"When things look bad and you don't think you're going to make it, thats when you got to get MEAN. I mean plumb mad dog MEAN. Because if you lose your head or give up then you neither live nor win and thats just the way it is..."
Clint Eastwood in "The Outlaw Josey Wales"
That would be my advice to the 2012 Auburn Tigers. Clint gave out that advice before a fight with a stronger enemy force. I think, contrary to many Auburn bloggers, that Auburn will find themselves in that same situation many times this football season as well. So the 2012 Auburn Tigers need to take their stand and get MEAN as well like Clint and his group in that movie.
Let's take a closer look at Auburn's 2012 units. I have waited for Auburn to release their official depth chart before starting this to have a more accurate view of things. First lets look at the defense. I have stated previously that I thought hiring coach Brian Van Gorder was a home run. His work at Georgia earlier this decade was outstanding and his time with the Falcons was not bad either. I am not sure Auburn could do much better at defensive coordinator. Add to that the hiring of his right hand man at Georgia, Willie Martinez, and I expect the defense to be much improved. I cannot emphasize enough how much better off Auburn should be with these two men replacing Ted Roof and Phillip Lolley.
It has been tough watching Auburn on defense the last three years outside of Nick Fairley. The 2009 and 2011 defensive units are statistically the worst ever at Auburn. The 2010 team even with a dominant player like Nick Fairley and several other good ones was still just mediocre overall. Also as I have discussed the last two seasons, the hurry-up-no-huddle spread offense made things much worse. I am glad it was in place for Cam Newton but now I am very glad it is gone but more on that later. The point is hopefully our change in offensive philosophy will also help improve our defense.
With all that said, I think it is a little unrealistic to expect the Auburn defense to go from the pathetic unit it was last year to juggernaut. According to most Auburn bloggers, the fact that our front seven is a year older makes them All-SEC. I look for them to be much improved but not dominant. Let's remember that ALL of these guys got pushed all over their own field by Utah State and then got absolutely dominated by every good team we played last year. The first game will be a good indicator of how far this defense has come as they pretty much quit in the fourth quarter against Clemson last year as Clemson went on about a nine minute drive to close the game out. Absolutely utterly embarrassing. I hope our coaches made our players watch it over several times.
Let's start with the defensive tackles... Juniors Jeffrey Whitaker and Kenneth Carter return for their third tour of duty. Whitaker is said to be much improved and has become one of the team leaders. They will be teamed again with Angelo Blackson and Gabe Wright who are hopefully much more ready after a year with Kevin Yoxall. Rounding out the three-deep are freshman Tyler Nero and sophomore Devaunte Sigler. It is simple, the first four have the experience, now it is time to show something. All of these guys were vaunted recruits who were thrown in the fire early as freshmen. They should have enough experience now. It all starts right there in the middle. How much have these guys improved? The answer will go a long way toward determining what kind of defense we have.
At the ends Auburn looks very strong with returning first team All-SEC end Corey Lemonier plus Dee Ford, Nosa Egaue and "Mr. Hustle" himself #13 Craig Sanders. Lemonier and Ford are proven pass rushers. I think the key for this group is how well they play against the run. They did not fare well last season. Even Lemonier who had almost 10 sacks last season got mauled by the big teams running the ball. These guys have to step up and stop the run and put the other team in 3rd and long situations.
Behind them is once again a thin undersized group of linebackers in Darren Bates, Jake Holland and Jonathan Evans. There are two legitimate backups in Kris Frost and Justin Garrett and pretty much nothing after that. I was extremely disappointed not to see Kris Frost grab a starting spot. He is about the biggest linebacker recruit Auburn has snagged since Takeo Spikes. It is too early to call him a bust but I hope he gets some playing time and will be ready to step in for Bates next year. Bates is a gamer who makes some big plays but is undersized. Holland and Evans were both injured last year but certainly did not do a whole lot before then. Hopefully moving Coach Tommy Thigpen to linebackers will help them and him as it was the position he played and coached previously. Also Coach Van Gorder is a linebackers coach as well. I don't expect big things from these guys but just nominal play behind an improved line would be huge.
The strength and deepest part of the Auburn defense is in the secondary. The coaches have recruited well and stockpiled a lot of good players. The thing that hurt the secondary the most was the front seven getting consistently oblierated last year and bad coaching. Hopefully with both those areas improved we can see big things out of this unit. A few of the brightest stars have fallen down the depth chart due to injuries in Enrique Florence and Robenson Threrezie but hopefully they will rebound.
So where does that leave us? I am hoping this defense can finish in the top half of the SEC in scoring and total defense. I am hoping that will put it in the top 25 in the country and that it will be much improved over the abomination we saw last year. Hopefully that will help Auburn secure some big wins. To the offense...
Coach Scott Loeffler comes into to change Auburn's offense from the defense-killing hurry-up-no-huddle spread to a defense-friendlier pro-style type offense. Now what the heck does "pro-style" mean? I mean talk about a vague reference. Well I watched highlights from several of Temple's games last year and his offense up there resembled Al Borges' west coast offense at Auburn with a good bit of read option thrown in. I am definitely predicting we will still see a LOT of shotgun read-option plays from Auburn this year. Loeffler help run it at Florida with Tebow, he ran it at Temple and the Auburn players especially Kiehl Frazier are familar with it.
