I mean every time you want to give this guy a break he dumbs it up again. I mean COME ON!!! The guy pulls off one of the biggest wins in recent Auburn history and then once again does a horrible job the next time out. This was all coaching as Auburn has better football players than Minnesota, probably a lot more. Auburn just looked badly outcoached. It was hard to watch. The Tigers still had a good chance to win the game but they played terrible. On top of that the broadcast itself was about the worst I have ever sat through. It was an awful game from top-to-bottom. I also hate it because Auburn wore special helmets which I thought were so cool to honor the late Pat Sullivan. It is just sad Auburn played so bad with those helmets on.
THE GOOD
Honestly I cannot think of much good to say about any unit on the field or especially the coaching on both sides of the ball for Auburn. I guess I will say again I loved the helmets. I love Auburn's uniform tradition and am totally behind it but I would not mind pulling out the orange jerseys or something like that for one of the nothing games each season. My first game as I have mentioned several times on this blog was the 1978 Auburn vs. Georgia game where the Tigers came out in orange jerseys. Again I do not think we should actually do anything like that in any conference or other big games but I will continue to think it would be good to shake things up for a lesser game.
I guess the rest of the accolades have to go to the Golden Gophers. They did a great job on both sides of the ball, the coaches and the players. Head coach P.J. Fleck was very smart in shortening the game by draining the play clock on just about every series. I am not sure why other coaches going up against a better team do not do that more. I remember Gerry Dinardo at Vanderbilt almost upsetting Auburn's undefeated 1993 team by doing that. You then have to give it to Minnesota's big three with quarterback Tyler Morgan going 19 of 29 for 278 yards and tossing two touchdowns to super receiver Tyler Johnson who also had over 200 of the Gophers' passing yardage!!! On top of that running back Mohamed Ibrahim carred the ball 20 times for 140 yards and a touchdown.
THE BAD
The defense for the first time this season joins the offense in this section. I mean I know Minnesota did a great job as I just described but the Auburn defense was still not very good. The Golden Gophers piled up almost 500 yards of offense on the Tigers. I understand the passing a little bit more than the running. Kevin Steele has never been good against good passing teams but Minnesota seemed to run at will. The ultimate insult was a 16 PLAY DRIVE consuming almost NINE MINUTES to end the game including a 3rd and 10 conversion on a run when Auburn had the whole team at line of scrimmage. I was just flabbergasted at how bad the Auburn defense was beat in this game.
Of course some of that was caused by the Auburn offense only being able to run 53 plays. Auburn only had three drives over five plays and only ONE over seven plays. The Tigers scored 10 points off an interception and a kick return for a touchdown. You take that away and the Auburn offense once again scored less than 20 points against a decent team. I mean it is just the same old story with a Gus Malzahn offense. There is a GREAT writeup on Auburn Undercover by the famous "StatTiger" that really tells the story. Please read this if you can. He really sums it up but the bottom line stat is that "during Gus' tenure as offensive coordinator and head coach, Auburn is 3-16 against top-20 teams when the offense is held to 160-yards or less, rushing the football."
THE UGLY
The ugly is once again the inability of Gus Malzahn to have his team play anywhere close to their potential when he is away and up against a solid defense that has stacked the box. The ugly is once again the substituting nearly every play which prevents Auburn from ever "playing fast" which Malzahn once aspired to. The ugly is how predictable Auburn continues to be based on the aforementioned substitutions. The ugly is how Gus' teams lose the bowl game every time we beat Bama thus ending a good season on a sour note. The ugly is how bad Gus' teams have played in these bowl losses. The ugly is knowing it will never change. The ugly is that no matter how many great wins like this year's Iron Bowl Gus' teams win there will be just as many ugly losses.
The ugly for this game was also the hideous broadcast. There are some superb broadcasters that manage to entertain us while we watch. The low-level team doing the Outback Bowl needs to stick to doing the best play-by-play and commentary they can and concentrate on that. I have never heard so much babbling while a game was going in my life. These guys were terrible. This was also highlighted by the fact that it took them till MIDWAY THROUGH THE THIRD QUARTER to actually talk about why the Auburn team was wearing a "7" on their helmets (!!!???!!!). That is beyond pathetic and incompetent. I guarantee if Bama or Ohio State or whoever else was wearing a special helmet it would have been discussed early and often. PA-THETIC.
THE LAST WORD
Another Auburn football season is officially in the books. There were some great highs in the games against Oregon, Texas A&M, Mississippi State and Bama but their were some pretty bad lows against Florida, LSU, Georgia and Minnesota. It was a good season but certainly not a great one which is kind of the Gus Malzahn standard. We can look forward to the same thing next season and the season after. Gus always wins the game he needs to, he always wins enough not to get fired but never consistent enough. He somehow someway won the most important one this season and that will buy him a lot of good will in the right places. He will be at Auburn for quite awhile longer so I guess all we can do is enjoy the good wins when they come and just get though games like this.
Auburn will definitely be rebuilding next season but as long as they can win their non-conference games and beat Arkansas, Kentucky and the Mississippi schools they will get to eight wins. If Gus and company can upset one out of Texas A&M, Georgia, LSU and Bama that will make nine. I think he will probably get to nine but get beat badly by Georgia, Bama and at least one other school. It is really not much to look forward to. I guess it is great not being one of the SEC bottom-feeders but with Gus at the helm Auburn will always be a step behind the top teams. I guess to end on a positive note I am actually enjoying the college football playoff for the first time with Bama not in it. I will always remember the Tigers knocking them out this season. WAR EAGLE and WAR 48-45!!!
WAR EAGLE AND WAR 48-45!!!
