Week 2 Review

Ah, NOW college football has officially started as completely unexpected things are now happening (at least to me). I think I need to remove the pick post below because it is pretty much all wrong and I am left with egg on my face. Auburn and Miss St engaged in a high scoring high offensive game as did Georgia and South Carolina and UT died at home to UCLA.

Georgia and South Carolina was the biggest shocker. I mean WOW, where did all that offense come from? UT was less of a surprise as I have been telling my UT fans how bad Jonathan Crompton is all preseason. However as I stated in my picks I did not expect him to show his true colors so early. I severely underestimated UCLA or severely overestimated UT. One thing is definitely true though and that is Jonathan Crompton is just terrible. He is just not good enough to play at this level. It is going to be another long year for UT unless they can find some kind of help at QB.

Now back to the plains for “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” on yesterday’s win over Miss St...
THE GOOD
Well there is no doubt now that Gus Malzahn is for real. Yes, Auburn will hit some tough spots and will lose several games and yes Miss St is the worse team in the conference right now. However you cannot roll up over 1000 yards of offense in two games with over 600 of that on the ground with Chris Todd at QB unless you are a pretty darn good offensive coach. My hat is off to Gus Malzahn and the offensive staff.

As with every good offense, it starts UP FRONT. Lee Ziemba, Ryan Pugh, Lee Isom, Andy McCain and my main man Mike “Big Snacks” Berry are killing people. We can only pray for their safety as we all know we have nothing behind them. However for the moment they are healthy and productive and man it is a sight for these sore eyes. Great job guys, keep up the good work, you are driving this train.

Next we have some RBs good enough to do some damage behind this O-line. It is so nice to see Ben Tate finally get to run behind a good OL as he has never really had that opportunity. Ontario McCalebb has also again shown he is a legitimate playmaker and brings some much needed speed and quickness to the offense. Warning though, Miss St adjusted and started shutting down most of his plays. I think we can expect to see other defenses doing the same.

We actually had a WR with 100 yards receiving in Darvin Adams. I can tell you that over the past DECADE you can almost count the number of times that has happened with your two hands. That was VERY nice to see and also see Darvin Adams step up to right now be our main man at WR. I am assuming Miss St was intent on stopping Mario Fannin as he had only 1 catch for 3 yards. Adams also seemed to be wide open on a number of occasions making me think State was concentrating elsewhere.

At TE, Tommy Trott was hurt and that is a concern. True frosh Philip Lutz… I will just stop at Lutz (-: came in and had a TD catch but I am not sure we want a true frosh right there full-time if Trott is hurt. Open note to Gene Chizik… Hey coach I know you and Gabe McKenzie got off on the wrong foot but the guy is a senior and a good TE, please move him back and let him help out.
Let me not go to far without giving some props to the defense, they played a good game. It was good to have Zach Clayton and Eltoro Freeman on the field stirring things up. Now if we can just get Mike McNeil back as well. The D-line came to play again and we actually have LBs making plays (another rarity over the last few years). Former “invisible man” LB Craig Stevens made his presence felt several times during the night. However before I go to far let’s state for the record that State probably had the worst offense we are going to play all year outside Furman. A good defensive performance next week will be much more impressive.

Finally I would like to give kudos to “The Closer” Kodi Burns. This guy is coming in and getting us in the end zone. Of course again, the O-line is the foundation but Burns is doing a great job building on their effort. We are making it look easy but taking care of business in the red zone is really a big thing to not take for granted. The pass to PLutz was a thing of beauty and I am glad we showed that off to give teams in the future something to think about. Not to mention Kodi might get used a little bit more as the season goes on because of…

THE BAD
There is one name on offense I have not mentioned. Chris Todd. Yes the guy can throw a nice pass several times a game but people he can also throw some downright horrible ones and miss easy connections as well. We should have been up 21-0 last night if Todd could be consistent but he is just not. He finished a poor 10 for 23. It is completely unacceptable with that much help up front and from the running game. Yes he had 186 yards but a big chunk of that was Zachary bailing him out on another “punt pass” he put up for grabs. The guy cannot throw the deep ball and is not consistent. For the millionth time, I cannot believe Kodi or one of our other QBs under Malzahn’s tutelage could not do better. I will also say it again with emphasis; the better teams on our schedule are going to eat Todd alive.

THE UGLY
How can you say anything bad or ugly about Gus Malzahn after the last 2 games? Well if he continues to get our offense to produce anywhere close to this high level through out the season I can think of something really bad and this he will be gone at the end of the season. Just like Bobby Petrino and about every other good OC we have ever had, he will be gone. It is downright depressing. We will then be stuck with a defensive head coach who is completely reliant on having a good OC (boy that sounds familiar) and will once again maybe have a section of the fan base that would rather have the offensive guy as head coach…. (this is also a familiar theme).

THE REALLY UGLY
Unbelievable. The SAME guy who was giving Julio Jones and Mark Ingram a free fishing trip is also handing out free laptops to another star from that recruiting class, Jerrell Harris. All we heard was how this guy was lifelong friends with Jones and he had absolutely nothing to do with football and wasn’t even a fan of Bama. Now we find out this guy is also giving out freebies to monster recruit Jerrell Harris???

What is the guy’s alibi NOW? I think this proves this guy is a liar, he is a Bama fan and he is giving illegal gifts. This whole thing stinks to high heaven. Yet it appears this too will be swept under the rug as well. Again if this whole story was about Auburn doing all this when they were on top a few years ago? Oh my gosh I could not imagine the venom and gnashing of teeth that would be going on.