Where will Loeffler go other than that? I would expect us to continue to stretch the field with McCalebb from many different formations. I would expect many short passes to Lutzenkirchen and Emory Blake. The big question is if Auburn will commit to having a decent down-the-field vertical passing game. All we have heard in the off-season is "run the ball blah blah blah run the ball...". Like last year and 2009 and Brandon Cox's last two years, we will not be able to run the ball against the big boys without a legitimate down-the-field threat. You have to back those safeties up. Auburn did not even have that last year against the little guys. You have to practice your passing game in the lesser games to have it ready in the big games and Chizik and Co. did not last year.
Our passing game was a complete embarrassment as LSU, Georgia and Bama relentlessly jammed the line of scrimmage not even worrying about a passing threat. Also teams would pay some extra attention to Blake and Lutzenkirchen but barely cover any other wide receivers. They knew we would not throw to them and we did not. You can talk about "running the ball" all you want but without a competent passing game it is not going to happen.
Can Kiehl Frazier deliver? He did not do much passing last year but the guy was one of the best quarterbacks in the country out of high school and appears to be a great kid. I am hoping he has a big year. It will be tough though with two freshmen tackles. Even Chizik says it: "We have a starting quarterback who is new. We have two tackles who have never played a game. We're curious to see how the offense molds and gels, even during the game."
While Greg Robinson and Avery Young are highly touted prospects it is tough being a young tackle in the SEC. However they should be more talented than their senior counterparts last year who did not fare well even in the little games. Hopefully Reese Dismukes will not be suspended too long because we need all hands on deck. We have a little more experience at the guards in John Sullen and Chad Slade and more big-time prospects behind them in Christian Westermen and Alex Kozan.
I am not sure how much we can realistically expect from this line. For Auburn to beat any of the big-time teams on their schedule this unit must be able to hold their own against some pretty good defensive lines. I guess at this point you coach them up and hope for the best, you hope these young guys grow up fast. I think IF they can stay together that these guys could be great down the line but unfortunately I think they will take their lumps this year. That effects everything especially when you don't have that one guy at running back.
Ontario McCalebb is back and hopefully will have another big game in the Georgia Dome as he did in the Chick-fil-a bowl just nine months ago. However as everyone knows, he is not an every-down back. It will be up to Tre Mason and Mike Blakely to step and do the tough running. Mason showed some flashes and Blakely has gotten good reviews. Unfortunately young guys behind a young line with a young quarterback... I keep adding it up in my head and I just do not see a happy ending against the big boys on our schedule.
As stated before, we do have veteran playmakers Emory Blake and Phillip Lutzenkirchen but Frazier has to have time to get them the ball and the other team has to not collapse on them. The question is will we throw to someone else and if we actually do will someone else step up? As I said before it was embarrassing how little attention teams payed to our second and third wide receivers last year. You have to make them respect at least a little anyone you send out there at wide receiver. You also have to throw the ball enough to get everyone involved and get the main guys enough touches.
I guess that is what I am hoping from this young inexperienced unit. I am hoping that the coaching staff will try to stay somewhat balanced and that we can at least have a decent somewhat effective passing game. IF we can do that then I think we can "run the ball" and maybe have a chance at an upset. I think this offense has a lot of future potential but is the future now?
One big positive is the special teams. They look very strong with Cody Parkey and Steven Clark. Both are All-SEC caliber kickers that you cannot take for granted. Both had good seasons last year along with good kick coverage and decent returners. I think the special teams will be a solid asset to this team. Now to the schedule...
This season looks fairly easy to predict. I have done fairly well in my preseason predictions for the Chizik era, I predicted 6-6 in both 2009 and 2010 and we went 7-5. I predicted the national championship team to go 9-3. This year I think Auburn has five games that they should win in La Monroe, New Mexico St, Alabama A&M, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt and four games they will most likely lose in Arkansas, LSU, Georgia and Bama. Arkansas, Georgia and Bama all have very good experienced quarterbacks who ate Auburn up last year. I look for Auburn to give them a better game but do not see the upset. LSU does not have the quarterback but is loaded everyone else. The season, in my opinion, hinges on three games: Clemson, Miss St and Texas A&M. These are games that could go either way and will decide whether Auburn has a decent, medocre or bad season.
Two of these games are right off the bat starting the season away from Jordan Hare so we should know a lot about this Auburn team before the home opener. I think we will get two of them and am going with historical precedent and predicting this Auburn team will go... 7-5. That will not make us happy but seems to be the reality of the moment.
However I think most Auburn fans are looking for improvement that sometimes is not seen in the win and loss record. I think they are looking for Auburn to play much better in the big games and "get mean" as I started this post saying. We may be outmanned and inexperienced but we can show these teams that we are back and here to stay by making sure they remember the next day they played the Auburn Tigers. It is "time to get mean, I mean plumb mad dog mean". I just can't say it any better than that.
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