Week 8 Review: SUNSET

LSU 45 Auburn 10, I guess this one will be labelled "The Beatdown in Baton Rouge" or maybe we need to add a "Part 2" to that since Chizik, Malzahn and company got beatdown at LSU in 2009 as well (31-3 for those who have forgotten).  The "Mad Hatter" upped his record to 4-2 against Auburn.  Well the sun is setting on Auburn's chance of improving and getting a big win this season.  As I noted in my last post, Auburn's resident big wins against South Carolina and Florida are not quite as big as many would have thought before the season as both teams are not near as good as they were predicted to be.  South Carolina's record is still good as their easy conference schedule does not include Bama or LSU.  I expect them to lose to at least Arkansas and Clemson.  Florida is just not very good.  Auburn's one and only chance for a big rivalry win this year looks to be at Georgia but I think that task will be tougher than most people think.  In fact, I think the Dawgs will win the East.  After watching how things transpired Saturday things sure do not look good in upsetting Bama this year.  Of course this Auburn team cannot afford to overlook anybody but there is no way this Ole Miss team should beat even this Auburn team in Jordan Hare.  The coaches better make sure at the very least they get this one.  At least if you get this one you have clinched the winning season and you have a bye week to try and fix something on offense.

It is funny reading some of the other Auburn blogs and forums, it is amazing how the out of sight preseason expectations have become "well we knew it was going to happen this way" quotes.  I pretty much do not have anything new to say after the LSU game that I did not write in my last post after the Florida game.  All of these problems were just as evident against Florida as they were against LSU, Florida just could not do anything about it.  My main concern is also the same as last week, this team is not improving offensively (and is still not very good defensively).  I just do not see the team getting better or coming together even considering the team's deficiencies.

Again for the record let me state like last week how great a winning season is since "I predicted Auburn to go 6-6 and am frankly amazed the coaches were able to coax a winning season out of this team. So no matter what happens the coaches will be able to declare a victory for this season."  The problem is that a 7-5 record is not going to look near as good if the team does not improve and goes out with a loss to Georgia and a beatdown by Bama at home. 

The next most popular slogan is how much better we are going to be in the next two years.  No argument here however I do not see a team coming together that can get to Atlanta anytime soon.  The main problem is where it has been all year, the offensive line.  We have a below average offensive line and I do not see a Marcus McNeil on the horizon to fix things.  Right now our hope is that Greg Robinson and Christian Westerman will save the day but they do not look like those kind of guys at this moment.  You build championship teams around great left tackles.  Name me a good Auburn team and you will see a great left tackle that is playing or has played in the NFL.  It is clockwork...  1993-1995 is Willie Anderson, 2002-2005 is Marcus McNeil and last year was Lee Ziemba.  Ziemba was an extremely underrated player.  The guy was much better than people gave him credit for and again he started more games than anyone in Auburn's football history.  I just do not see one of these guys at Auburn right now or one currently on our recruiting board.

So far Chizik's offensive line recruiting has been a bust.  Our starting offensive lines during the entire Chizik era outside Brandon Mosely have been Tuberville recruits.  No one other than Chad Slade has shown any promise so far.  Heralded recruits Ed Christian and Kendall Mack have been busts.  So again, unless Robinson and Westerman are great and somebody else steps up the offensive line's future doe not look that great if you are talking about a championship unit.  Great skill players look very ordinary behind weak offensive lines and again if you doubt it ask Marcus Lattimore and Alshon Jeffery.

That is my biggest concern looking at this year and into the future.  The next concern would obviously be at quarterback but unfortunately the success of that position is also reliant on a good offensive line.  Again and I will keep repeating it, the game is won in the trenches.  Bama and LSU are certainly proving that true again this year.  I just do not understand why our coaches do not put more emphasis on it in recruiting.  I read this week about Curtis Luper talking about finding the next Cam Newton.  That just ticked me off, there will never be another Cam Newton, they need to be looking for the next Lee Ziemba, they can find someone like that.  Moseley looks better than Trotter but neither look to be our future.  Kiehl Frazier is supposed to be the future but as Jay Coulter noted at Track'em this week, he just does not look like he is going to be ready this year or next.  However Frazier was one of the best recruits in the country and we do have big-time recruit Zeke Pike coming in this season so I think the coaches have done all they can do there.

As I said last week (again all this stuff was apparent in our "big win" over Florida), I just do not understand the constant shuffling at quarterback.  This is not "running the wildcat".  This is shuffling quarterbacks which is proven over the years to be a bad idea.  It literally never works.  They can call it whatever they want but that is what it is.  I do not think it is helping either quarterback.  It is simple to me, if we are going to continue to run the majority of the game and only throw fifteen times or less then we should start Frazier.  If not then we should start Moseley.  We threw the ball 24 times Saturday but we were behind most of the game.  In a close game it appears we are just not going to throw the ball.  In fact, I can tell you our script for literally 75% of our series.  First down, Moseley hands to Dyer.  Second down, bring Frazier in and either run him or hand off to McCalebb.  Third down (and long usually), Moseley back in to throw a pass.  Fourth down, punt.  I do not know much but I do know that is not going to beat Georgia or keep it close against Bama.  This is why I had so little hope against LSU and even less in these future games.

There is not a whole lot you can do behind our offensive line but you can do something more than run that script nearly every bleeping series.  One thing I know we can do is more short passes to get other people involved in the game and to, what an idea, show the defense something different.  Short passes are generally considered high percentage conservative plays so I do not know why we cannot try that.  Good night what were these guys working on in spring and fall practice?  Another annicillary benefit to more short passes is it might actually help recruit wide receivers.  Right now just like it was in the Tuberville days, I do not know why any good wide receiver in his right mind would come to Auburn.  You are just a blocker and you hardly ever get the ball. 

That is how I see things.  I guess for the moment lets hope we can put Houston Nutt out of his misery, add one more to our home winning streak and clinch a winning season by whipping Ole Miss.  Even this team can do that.  This game is on the coaches.  Beat Ole Miss, get your winning season and try and figure out something during the bye week.  The sun is setting...