Auburn 45 Samford 13. Last week as my previous post indicated was shocking to me. I have seen some of the offenses from head coach Hugh Freeze's previous teams and I just did not expect a game plan or a performance like that. As I said I am extremely sensitive after having to watch Gus Malzahn offenses for over a decade. Auburn's first two games looked like Malzahn was back. All I have seen before this game was a run heavy game with only 18 passes thrown against UMass and a head scratching terrible offensive game plan against Cal. Those are two staples of Gus Malzahn. It has bothered me all week. Was Hugh Freeze also going to abandon the modern passing game like Malzahn and Tuberville (most of his career) before him? I was simply not going to be able to take it. The good news from last night is that does not appear to be the case.
THE GOOD
Auburn threw 36 passes against an inferior opponent to work on the passing game. Hallelujah. I believe if you check the record books I am not sure ANY Auburn head coach ever has done that. If they have I bet you can count the number of times it was done on one hand. Now let me say up front, Auburn should have just run the ball when they had it first and goal on the one yard line. That was ridiculous. However the rest of it was the right thing to do. You have to practice the passing game in games like this to be ready for games like Auburn coming up. It is a tenet that so many coaches just do not follow to their detriment. Gus Malzahn was the worst offender of them all. I cannot say how relieved I am football-wise that head coach Hugh Freeze took this stand last night. I know many Auburn fans went immediately to the tired old "run the damn ball" line but I believe they are very wrong.
Now it is not always pretty and Payton Thorne definitely had a few bad moments last night. There were the bad throws on the goal line but we should have ran there anyway. Then there was the deep interception he threw into triple coverage with a wide receiver running wide open across the middle. However I think he improved and all the work in a real game did him a world of good. You want him to make those mistakes in this type of game! You do not want to wait till we are down ten points against an SEC opponent. He is better now that he made that mistake and all the other ones. THAT IS THE POINT. That is why you work on the passing game in these lesser games. I am so happy that we hopefully finally have a coach that gets that point. I think it will pay dividends down the road but...
THE BAD
Sigh... the other big take away from the game last night is that this Auburn team right now is just not very good. Hopefully they will improve but I think they are really going to take their lumps over the next three weeks. Right now I think Auburn can maybe beat Mississippi State and Vanderbilt. I really do not see any other wins outside New Mexico State. Hey I still think this staff did all they could but Auburn does not play in the Pac-12 and Auburn has had four straight years of bad recruiting. That includes an almost completely missing class. It is like Auburn got NCAA probation for one year that did not allow us to recruit at all. Jarquez Hunter is the ONLY remaining member of the 2021 Auburn football recruiting class. A whole class gone. The two before that by Malzahn were awful (after we gave him that 50 MILLION DOLLAR extension in 2017) and Harsin's last class was terrible as well.
Again, most Auburn fans just do not understand how bad things were at the end of last season. Auburn was again seriously in danger of not being able to field a legitimate roster. You cannot fix that in one season even with the transfer portal. I am not sure how many seasons it is going to take. I guess it depends on how good the classes are and I am talking about how many game-changing linemen you can get on both sides of the ball. This staff worked their butts off and Auburn threw a lot of NIL money around I believe to get the guys we have and at least the Tigers do have a legitimate roster. However I just do not think it is going to be good enough to beat Texas A&M or LSU on the road or Georgia at home. The big question that will define this season is will this roster after learning hard lessons over the next three weeks be good enough to beat Ole Miss at home or Arkansas on the road?
THE UGLY
Let me turn my attention to the other side of our fair state as I did not mention anything last week. Bama Nation is absolutely melting down after losing at home to Texas last week and playing an absolute stinker in an ugly-as-you-can-get win at South Florida yesterday. Obviously there are some issues in Tuscaloosa but OMG the biggest issue over there is how ridiculously spoiled Bama fans are after maybe the best fifteen year run in college football history. They are just so spoiled. Bama has had a knack over the last fifteen years of scheduling big name programs who are down for one of their first few games. This list includes down teams from Clemson, Michigan, USC, Miami, Florida State, etc... Bama has won ALL of them except Florida State $aban's first season. It is just math people! One of these teams, Texas, was finally good, ONE in fifteen years! I am sure things will return to normal next season and Wisconsin will stink.
As for yesterday, yes it does look like Bama's seemingly never-ending talent advantage over everyone else seems to have shrunk considerably. The advent of NIL has actually evened the playing field in this area and that part of NIL I like. However as opposed to pretty much the rest of the SEC including Auburn, Bama has four TOP recruiting classes on campus and I am sure $aban and the boys will turn things around. One place I really do not feel sorry for Bama and want to scream when I hear complaining is quarterback! I mean OMG they are so spoiled! Bama's last FOUR quarterbacks are STARTING IN THE NFL (!!!). I am sorry but every single starting quarterback for your school cannot be that good, I mean come on! Welcome to the world the rest of us live in Bama. You have good quarterbacks and not-so-good quarterbacks and sometimes your quarterbacks leave and say go some place like Oregon and then become the best in the country.
THE LAST WORD
Auburn travels to College Station in the great state of Texas next week to take on the Texas A&M Aggies. Auburn is shaky enough but this game also has an 11am kickoff and the Tigers have a pretty good history of not performing well on the road at 11am. There is no doubt Texas A&M has its own fair share of problems. Head coach Jimbo Fisher is definitely on the hot seat although he wins either way with his ridiculous contract. I am not sure the addition of infamous offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino was the right move but last week against Miami the Aggie defense appeared to be the problem. Texas A&M is definitely beatable and Auburn did beat them last season but overall I still think their roster is in better shape and they are at home. It will definitely be one of the most interesting games next week.
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