Clue to struggles

[TDTiger2214 0]

What I see is the same offense as last year.  Difference is defenses have figured it out.  Only difference is a QB that can run the ball and throw a mile off his back foot.  It's been just enough to get is by ok to pretty good competition but next week things will be different.  I hope the coaches can figure it out.

[au03cobrafan 0]

I disagree.  I don't think it's a matter of defenses have figured us out but instead I think it's a matter of a lack of execution.  It's obvious Cam needs to stop staring his WRs down and needs more time in this offense to get comfortable and if you notice in the 2nd half we made Clemson look foolish when Cam pump faked and didn't throw where he was staring.

Bottom line of why this offense doesn't work is LACK of EXECUTION!

[TDTiger2214 0]

I disagree.  I don't think it's a matter of defenses have figured us out but instead I think it's a matter of a lack of execution.  It's obvious Cam needs to stop staring his WRs down and needs more time in this offense to get comfortable and if you notice in the 2nd half we made Clemson look foolish when Cam pump faked and didn't throw where he was staring.

Bottom line of why this offense doesn't work is LACK of EXECUTION!

Well,  you can make an argument for lack of execution, but, when defenses are keying on plays and formations like Clemson did in the first half, they appeared to be looking at Gus' playbook at the same time we were calling plays.  The tackles for loss in the first have was evidence that Clemson knew exactly what we were running.

[WarEagle10 77]

This O looks nothing like last years O to me. We wore out the TE last year. We haven't seen the TE this year, at all. We wore out throwing to the h-back out of the backfield last year, this year I have seen it, but not much. Time will tell if these "weapons" are used. They have to be used for us to have successful season IMO.

[Lint 0]

3 receivers had catches last night.  Cam had 14 attempts folks...

[alexava 6,946]

agree we10, ive seen little resemblence. with cam's talent we should be better even with a pick or two a game. he threw the ball well exept the one to kodi. the other int. to kichens he stared him down but it was a great throw. the problem is 7-14 not enough completions or attempts. and no 1st downs for a qtr and half. big plays are saving us.

[Lint 0]

Ball control.  We gotta have ball control and first downs.  I'll take a win with big plays any day of the week, but to win consistently we have to be able to move the chains.  right now, we don't seem to have an offensive identity.

[Autiger695 0]

I disagree.  I don't think it's a matter of defenses have figured us out but instead I think it's a matter of a lack of execution.  It's obvious Cam needs to stop staring his WRs down and needs more time in this offense to get comfortable and if you notice in the 2nd half we made Clemson look foolish when Cam pump faked and didn't throw where he was staring.

Bottom line of why this offense doesn't work is LACK of EXECUTION!

Well,  you can make an argument for lack of execution, but, when defenses are keying on plays and formations like Clemson did in the first half, they appeared to be looking at Gus' playbook at the same time we were calling plays.  The tackles for loss in the first have was evidence that Clemson knew exactly what we were running.

Cobrafan is right. This offense looks nothing like last years except for a few random plays. There is very little pre-snap motion and post snap misdirection compared to last year. This offense only resembles the offense of this year, meaning we are running very few different plays- which translated into being predictable. If you look at OMAC's td it may have been the first deceptive play run all night and it worked great. Malzahn is wanting to pound it up the middle before he opens up the playbook but it just doesnt look like thats going to work.

[Sidbowman 0]

I'm not trying to bash them and have the utmost respect for them, but at the end of the day (game) the buck stops with the coaches. Poor execution, starring down receivers, opponents reading/picking play-calls/books, all comes back to the coaches. You can have a team of 5*, but they still need to be coached.

Penalties - lack of discipline from the coaches

Starring down receivers - lack of player develop from the coaches

Opponents calling/reading play book = coaches not varying/mixing things up

I'm not a coach by any means, but if this is a place for opinions to be respectfully heard, the coaches in key areas need to step it up before the players can have a chance to step it up on the field. This team for the past couple of years, would have to be the more (not most, as in 'most' is worse than 'more') undisciplined teams I have seen play in a while.

I really liked how they made their half time adjustments though. That was key and a great sign of their true abilities as coaches; that was great to experience/watch play out.

[bwillaub 0]

agree we10, ive seen little resemblence. with cam's talent we should be better even with a pick or two a game. he threw the ball well exept the one to kodi. the other int. to kichens he stared him down but it was a great throw. the problem is 7-14 not enough completions or attempts. and no 1st downs for a qtr and half. big plays are saving us.

Cam's first deep throw of the game was an overthrow.  After that, all his deep throws were underthrown except for the one to an uncovered Zachery.  He seems to be "aiming" the ball instead of just letting it go.  This seemed to happen in the first two games also.  This is a very fixable problem.  Just my observation from last night and previous two games.  

[mah0020 11]

Gus needs to work on his play calling some more. Alot of our plays are predictable and our O isn't as balanced as it was last year. I understand that we're a run first team, but you can't force it down their throats and make it work. Spread the field out some and pass the ball some. When we started passing the ball, points started appearing on the scoreboard. A good bit of those penalties were complete BS though. Cam definitely needs to work on his decision making skills.

[FormerlySec38Row34 56]

Classic example of predictability. 3rd and 16, here comes the wrap around draw to running back. Everyone at the tailgate called it.

[AU60 0]

It is obvious, after reading most of the posts on this topic, all we need to do is fire all the coaches and pick a new staff from the experts on here and we will have an undefeated season without any bad plays. Everybody will live happily everafter. This stuff gives me a headache. I'm out of here.

