2015 Birmingham Bowl Review: Defensive Stand

Birmingham Bowl MVP Jovon Robinson

Auburn 31  Memphis 10.  Well the game went pretty much as expected when Auburn had the ball.  I knew Gus would run the ball close to 60 times and not throw much against the smallish Memphis defense and that is exactly what happened.  However I certainly did not expect the Auburn defense to play that well.  I will have to join the many other Auburn sites in congratulating the defensive coaches especially interim coordinator Lance Thompson on a job well done.  I saw the highlights from the Memphis win over Ole Miss, Paxton Lynch was awesome in that game.  You have to give credit to the Auburn defense for making him look like a bum yesterday.  

It is also definitely hard to get a team that had a disappointing season that ended with losses to its major rivals up for a bottom-of-the-barrel bowl game.  The players are college students that ssshhhh would really rather go home on Christmas break than go through practices for the Birmingham Bowl.  However the coaches were still able to get the team to play hard even with all that going on.  Auburn certainly did not play that hard earlier this year in the Outback Bowl.  I knew Gus wanted this win bad though for that winning season.  That is always a big deal for a coach.

Now of course they did play a much better opponent in the Outback Bowl and Auburn has tons more talent than Memphis and should beat them like that.  Ole Miss should too but ran into a hot team on a down day.  The coaches and the players should get their due credit but every Auburn site desperate for something positive to happen to this football team is of course taking it too far.  It is always better to win than to lose but none of Auburn's current issues were solved yesterday.  In fact all of Auburn's issues on offense were on full display yesterday.  They were just obscured by the small Memphis defense and the Auburn defensive effort.

With that said lets get to the good, the bad and the ugly from the 2015 Birmingham Bowl...

THE GOOD
This was like I said above the Auburn defense.  This defense held Memphis to only 13 first downs and only 205 yards of total offense (!!!).  They held top NFL prospect Paxton Lynch to only 16 of 37 passes completed for only 108 yards (!!!).  On top of that they also held Memphis to under 100 yards rushing.  Finally, Memphis only scored because of Auburn turnovers on offense.  The defense basically pitched a shutout.  That is pretty much complete domination and a great accomplishment against any team.  It has been a long time since an Auburn defense turned in a performance like that.

Also good is that Auburn coach Gus Malzahn after the game confirmed that a defensive coordinator had finally been hired in Kevin Steele though rumors had already leaked before the game.  Steele was the LSU defensive coordinator this past season and is a veteran experienced coach.  Most Auburn fans are calling this a big win.  I am not as convinced.  People will call me negative but I said the same things when LSU hired him a year ago.  Steele is a good position coach and recruiter but has absolutely nothing good on his resume as a defensive coordinator or head coach. 

Steele was defensive coordinator at Bama during Saban's first year before being demoted and then turned in three poor years as defensive coordinator at Clemson before being fired.  Before that he went 1-31 in the Big 12 as Baylor's head coach.  He turned in a decent season this year at LSU but in the three critical games in November his defense gave up 30 or more points in all of them and LSU lost to Bama, Arkansas and Ole Miss.  The facts are the facts people, there is nothing in this guy's resume that says he will be a good defensive coordinator, nothing.  I guess it is still a win as I think he is better than most of the other candidates but it is not near the win or sure thing people are thinking it is. 

The other good from the game was the Auburn running attack.  Jovon Robinson took MVP honors with a lot of hard running and had 126 yards on 27 carries and a touchdown.  Peyton Barber finished his solid season breaking the 1000 yard barrier.  That makes it seven years in a row Auburn has had a 1000 yard rusher.  Kudos to Barber... the guy worked extremely hard all season,  carried the team to some wins early and from all reports is a great person.  He is the kind of guy that personifies Auburn football to me and he would be my offensive MVP of the season.  Carl Lawson is the best player on defense but I would actually go with Montravious Adams as our defensive MVP.  The guy was a warrior in the trenches all year long.  The question now is if he and Lawson are turning pro.

THE BAD
The Auburn Wing-T offense bullied and finally wore down the Memphis defense.  Just like all year if Auburn can run the ball they have a chance to win.  Just like all year the passing game was pretty much a joke.  When your punter has the longest completion on the day I think that pretty much says it all.  I understand everyone hates Jeremy Johnson but I do not understand bringing back a rusty Sean White for the bowl game.  Other than two disastrous series against Georgia he had not played since October.  That just does not make any sense to me and sure enough he tossed two horrible interceptions, one a pick-six.

