The whole "new era at Auburn" Hugh Freeze love fest that has been going on through the preseason and Auburn's home opener last week is officially over now though I think. I like Freeze and think he is the right guy for Auburn as I have written in my last two posts. However I am not sure I have seen a worse job coaching an offense than last night. I am including the worst of Malzahn and Harsin in there. One of the reasons Freeze was hired was his history as an offensive coach. I understand that in the shape Auburn is in he has to spend more time on recruiting but there is absolutely no excuse for what happened last night. As I have asked many times before of other coaches, what exactly have these guys been doing in practice the last nine months? Auburn could not execute the simplest passing play.
Payton Thorne may not be that good, the offensive line may not be that good, and the receivers may not be that good but there is again no excuse for not being able to execute a simple passing play for three quarters. There is no excuse for rotating quarterbacks every play at times. The most ignorant football neophyte knows that rotating quarterbacks every play never and I mean never works. There is no excuse for a veteran quarterback that you have worked with the past nine months to look that lost. There is no excuse for the just awful play calling. It seemed like they were trying to call a bad play? There is no excuse for three fumbles. There is just no excuse for the complete lack of any semblance of a competent game plan. Again this is not the fault of the talent level of the roster. This debacle was on the coaches plain and simple.
What do I think we should have done? OK for starters you do not put David Ashford in the game unless it is a short yardage down. Ashford is a wildcat quarterback plain and simple. The point of the wildcat play is that you have an extra blocker with the quarterback running and he is a mild threat to throw the ball where the running back is not. Those two things give the offense an advantage in a short yardage situation. The wildcat does not work in other situations because the wildcat quarterback is not a long throw passing threat so the defense can crowd the line of scrimmage with no fear and in that situation the offense loses any advantage and the defense gains it. The percentages are very low that David Ashford can or will complete a downfield pass. We have seen a season of David Ashford at quarterback last year. He is just not an accurate passer.
Therefore since know this about Ashford and based on the history of football you NEVER rotate quarterbacks every play. EVER. Again unless it is a wildcard situation you stick with a quarterback. I am sorry this is elementary stuff. There is just no reason I should even have to write this. OK let us move on, as always this Auburn offense is a run-first play-action offense. It seems that is all Auburn will ever ever ever be. It is against the laws of heaven and earth that Auburn ever have a great passing offense complemented by the run and not the other way around. For any who want to argue that point, find one other team at this level who has had only TWO seasons in the entire history of the school where a receiver had a thousand yards receiving (one of them being in 1971). I would love to make my living recruiting wide receivers NOT to come to Auburn. The history makes it the easiest job in the world. I am not sure how anybody can get a wide receiver to come to Auburn to play football.
Back to the point though, this Auburn offense is a run-first play-action offense. Obviously you come out running the ball and when you pass you play-action most of the time. I did not see near enough plain ol' play-action passes last night. You call the play and you squat the tight-end, drag the receiver across the middle, etc... and you let the quarterback make a read and pass the ball. It is just not that hard. You then hopefully get an incomplete pass at worst and you punt the ball, stop the other team, and then you try again. At some point you the put in this unbelievably effective concept. Auburn would have another national championship if they would have done it in 2013. Here it is, get ready... YOU RUN A PLAY-ACTION PASS ON FIRST DOWN. I know it is a crazy idea but it is pretty effective.
Instead our coaching staff was shuttling quarterbacks in and out and I guess trying to run RPO plays with a quarterback in Thorne that cannot run and is in fact slow. The guy is a pocket passer. The key for him should be getting the ball out of his hands faster. I think the whole RPO thing is overrated as well because they are always short passes. It is like an extended option play. These coaches and other people act like it is undiscovered gold or something. It is not. You coach up your quarterback to make reads and deliver passes. I thought Hugh Freeze did that but instead it looks like Gus Malzahn is back calling plays at Auburn. I watched 11 bleeping years of that BS and do NOT want to watch a second more. I understand this team being run based but what we saw last night was just incompetent coaching.
Auburn had only 94 yards passing last night against CAL. CAL???!!!??? I think that says it all and backs up everything I have written. There is no way, absolutely no way that Auburn should ever only have 94 yards passing. That is just beyond bad coaching and game preparation. Cal's defense might be better than Vanderbilt's in the SEC. That is it. My prediction for Auburn this year was seven wins but right now I think Auburn will be lucky to get to six and things are going to get uglier than I thought if last night is any indication. Finally for the record this is why you PASS THE BALL in games like last week and why we should against Samford this week. You have to practice this stuff in those games to be ready and it looks like Hugh Freeze is another in a long line of Auburn coaches who will not do it.
Alright lets move to the other side of the ball and some actual good news. This entails me calling out myself. I wrote last week on my doubts about the defense and defensive coordinator Ron Roberts. I think that is clearly what should be written about the offense now. The defense is going to take their lumps this season, no doubt, but I think they will go down fighting their butts off. I like the attacking style rather than the typical play-it-safe bend-but-don't-break hope-they-make-a-mistake defense that Auburn has played a lot more of over the last few seasons. You attack and you actually see a linebacker like Eugene Asante empowered to have a night like he did. When was the last time you saw anything like that at Auburn? It is just sad the offense played so bad on a night the defense played so well.
Yes it is sure nice to complain about the team after a win than a loss but lets be clear, the offense was that bad. I am just not sure the amount of improvement needed to beat anybody outside of Vanderbilt in the SEC is possible this season. Auburn fans can talk about how bad Texas A&M and LSU are but let me tell you, both of those teams are miles ahead of where the Auburn offense is right now. If anyone thinks this Auburn team can beat either of those teams on the road playing offense anywhere close to what they played last night they are crazy. I just thought Auburn would be much better on offense. I just did not see this coming. It really puts the whole season in doubt for me. I hope I am just being an alarmist making too much out of a bad night...
I do know one thing though, again Auburn BETTER practice throwing the ball next week against Samford. This will be their last chance before things get a LOT tougher.
How is auburn’s kicking game looking this year? WDE
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