[Bortak 0]

I disagree.  I don't think it's a matter of defenses have figured us out but instead I think it's a matter of a lack of execution.  It's obvious Cam needs to stop staring his WRs down and needs more time in this offense to get comfortable and if you notice in the 2nd half we made Clemson look foolish when Cam pump faked and didn't throw where he was staring.

Bottom line of why this offense doesn't work is LACK of EXECUTION!

Well,  you can make an argument for lack of execution, but, when defenses are keying on plays and formations like Clemson did in the first half, they appeared to be looking at Gus' playbook at the same time we were calling plays.  The tackles for loss in the first have was evidence that Clemson knew exactly what we were running.

They're keying on plays and formations because it seems like we're running half the offense that we did last year. Adding Newton was supposed to open things up, but instead has made of twice as predictable. We run it on every first down, run it on 70% of second downs, and then throw it deep on third. I'm sure that any average guy could figure out what we're doing at this point.

[Anubis647 0]

I think it's very safe to say that defenses have figured out a decent bit of the offense. Got back and watch Miss St and Clemson and see how their defenses reacted. The almost pick-6 at Miss St comes to mind. He knew exactly what we were going to do, and almost got a score for it.

[Bortak 0]

I think it's very safe to say that defenses have figured out a decent bit of the offense. Got back and watch Miss St and Clemson and see how their defenses reacted. The almost pick-6 at Miss St comes to mind. He knew exactly what we were going to do, and almost got a score for it.

He knew what we were going to do because we had run that play in the same game so many times... That's not "figuring an offense out," it's figuring out a tendency to call the same play over and over. Miss. State kept throwing screens and hitches, it's just that our defense/defensive coordinator never did anything to take advantage of their tendency.

[amsterjam 107]

It is obvious, after reading most of the posts on this topic, all we need to do is fire all the coaches and pick a new staff from the experts on here and we will have an undefeated season without any bad plays. Everybody will live happily everafter. This stuff gives me a headache. I'm out of here.

If you don't want to hear peoples' opinions then just don't read them it's that simple. No one is asking you to read anyones posts. So just don't. By the way you don't have to announce when you are out of here because no one cares.

[WarEagle10 77]

It is obvious, after reading most of the posts on this topic, all we need to do is fire all the coaches and pick a new staff from the experts on here and we will have an undefeated season without any bad plays. Everybody will live happily everafter. This stuff gives me a headache. I'm out of here.

If you don't want to hear peoples' opinions then just don't read them it's that simple. No one is asking you to read anyones posts. So just don't. By the way you don't have to announce when you are out of here because no one cares.

Oh, come on now. You know better. None of us are coaches so we have no right to have opinions or thoughts. 

[AgentOrange 36]

A few things I noticed last night:

-I never saw the O-line open up any holes for the RBs (last year it seemed like you could run Tate up the middle and you were almost guaranteed 2-5 yards at least)

-Lack of blocking on offense. A few times we had plays that resulted in no gain or a loss because guys were totally unblocked.

-Penalties

[EagleFlight34 101]

I will only say a couple of things, because I don't want to get into this back and forth stuff. IMO, we are not running half of the offense we ran last year. We do not give nearly as many different looks, and have very little pre-snap motion. We saw all of that last year. The misdirection seems to be nonexistent or at best underused. I don't understand why we seem to stay away from short passing routes. Why is there no utilization of the H-back? Why are there no underneath crossing routes, no quick slant routes, no 5 to 10 yard out routes? Why are there no so few pass attempts to the backs out of the back field? We here commentators on a regular basis say, when a QB is inexperienced and struggling, that they should call some easy short passes to instill confidence and get rythm. Does CGM not trust Cam to throw short to medium passes? It seems at times that would be a much better option on a 3rd and 5 or 6 with a high probability of working. Instead, its run on 1st, run on 2nd, throw deep on 3rd. Even if there is a pass on 1st or 2nd down, it is almost always a deep pass. All defenses have to do when Cam drops back to pass is drop their safties back and wait. I want to see a short to mid range passing game. I love the big play, but there is much more to the game other than the big play.

Our defense is playing better and improving. They kept us in the game last night. When all things are considered, they did a good job. Consider the first quarter: 3 and out, defense, 3 and out, defense, 3and out defense. They never gave up, and gave up only 7 points in the 2nd half. We all know they had to have been dog tired.

[FormerlySec38Row34 56]

We definitely aren't running all of the offense. We've had nothing in the realm of tight-end participation and there are a lot of plays I haven't seen yet. The reasons are known only to the players and coaches, so I won't speculate because I'm not qualified to do so. I'm merely making an observation.

[REInvestingTiger 2]

The best of plans/plays will fail with lack of execution.  Until we can execute, it doesn't matter who we play... the result is it will look like the first half of last night.

[Guest Apraser99]

I'm real thankful for the win myself. Speaking of play calling, did we ever throw the ball on first down? I can't remember a time when we did. I thought the play calling was horrendous and very predictable. Do we have an intermediate passing game? If we do, where is it? We better strap it on and play much better if we want to avoid 4 or 5 losses. War Eagle!

[jason4au 0]

i think one of the issues is cam relying on his scrambling skills too fast. if his first option isn't open, he tucks it and runs. let's not forget this will only be his 4th game to start this saturday. the more experience he gains from playing against sec teams the better he's gonna be. reminds me alot of vince young the year before they won their national title.

[AuburnSpider 2]

How many bubble screens, mis directions, TE outs, slants, I could go on, have we used this year.