I will say a couple of his incompletions were on the coaching staff as they were one-read plays Gus runs every game and the other team can usually see from a mile away like the wheel route to the running back.  The Auburn passing game was bad in this game just like all season and ended the season ranked 102nd out of 128 NCAA FBS teams.  Unfortunately it does not seem like it will ever change under Gus Malzahn.  Auburn will always be as he has said himself a "run-based play action team".  He has made it clear, he is not changing.  I guess I need to stop whining about it. 

THE UGLY
That brings us to the ugly and that is Auburn's chances of turning this around next season running this offense regardless of defensive improvement.  It is just not rocket science.  Auburn's best years under Malzahn as coordinator and head coach were of course 2010 and 2013.  Yes in both instances the team had a dynamic playmaker at quarterback but also had the pieces all lined up around those stars.  First both teams featured a very good senior-laden offensive line.  They also had very good veteran H-backs.  In 2010 it was unsung hero Eric Smith and in 2013 it was juggernaut Jay Prosch. 

Both teams featured very good tight ends.  In 2010 it was sophomore playmaker Phillip Lutzenkirchen and in 2013 it was C.J. Uzomah and Brandon Fulse.  Finally they had stars at running back and wide receiver.  All the stars had to line up to win a championship in those years.  Now that is true of almost all championships but not all.  I think you have to have a philosophy but you have to tailor it to your personnel.  Every year regardless of the personnel Gus Malzahn is determined to run his Wing-T power run offense from the shotgun formation.  This season he stubbornly tried to run it without a tight end or experienced H-back.  He tried to power run from a three-wide set most of the time.  That is just dumb in my opinion.

Again Auburn did not have the personnel to execute this power-run offense.  I am all for it when Auburn has the personnel but they have not.  I am not saying pass all the time, I am not even saying pass half the time.  I am just saying throw the ball around 25 to 30 times a game.  The last two seasons Auburn has had a lot of playmakers at wide receiver.  The Tigers also have had some running backs that are very versatile and are great receivers out of the back field.  They were all criminally underused.  All I hear is bragging about 1000 yard rushers but when was the last time Auburn had a 1000 yard wide receiver? (NOTE: It was Ronny Daniels in Tub's first season in 1999 but even then it was only because Auburn had no running backs). 

Next season Gus is going to run this exact same offense.  There will be promises and innuendo in the offseason but come on people has anything changed since 2009?  Gus will run the same thing.  Auburn may or may not have a good offensive line depending on the decisions of juniors Shon Coleman and Avery Young.  If both go pro, then Auburn will not have a top tier offensive line.  The Tigers just do not have many great tackles waiting in the wings.  Braden Smith could step in if only one leaves but things look bad if both leave.  H-backs Chandler Cox and Kamryn Pettway should be better next year but Auburn still has absolutely no one with any experience at all at tight end. 

THE LAST WORD
Throw in a brutal schedule in 2016 to all that and what do you get?  Most likely a 7-5 team.  Again though that is who Gus Malzahn is unless the stars align.  You average the 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2015 regular seasons and you get... 7-5.  I looked at the blocking above, it might be good but it will not be good enough to run over really good teams.  The same quarterbacks as this year return along with a second string JUCO quarterback than can run the ball.  As for catching the ball Auburn loses start Ricardo Louis and right now things look pretty thin.  Only Jason Smith and Tony Stevens stand out and it is not like they had a whole lot of catches this season.

On the positive side, Auburn will return all these running backs except maybe Roc Thomas who has been rumored to transfer.  Auburn will have a better offense than this season most likely but again will not be good enough to run over the really good teams.  However Gus will try, you can bet the house on that.  I have really grown weary of watching this one-dimensional no-imagination offense so I am not really looking forward to next season right now at all.  It will just be more of the same "run-based play-action offense".  Oh well, at least the Tigers ended this season and hopefully their history at Legion Field with a win.  Happy New Year and War Eagle.

Down in the Dumps

The Auburn football program has entered the long, dark and uncertain offseason.  It all starts with their "reward" for getting bowl eligible and that is a trip back to the dank confines of Legion Field in Birmingham to play Memphis.  Auburn also enters bowl practice once again looking for a defensive coordinator as Will Muschamp has left Auburn for the third and final time to go to South Carolina as head coach.  Finally, to make things worse Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs and head coach Gus Malzahn appear to be completely bungling the whole process of finding a new defensive leader.

