First "Acid Reign" at Track'em Tigers does a great job breaking things down and also some great commentary on his post game analysis...
Tigers Find No Answers In "Their State"
A Lifetime Of Defeats Returns Not To Praise The Auburn Tigers, But To Bury Them
Let me respond to some of the points Acid Reign makes about Saturday...
POINT #1: "What we saw was an Auburn roster containing the results of three top ten recruiting classes, and those guys were absolutely dominated by a team that does not recruit on the same level. Coaches Gene Chizik and Dan Mullen took over their respective programs the very same year. At this point, I'm left wondering which way each squad is trending."
First let me say that he is right on in saying that no matter what we recruit better than Mississippi State and it is mostly on bad coaching that we got blown out by them. I will get back to that but first let me also point out that while we have talent and it should be coached better we do not have as much talent as people think we do.
I mean it is going turn me into the "Lifetime Of Defeats" guy if I hear it many more times, and that is the myth we have had three top ten recruiting classes. Yes, on signing day these classes were "ranked" in the so-called "top ten" however if we ranked the classes now then only one, maybe, would still be ranked close to that high. Take last year's "top ten class" for example... We had lost the best quarterback, the best running back and one of the best wide receivers from that class before the first game. The class is not longer a "top ten" recruiting class. The same can certainly be said for the 2010 class as well. Just watch us when we line up next to LSU and Bama, does it look like we are close? A "five star" player like small wide receiver Trovon Reed is nowhere close to as valuable as a "five star" player like left tackle Cyrus Kouandjio. Give the recruiting spin a rest please.
Another thing I am tired of hearing is how dumb the fans are and how brilliant football coaches and the media are. I think a lot of us "dumb fans" who do not have journalism or physical education degrees could make better decisions than these football coaches make that media types defend. For example... "Auburn has the most inept offense in the league" and one of the worst in college football (that is a fact according to the rankings). Many parts of this meltdown are dumb decisions by our coaches, let us review...
POINT #2: "The offense is certainly plagued by poor throws, but the design is far worse... Yes, I looked at some boards yesterday, and I saw numerous 'yank Frazier' posts. Folks, that's not going to happen. We have few options other than to stick it out with him. And really, with this offense, he's not being given a chance to be successful, and the other guys on the bench have even fewer tools in their toolbox."
Kiehl Frazier has, I believe, played his entire career in a spread-type offense and was recruited to do that at Auburn. He had some success as a runner last year. I understand Chizik wanting to leave the spread and go back to a more traditional offense however it should be a transition and not a complete break. In 2008 when Tuberville made the decision to go to the spread, some of us knew it is tough to transition to the spread and even tougher to transition out of it.
That is certainly being proven true this year for Auburn as it has already at Florida and Texas. Two of the biggest powerhouses in college football who like Auburn won the national championship behind superstar quarterbacks running the spread but then just a couple of years later wanted to move away from the spread. It has cost both of these schools seasons like Auburn is experiencing this year and last.
The sad thing is that Loeffler should have been the perfect guy to do it since he has coached both style's of offense. He coached a pro-style at Michigan and the Detroit Lions but coached Tim Tebow in the spread at Florida. I want to go pro-style. I hate running out entire offense out of the shotgun but as I said in my season preview I still expected us to run a lot of read-option plays. Our coaches are just dumb not to.
Kiehl Frazier is obviously not a traditional drop-back quarterback and will not be one anytime soon. I think the best chance for him to succeed is still running many plays from the shotgun including read-option plays that he and our running backs were recruited to run. This would give them a little success we could build on. We could then run a few passes from those formations which would give Frazier a better chance for success.
We could then mix in a few under-snap plays but mostly stay with what Frazier is familiar with and gives Auburn the best chance to win with. We really need Frazier to work out this year as Acid Reign points out. We simply do not have a choice. Clint Moseley? He proved he is not the answer last year. Jonathan Wallace? A lightly recruited true freshman, something tells me that is not the answer. One of our true freshmen coming in next year? Again that just does not seem to be the answer. We recruited Frazier, one of the best quarterbacks in the country, and now it is time to do some coaching.
