The positives on both sides.

[guerra aguila 0]

The offensive lines protection for Newton was superb. Brilliant... Wonderful.

- Newton made their lives (offensive line) much easier, and hes showing that he has a chance to be the real deal. He could have crumbled under all the hype, but he rose to the challenge.

- Welcome to the big Show Quindarrious Carr, hes going to provide a few head aches this year for opposing d-coordinators. INCREDIBLE job on punt returns... he looked like a pro out there.

-Quick Strikes offensively, we really took advantage of field position and executed very well for the first time playing.

- Dyer is a baby, and by week 6... hes going to be a phenom, gutsy effort by the young fella tonight... boy is he fast in person. McCalebb showed great speed at times, and hes only going to get better.

Now for the Nay Sayers about the defense:

Darren Bates can flat out get to the football.

- The defense had surrendered 235 yards of offense at half time... before the final field goal attempt by ASU where they marched down the field on our freshman defense... we had only surrendered to 312.... only 77 yards for the whole second half, and held them to 10 points and they scored off Washingtons fumble.

- Roof kept it basic all night... they were throwing the ball all over the place because they had little or no running game, so the short passes was their way of running the ball.

- Three or four times, we almost took the qb's head off, but just got there to late... the timing was a little off, and thats to be expected. Their time will come, and all you negative people will be back on the wagon soon enough.

- McNiel, Etheridge, and Savage havent played football in a long time... they were bound to be a little rusty tonight, and it was a perfect night for them to shake it off.

- Fairley is going to be a monster when we need him to play more... he enjoyed his time on the sidelines... he needed the rest. Clayton was not out there much either... when its gut check time... they will be there guys.

Those are some of the positives on both sides that I saw... I refuse to panic over one game where we actually played well at times on both sides of the ball.

But let me remind some of you people that we Looked a hell of a lot better than Florida, Ole Miss, and LSU (had to beat a crippled North Carolina team... while giving up 410 yards passing).

South Carolina beat an undersized Southern Miss team, that was replacing 4 starters on the offensive line and their linebackers looked like defensive backs.

All in All... be careful what you wish for... I am damn proud to be an Auburn Tiger right now... and we will get better... we werent the only team that had some early struggles, and we looked much better than some of the teams I saw on saturday.

WAR DAMN EAGLE!

[DThriftWarEagle 3]

GA I agree with you 100% Everyone wants to look at the negatives but there are a lot of positives out there too.

[kevon67 2,368]

You have Arky St. throwing the playbook at the D, while we are trying very hard not to show much to State. Least thats how I see it!

[pram92 0]

I think we struggled on D in the first half pretty badly. hopefully that gets fixed.

[around4ever 4,136]

And give ASU some credit.  They came ready to play on both sides of the ball.  They were just out talented by our offense.  Their offensive game plan was alot like NW in the bowl game.  Give them their due credit.  I have a feeling they will beat some folks, that would normally beat them, this year.   Like ga, I saw many positives and I am satisfied with the W.  

[guerra aguila 0]

And give ASU some credit.  They came ready to play on both sides of the ball.  They were just out talented by our offense.  Their offensive game plan was alot like NW in the bowl game.  Give them their due credit.  I have a feeling they will beat some folks, that would normally beat them, this year.   Like ga, I saw many positives and I am satisfied with the W.  

Great points around.... keep in mind that Auburn didnt have any game film on Hugh Freeze's offense. Although its similar to Malzahns... Auburn didnt have much to work with, and the players still found ways to get off the field when it mattered.

My hat goes off to the entire defense, and I think they are going to get better and better.

I do agree with you that ASU came ready to play... it was a road game and they are always fun.

Thats why Auburn will be in full gear on Thursday night... road games are easy to get pumped up for. I am looking forward to seeing if we can make some progress.

We had been warned by other members that this ASU team has given BIG NAME programs trouble in the past... but some people didnt heed the warning.... and yet we still won with a comfortable lead.

[WarEagle10 77]

There was definitely positives in every area.

Special teams were night and day from last year.

Our tackling on D was night and day from last year.

I was very impressed with Q as a punt returner. It's not like last year when we held our breath every time the other team punted.

We do have lots of work to do, but I am sure that is being done as we speak.

[imsoauburn 0]

Great Thread. The board needs this right now for sure. And I agree with everything said! Its not sugarplums and lollipops either its just facts. Thanks for posting this GA, can always count on you for some positiveness man.

WAR EAGLE!

[FormerlySec38Row34 56]

A quote from the ARK ST head coach was that Cam Newton is the best Player he's ever seen in person. That's a definite plus for us. He was fast, agile and elusive. We still have some work to do on fumbles though. I saw the football being carried on the wrong side and not covering up when they hit traffic. I hope the coaches saw that too.