The Twice A Year Collapse Game

[WarEagle71 0]

Thes boys are NOT morning people. Some people are morning folks and get up and do their best wrok in the morning --some are not and they do their best work in the afternoon or night. I have had wrokers like that and IF they were able to come into work at later they did great but if they came in early it was a waste of time.

BOTH losses were at 11:30 games. I say only play in the afternoon or night and forget TV at 11:30.

My 2 cents worth!

War Eagle!!

[TigerHeat 9]

Somebody explain this to me. Every year, wth the exception of 2004, Auburn has one collapse game under Tuberville. You know. Where we come out looking totally flat and ill-prepared against a team we should beat or at least play very close. This year, it was Arkasas and Georgia. Last year it was Wisconsin. In 2003, it was USC and LSU.

What is the deal? We were just not prepared to play these games. I can take losing a game if we play somebody to the wire. But in all the games cited above, we just get blown out. Any theories?

We tend to panic and give up on the running game almost immediately. Did it against Wisconsin...did it against ARKY...and did it against UGA. Irons had 49 yards on 10 carries. Wonder what he would've done with 25 or 30 carries against a tired defense. UGA couldn't stop UK and Vandy...but Al played right into their hands, trying to get Brandon to throw "out" patterns on those gimpy legs. BRILLIANT!

JMHO....

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed this. Every time we switch from Running Back U to "balanced offense" we lay an egg. GT last year looked exactly the same. We didn't give our RB's enough of a chance IMHO. Run the ball, swap runners. Lester and Tate can pick up Irons' slack!

BTW, if we switch back to emphasizing the run then I do NOT like UAT's chances this weekend. However, if we come back to throw with a gimpy QB I look for a possible UAT victory. They have a LOT more riding on this game than we do!

[jw 4 au 526]

The offense is not built to come from behind, Tubs philosophy is pounding people with the run, when we fall behind, it becomes difficult to catch up. We have had O-line and D-line troubles all year. The kids are playing hard, I just think we have had a fall off in talent. We lost some good players from last years team, especially from the defensive front, and no one has really stepped up to replace those guys. Our wide receivers haven't played well, they have difficulty getting open and that has caused some sacks and bad throws. Combined by the fact that Brandon, Courtney and Kenny have been hurt all year. In fact, we've had quite a few injuries.

The offense just hasn't clicked and the defense has been inconsistent. Except for two games, the coaches and players did a great job managing through it. In the two losses, things went bad and just snowballed. This team's strengths just can't compensate for some of our weaknesses. That doesn't mean it is a bad team.

Things happen when you are dealing with 18-22 year old kids, thats why out of 119 D-I schools, there is usually only 1 or 2 that go undefeated. Plus, they are considered one of the elite SEC teams now, so now, they are gonna get everyone's best game. This is the SEC, comparing other schools losses in conference to ours is not a fair comparison. These teams are too good to have a bad day against, not the case in other conferences.

In reference to the seasons before 2004, I felt that those teams had overachieved to a degree, until they got into a game that was a bad match up. This has been a very good team all season, for the most part, they played above their heads and found ways to win. They still have a shot at a 10 win season. There's no shame in that.

WAR EAGLE!

Good post, I agree with everything you have said. And to add, although at the beginning of last year we were starting without most of our offensive production players from the previous season (JC, Cadilac, Ronnie), this year we were breaking in a lot of our front line and trench players (OL, DL, LB). That can be a huge adjustment. Those are the guys that pave the way for the others.

To take it a little further, if you asked me at the beginning of the season, I would have been very happy with a projection of a 10-2 season (projecting an Iron Bowl victory there!). I mean I personally think AU will win every game we play, but not many of us were projecting a national championship for this season until a few games in. Not even CTT. I remember being suprised by some of his comments early on about this team "being young, not there yet" and that "we needed to get better", "we are not playing at our best level", "we are good team, but not a great team", etc. (to paraphrase him). I cannot remember his exact quotes, but I remember thinking he was trying to motivate the team by downplaying our success that far into the season. Although I am not happy with the way we lost our two games this year, the team has had a successful year in my opinion. I also think this season, plus the recent recruiting success over the fast few years, really sets the table for a solid run over th next several season. I am looking forward to the direction Auburn and CTT are going!