They seem unable to come to grips with the fact that Malzahn is on the hot seat next season after he and his staff have underperformed for two seasons in a row.   On top of that, there is the expected early exodus of several key junior players in the trenches on both sides of the ball plus a tough schedule awaiting in 2016.  Auburn has to open the season with the current #1 football team in the country, Clemson. The Tigers then close the season on the road in Athens and Tuscaloosa.  However home and away did not matter much this last season since Auburn was unable to even beat either of the Mississippi schools at home.  The Tigers will have to go on the road in Mississippi this next season and take on LSU, Arkansas and Texas A&M at home.

With this in mind, no proven defensive coordinator in his prime is going to come to Auburn no matter how much money Jay Jacobs throws at him.  I cannot believe these morons did not offer Travarius Robinson the coordinator position.  The guy is the #1 rated recruiter in the nation according to ESPN and is a good up-and-coming coach AND AN AUBURN ALUM.  The smart move was to take a calculated risk and make him the coordinator with veterans like Lance Thompson and Rodney Garner there to help and mentor.  The key thing is GETTING GOOD PLAYERS and keep continuity in the defensive staff.  It was obviously the best move to make in Auburn's current situation yet Jacobs and Malzahn managed to screw it up.

They let Robinson go and then humiliated themselves trying to buy Florida State defensive coordinator Charles Kelly.  As I am writing this they are now fumbling around trying to find some second tier guy to come in who will be nowhere close to as good as just hiring TRob.  Honestly you really have to wonder what is going through their heads.  Did they really think they were going to go out and grab some super coach?  Again, they seem to be refusing to face reality.  They can say till they are blue in the face how things are not that bad but the simple fact is Auburn is 2-9 in their last eleven SEC games and 0-5 at home in that stretch.

So now it looks like Auburn will be starting over on defense for the sixth time since 2008.  I am not sure if Auburn will ever have an actual good defense again.  Of course it might not matter much as it is likely Auburn will continue to run the same thing on offense with no changes.  Gus Malzahn has to be the most stubborn person I have ever seen and I will believe he will change anything on offense when I see it.  I wrote the following paragraph following the Outback Bowl in January:

"I am now starting to doubt whether things will change next season with Jeremy Johnson hopefully coming in for Marshall.  I fear another ridiculous quarterback "race" and the coaches continuing to try and run the ball the majority of the time.  It is obvious Auburn should be more balanced on offense but like I said above it was obvious this year as well.  Again, Malzahn is at a crossroad, will he take this chance to evolve and innovate the Auburn offense or will he continue to stubbornly stick with the 2013 playbook?  I believe the answer to that question and again him and his staff's ability to get better players on defense will determine his long term fate at Auburn."

The answer to the offensive question I posed in that paragraph was a resounding NO.  Malzahn has not and I believe will not change his offense.  Auburn's personnel might improve but I am wondering how much difference it will make.  The defenses around the SEC appear to have caught up with him and you just cannot beat anybody good without a solid passing game.  Auburn might have a better quarterback next season.  The running backs and H-backs should be better as well.  However the Tigers might be starting over at both tackle positions and have absolutely no one with any experience at all at tight end plus a ton of question marks at wide receiver.  I do not see a dominating offense coming out of that mix.

I guess I am getting ahead of myself though as Auburn still has one more game to play this season.  I have heard a few Auburn fans waxing nostalgic about Birmingham's Legion Field, Bama's alternate home stadium for so long and Auburn's bowl location this season.  I was there to see the last four "half and half" Iron Bowl games at Legion Field.  As I have reminded people many times though it was never really split evenly.  It was more like Auburn getting a third, Bama getting a third and the city of Birmingham getting a third.  That always guaranteed more Bama fans.  Legion Field was always an advantage for Bama especially after it was changed to artificial turf in 1970.

My first game at Legion Field was the 1984 "Wrong Way Bo" Iron Bowl.  As I have stated in a previous post: "It was a beautiful day. I remember wearing my brand new Auburn satin jacket to the stadium but then it being too warm to keep it on. I remember being so excited walking to Legion Field. Of course as soon as we got seated I heard the Bama band playing a cheer and the fans chanting something after it. As a young guy at my first Iron Bowl I was at that time not familiar with any of Bama’s traditions. I soon figured out that the cheer was “Rammer Jammer” and they were chanting “we’re going to beat the hell out of you”. It is still to this day the most obnoxious classless cheer. Congrats Bama."