Whoever we put in we must commit more to a clock-running game-shortening offense. Shorten the game, hope the defense improves and maybe you get an upset. It is a strategy as old as football itself. It was obvious before the season started we would not score that many points with a new quarterback and tackles. Yet we do not appear to be calling plays that would help that strategy.
POINT #3: "I can't imagine how it feels to be Travante Stallworth or Brandon Fulse. They've paid the price for years at Auburn, and are now in the playing rotation. I saw numerous times that MSU literally put no one on those guys when they were on the field, or had their guy jump into the running lanes. Stallworth in particular was all alone on the wide side of the field in his routes, and Auburn has yet to even look over there. If we've got a 500-page playbook, a quick throw to an uncovered wide receiver ought to be in there."
How many times must us "dumb fans" point this out? How in the world as Acid Reign states above do we not call a play specifically to get the ball to one of these guys as they are wide-open. There is no conceivable way it would not work a couple of times. Again, "keeping the other team honest" is another tenet of football as old as the introduction of the forward pass into the game. I have made statements nearly identical to this for over a year now and it is really driving me crazy. It is a wonder we can recruit anyone to come play wide receiver at Auburn.
POINT #4: "After Tre Mason had his first hundred yard game last week, the coaching staff's answer this week was to only give him 8 carries in the game. Brilliant."
I have never been very high on Tre Mason but was pleasantly surprised last week with his 100 yard effort. He puts up a hundred yard game and our coaches... bench him. It just seems dumb to me.
So there you have it... dumb strategy, dumb playcalling and dumb substitutions equal having one of the worst offenses in college football right now.
Now to the defense... (insert huge exasperated sigh here)
Again I think Coach Van Gorder is a very good coach and I know he and Coach Martinez are upgrades over Roof and Lolley. Yet our defense continues to flounder. They obviously made some bad decisions in the three categories I just pointed out regarding the offense. However I still believe it is not quite as bad and there is hope for the defense. However we do have serious problems.
First I agree with Acid Reign that "we've got way too much blue chip talent sitting on the bench on defense. I can't understand why, with the abysmal linebacker play we're getting on the field, that a speedy, huge talent like Kris Frost isn't playing."
I mean really how could he possible do any worse? Acid Reign points out later that Bates and Holland only had two solo tackles and that "This group is just not getting it done". Of course he also points out that "The secondary is a mess, too. Two of the most athletic, hard-hitting guys we've got, Robensen Therezie and Erique Florence, are sitting on the bench". It is then revealed officially today that Therezie is moving to be our third string running back (???).
Last but not least from Acid Reign as I have harped on over and over and over again about our defensive line... "We were again manhandled in the middle. When guys had a chance to make plays, they often could not make the tackle. I gave a passing grade due to a good rush off the edge. But when the other team decides to run an off-tackle play or a sweep, the ends pretty much universally get blown off the ball."
All these things were killing us last season and are still problems. How do we fix them? Short term it is tough. We are stuck and have to play a number of under performing individuals. However as I was reminded by a friend, we recruited these guys and they cannot all be busts. This is more on the coaches. It is past time for them to earn those enormous salaries they get.
At the very least we can as discussed above get the best talent on the field if for no other reason to get them ready so we have less problems next season. After that I guess all you can do is keep coaching and keep encouraging and hope something good happens. I know, it doesn't fill me with a lot of hope either.
Which leads us to long-term solutions... First, clean house and let Van Gorder bring in his guys at defensive line and linebacker. Second, recruit a lot of big linebackers and more tackles. Third, work more on tackling even though it increases the risk of injury. The second solution is easier said than done but the others are not.
THE LAST WORD
The buck stops with Chizik. This combined dumbness and under performance stops with him. This season is now almost guaranteed to be worse than last year with not too much too look forward to next year either. The program is on the brink of disaster. Chizik did a great job leading a team that included Cam Newton and a bunch of battle-hardened seniors recruited by Tommy Tuberville to a championship. It was similar to Terry Bowden doing a great job leading a bunch of battle-hardened juniors and seniors recruited by Pat Dye to a twenty game winning streak. However time always tells the story and some coaches are only good for that one good season or two. Bowden did a great job but then fell apart. Time told the story. Gene Chizik did a great job two years ago but now things look pretty bad. It is time for Chizik to steady the ship or like Bowden he will eventually be dumped overboard.
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