i just wanted to add some balance. so what do you folks think?

MSU played conservative on defense in the first half, and they lack overall talent and now a QB. That was the difference. Watch another DL dominate our OL, you will see what you saw the first time. Maybe MSU should be questioned for their coaching.

[aubiefifty 17,100]

9 minutes ago, Auburn93 said:

MSU played conservative on defense in the first half, and they lack overall talent and now a QB. That was the difference. Watch another DL dominate our OL, you will see what you saw the first time. Maybe MSU should be questioned for their coaching.

they also claimed we stole their signals.

[JerryAU 1,694]

3 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

they also claimed we stole their signals.

What signals would we want to steal from a bottom-feeder opponent?  

They are just horrible this year. 

[AUY2K 272]

Play called beginning with a B = run play

play called beginning with any other letter = pass.

 It didn’t take our defense long to figure out the play calling and MSU never adjusted - used the same system throughout the whole game.

[LPTiger 5,202]

10 minutes ago, AUY2K said:

Play called beginning with a B = run play

play called beginning with any other letter = pass.

 It didn’t take our defense long to figure out the play calling and MSU never adjusted - used the same system throughout the whole game.

If we knew what they were running and still gave up 180 rush yards to the number 2 and 3 back --- well that is truly scary.

[aucat 69]

On 10/30/2023 at 10:40 PM, aubiefifty said:

Passing and catching has been bad to put it nicely. the statistics do not lie. so why the sudden change? thorne and company played off the charts. eleven receivers caught balls. that is amazing. the players have been saying they have great practices and have struggled. do what is the difference? did they finally coach up to thornes strengths? was it just thorne and he suddenly woke up? i was not crazy when we let up and i was afraid it would come back to haunt us but we got it done.as an aside i want to point out something about coach roberts. i know him and crimedog had a problem and one would think he was a total jerk. one of his players said in an interview in the last week that the defense loved roberts and would run through walls for him. i just wanted to add some balance. so what do you folks think?

because the other guys are not the UGa or LSU types 

Edited November 1, 2023 by aucat

[aubiefifty 17,100]

3 hours ago, aucat said:

because the other guys are not the UGa or LSU types 

i had hoped for more depth in your answer mr cat.

[Dwayne Pride 379]

9 hours ago, aucat said:

because the other guys are not the UGa or LSU types 

The LSU dbs of today are not the LSU dbs of yore.  

[JerryAU 1,694]

6 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

i had hoped for more depth in your answer mr cat.

I think Hugh gave the proper answer when he mentioned half a dozen times that we'd "played 4 ranked teams" the last 4 weeks.  

Of course, rankings don't mean everything, but there's a noticeable gap between the ranked & unranked teams and the talent disparity is glaring when they compete against each other. 

MSU is a really bad team, Auburn pretty much had their way with them, and our talent was able to outshine theirs.  

[aubiefifty 17,100]

yes guys i know moo state is awful.

[AUpreacherman22 3,892]

We can talk about how bad MSU is all day, and it’s true, they are.   And that was certainly a factor in our sudden success.  However, the game plan, play calling, and offensive balance were unlike anything we’ve seen all season.  That’s not on MSU.  That was AU figuring some things out.  I think Freeze and Thorne both turned a corner last week.   We’ll find out soon if that is the case or not.  

[FB11 5]

In all honesty, not much happened. Beating a weak MSU team playing without their starting QB and RB at home doesn’t really tell us much. Neither will a win this weekend. To me, the big test for year one under the new regime is the Arkansas game. On the road, in the one game of the season that I’d consider a true toss up.  That will be game number 10, no more excuses about QB rotations, who’s calling plays, what packages are approved, how much tempo and rpo is being run, how thin the D is, etc.