I was there the next year for the Van Tiffin kick (when I thought it could not get any worse than "Wrong Way Bo") but got even in the last two "half and half" games in 1986 and 1987 with "The Reverse" and "Shut down, Shut out, Shut up".  Finally after the 1987 game the series went to home-and-home even though many people said it would never happen.  Thanks Coach Dye.  Unfortunately during negotiations Auburn had to throw the city of Birmingham a bone to get the deal done and that was to play one more "home game" against Bama at Legion Field.  That game was in 1991 and I thought it would be my last visit to Legion Field.  I had not been back since the 1987 game.

The 1991 game was just a microcosm of the whole season that year,  Auburn lost to Bama and Gene Stallings 13-6 in an ugly boring game to cap a 5-6 season.  I remember driving away with my friend and fellow Auburn student and tossing my cap out the window in disgust.  I sure had no idea I would be returning later that night.  We met other friends for food and drink and I was planning to spend the night in Birmingham before returning to Auburn the next morning.  I was starting to feel better out with my friends when I get a call from my brother.  His ride down had left him and his friend and they were still down at Legion Field.  They needed to be picked up and taken back to Huntsville.

I then had to drive back to Legion Field after dark.  The football traffic had cleared out hours ago but something bad was going on as police cars with their lights on were everywhere and there seemed to be a lot of angry people milling about.  My brother and his friend were pitiful sights cowering at a corner waiting to be picked up.  I got them and we got out of dodge quickly.  It then started pouring rain and continued to pour on me all the way to Huntsville.  A rotten day that had been getting better turned into a rotten night.

I thought that would be my last visit to that awful stadium but it was not.  My last visit was in 1994 in one of the last three Iron Bowls played there at all.  It was only the second time in the entire series that both teams were undefeated (Auburn was 9-0-1 after a tie with Georgia).  My brother was still a student and got me a student ticket to sit with him.  The powers-that-be at Bama put the Auburn students in temporary bleachers in the end zones.  Unfortunately the bleachers were a bit higher than the edge of real end zone seating thus completely screwing over the people sitting on that row.  Compounding that problem was the fact Auburn students stand the whole game.  That is just how it is for big games.  However the Bama fans sitting in that first row of real end zone seating did NOT want to stand up for the whole game and thus a game-long argument ensued. 

I was "lucky" enough to be in one of those top bleacher seats and while our row attempted to make peace with the Bama fans, the drunk fraternity guys in front of us did not.  A fight nearly broke out with us in the middle.  As soon as I sat down, I wondered why I came.  First I had to deal with that whole conflict nearly the entire game.  Second I was not watching as the kickers warmed up and only my brother blocking the ball at the last second kept a football from most likely breaking my nose.  Finally Bama just destroyed Auburn in the first quarter running out to a 21-0 lead.  After they scored to make it 21-0 I thought I was in football hell.  It was simply awful.

Auburn came back to make it a close game but still lost 21-14 when Frank Sanders came up inches short on a fourth down conversion play on a last minute do-or-die drive.  The Bama fans were obviously very fired up as they won the game which gave them an undefeated 11-0 season.  We got heckled pretty good walking back to our car.  I just told my brother and his friends to ignore it and walk out with class.  We did, for the most part (-:  When I drove away from that one I swore I would never return to Legion Field and I do not think one last chance to see this Auburn team is going to change my mind.

Frankly I think Auburn should have turned down a bowl this year and gotten to work on recruiting.  I keep hearing about how "valuable" bowl practice is but I don't buy it.  It sure did not help this team going through it last season.  Auburn simply has nothing to gain in this game.  They are expected to beat Memphis and will get no credit by winning the game.  On the other hand, Memphis is fired up about a chance to knock another SEC team off.  Their quarterback Paxton Lynch could be the first pick in the NFL draft.  This guy is most likely going to shred the Auburn defense worse than Wisconsin's Melvin Gordon did in Auburn's last bowl game. 

So in summary we have... 

• a 2-6 SEC season that included an 0-4 record at home...
• lost Will Muschamp and TRob who were maybe Auburn's best coaches and recruiters...
• made a huge mistake by not promoting TRob, trying to buy Charles Kelly and now bumbling around trying to find a second tier guy that will not be near as good...
•  received and accepted an embarrassing invitation to play in the Birmingham Bowl at Legion Field...
• a good chance that a number of Auburn's best players will leave early or possibly transfer...
• a ridiculously hard schedule on top of all this next season.

I am definitely down in the dumps about Auburn football.  I sure hope Bruce Pearl and the Auburn basketball team can give Auburn sports fans something to cheer about in the next few months.