This was no juggernaut Auburn was facing Saturday night. It is a rebuilding State team outside Dak Prescott. Wow he was heads and tails the best player on the field last night. State had no running game and had several drops by their wide receivers. Prescott was still able to pass for almost 300 yards. Even with a mediocre offensive line Auburn was not able to get much pressure on Prescott. I think this State team like Auburn will also lose to every other SEC West team they play this season except for maybe Arkansas.
THE GOOD
Auburn finally found somebody it could run a little bit on. The Tigers finally got to 200 yards rushing in a game this season although it took them 50 rushing attempts to do it. Kerryon Johnson showed a spark again running and catching the ball. Peyton Barber was back this week with another 100 yard rushing performance and hey Duke Williams was actually spotted catching a few passes. On top of that, the defense was also able to hold State to just 56 yards rushing. I am searching for something else to say good...
I guess some would point to a decent first start by Sean White and I guess he did OK but he was largely ineffective and threw a critical momentum-changing interception on Auburn's first drive. He should have had two more passes picked off as well. I have yet to hear anybody killing White for those throws like they did to Jeremy Johnson. Also I would like to remind everyone that while evidently Johnson was the worst quarterback any Auburn fan has ever seen, he did actually make a few important touchdown throws as well against Louisville and Jax State. The same cannot be said for White.
Again I have nothing against White. The problem is that if White was an experienced senior he would win that game last night but probably will still not be able to beat Georgia and Bama and other top tier teams on Auburn's schedule. I just do not see him ever being that much better than what he was last night which was a guy who throws a lot of short balls. In my opinion, he just does not have the vision or the arm to have much of a vertical passing game. He did exactly what I thought and wrote he would do in my post earlier this week except he did have a critical interception.
THE BAD
The defensive effort was better and frankly when you hold a team under 20 points in this day and age your team should win the game. It is hard to criticize the defense a whole lot last night but at times Prescott seemed to be able to pass at will. Most of the time Auburn was not able to generate any kind of rush and I do not think the Tigers ever did just rushing four. Again they were able to make some plays and hold the Bulldogs under 20 points but State played pretty conservative as time went on and everyone can still see this defense has big problems.
This defense is going to get absolutely destroyed several more times this season and I do not think any coach on earth could change that. I did appreciate Will Muschamp's candid and sincere press conference this week. It was much more sincere than anything I have ever heard from Gus Malzahn. Unfortunately for Muschamp he just does not have the horses. The best thing he can do for himself and for Auburn is get better players. If Auburn is not able to recruit better on a larger scale on defense then things are not going to change any time soon.
It was great seeing the Tigers get big-time recruits Byron Cowart and Jeffery Holland plus a couple of other guys like Carlton Davis this last season but there has to be more. Auburn has had some defensive stars here and there like Nick Fairley and Dee Ford and a few others but has not fielded a good defensive unit overall in a long time. If Auburn is ever going to do this it would seem like now would be the best chance. Auburn probably has the best defensive recruiting staff in place it has ever had in Muschamp, Rodney Garner, Lance Thompson and Travarius Robinson. These guys have to turn things around on the defensive recruiting trail before they can turn it around on the field.
THE UGLY
Regardless of whether it is Johnson or White, the problem is still Auburn's complete lack of anything resembling a decent passing game and the offensive coaching overall. Illegal Procedure calls, illegal shifts, bad snaps, kickoffs out of bounds... that is coaching. Those are drive killers. They put the offense in a hole or in the case of the bad snap ruin Auburn's best chance at a touchdown. The play calling is also atrocious. Late in the game as State was blitzing almost every down Malzahn calls that fake run handoff/fake reverse handoff play action pass play??? White barely finished the second fake before he was buried. First Auburn has ran that play since 2009, everyone sees it coming, and second it is slow developing and about the worst thing you could call against a blitzing team.
Again I just do not understand what Malzahn and Lashlee's plan was for this season??? They knew they did not have a running quarterback in either Johnson or White. They knew they had freshmen two-deep at H-back and tight end. They knew they had some talented receivers yet it seems they just expected to run over everybody and still only need the occasional pass. Yes, neither Johnson or White have been able to consistently make that occasional pass but that still does not excuse the awful coaching done by Malzahn and Lashlee.
I think both quarterbacks and especially Johnson would have looked much better if Malzahn was as determined to field a top tier passing game as he is the running game. Frankly as I have heard more than one Auburn fan say, we are basically Georgia Tech. In fact Auburn has only thrown 40 more passes this season than the Yellow Jackets (and those 40 passes were basically swing passes that are basically running plays). Gus Malzahn is not an offensive innovator. In fact, more and more Pat Dye looks more innovative than Malzahn. Malzahn really does much more closely resemble Johnson at Georgia Tech than other HUNH spread coaches.
THE LAST WORD
The rest of the football world and especially the defensive coaches have caught up with Malzahn and know all of his tendencies. It started to show up last season but has been made very clear this season. I guess if Malzahn is ever able to assemble talent like the 2013 team had on offense he will be successful again. Short of that I do not think he will ever field a top offense again at Auburn if he is unwilling to change. It sure looks now like he will continue to pound his head against a brick wall no matter what happens on the field.
This is now a complete rebuilding project. I will continue to say in this spot that I think Jeremy Johnson should be the guy Auburn rebuilds around. He still has a much higher ceiling than Sean White. Malzahn is going to compound his problems wasting an entire season of experience on White who in my opinion will just never be good enough. Johnson on the other hand has the tools to beat top tier teams. Auburn is going to lose the majority of its remaining games regardless of who is quarterback but one guy is going to get that valuable experience going through it to use for this coaching staff or another one.
Auburn now enters the eye of the storm, that brief time of calm before the storm really hits (I also used this illustration back in... 2012). Auburn gets San Jose State, a bye week and then Kentucky. I actually think Auburn is going to win both of those games. Malzahn was not perfect in his best season as a head coach in 2013 and I do not think he will go 0-8 this season. Unlike Bowden and Chizik in their closing seasons Malzahn still has some offensive talent. I think Auburn will regroup to some extent and will be able to run on the Wildcats. If Auburn can run they can still win. Unfortunately I do not think there will be many wins after that as the Tigers hit the big part of that storm.
No comments:
Post a Comment