Chick-fil-a Bowl Review

Ahhh... my favorite breakfast in the world, a Chick-fil-a biscuit and an orange juice.  The Chick-fil-a Bowl was a lot like that this year as Auburn defeated Virginia 43-24.  I was there to witness it in Atlanta this weekend and had a great time.  Obviously I am thrilled Auburn played well and it is always so much better to end your season on a win.  However after reading some of the comments on the this game elsewhere I have to set the record straight.  Auburn really did not change any this game.  They still had the same problems they had all year long.  Auburn was more successful because we had better football players.  Football is a pretty simple game.  As former coach Pat Dye said: "there are no miracles on the football field".  Obviously you have upsets and such but for the most part the teams with the best football players win.

Auburn had more good football players than Virginia and they played well.  I wonder what Virginia's game plan on defense was exactly?  It was obvious Ontario McCalebb was our biggest playmaker especially on turf and they seemingly had no plan at all for him.  They let him get outside, they fell for the statue-of-liberty play and the double play action.  To me it is pretty obvious we would run all this misdirection stuff to get McCalebb the ball in space.  I think I would have always kept my eye on him and tried to force the ball inside on the read option.  But hey all the better for Auburn.

Barrett Trotter came in and played well subbing in for Clint Moseley when he got hurt although the way Moseley was playing I think Trotter would have come in anyway.  The bomb to Blake was the prettiest pass of the season but again it was off a double play action that we would have not had time to run against the big boys in the SEC this season.  It also did not require a read from the quarterback.  I do not know why they did not run a few plays like that for Frazier this year.  A bomb where he does not have to make a read but just chuck it and if it gets intercepted it is just a punt.  Frazier was given one pass play during the bowl and it was ugly as he had plenty of time but could not make up his mind and ended up scrambling.  I am really starting to worry about Frazier and throwing the ball.  I hope our new quarterbacks coach can get him ready.

I think we are in big trouble if Frazier is a bust.  It is obvious that Moseley and Trotter even though he played well are not the answer.  Trotter still held the ball too long and other than the one bomb most of his completions were simple swing passes.  I do not think Trotter took a big leap.  I think Trotter and Moseley have showed us what they can do and I do not think they are going to get a lot better than that.  I think they can beat the lesser teams and will continue to struggle against the big boys.  I believe Auburn's only hope for drastically improving the quarterback position is again playing much better up front.  Even in this bowl game AJ Greene was repeatedly beaten.  As I have said all season we are desperate for Robinson and Westerman to be good players and help this line.  Right now it appears next years starting line will be: Robinson, Westerman, Dismukes, Sullen and Slade.  I mean after watching another night of our current line they have to be better but if they are not a lot better then next season will look a lot like this season.

On defense, the everyone carried on for two weeks about Gene Chizik coordinating the defense.  I have heard many say that the defense looked a lot better.  Again I disagree, we still gave up over 400 yards of offense to Virginia.  We made some stops but Virginia is not a juggernaut and once we got the lead they were one dimensional and again we had more good players.  On the positive side we saw a couple of big plays from Gabe Wright and Angelo Blaxson who we also need to step up big next year.  Like the offense if we can improve the line the rest of the defense will be much better.

However it was nice to see this team even with all their warts end on a good note and play about our best game of the season.  It almost makes me want to install turf at Jordan Hare as our best games the last two seasons have been on turf at the Georgia Dome.  It has definitely been one of the stranger seasons I have seen at Auburn.  Finishing 8-5 should be considered very good for this team and this coaching staff.  I said that at the start of the season.  Unfortunately getting blown out and being non-competitive against every good team we played (other than South Carolina) and seeing some possible long term problems crop up pretty much took all the joy out of finishing 8-5. 

We were able to get rid of Ted Roof who I still think was a large part of our problem but if our defense continues to be mediocre it is now on Chizik.  He better do the coaching or hire somebody who can get the job done.  I am also glad to see Malzahn go.  He was a critical part of last year but I just do not think his offensive philosophy will work long term in the SEC unless you can line up a Cam Newton or Tim Tebow every season.  I certainly hope we get away from the hurry-up-no-huddle as again it just kills your own defense and is also just is not a long term solution in the SEC in my opinion.  Now it is time to see who we will hire to lead the offense and defense.  Again, I think these hires will obviously be the most critical of Gene Chizik's coaching career and I will say again, choose well coach choose well.