Game 12 Review: Whatever

(NOTE: I wrote every word of this post on Friday November 25th except the score and the fourth paragraph.  THAT is how predictable Gus Malzahn is against a very good team)

 

Alabama 30  Auburn 12  Whatever.  Bama wins the Iron Bowl.  You get the best players, you win most of the games.  I am not sure how a team gets the best players for almost a decade and the NCAA never even looks around.  I mean a terrible Ole Miss team is assaulted for some sort of cheating while the machine in Tuscaloosa rolls on.  I mean nobody has recruited at that high a level for that long a time in the history of college football but hey I am sure everything is aboveboard in Tuscaloosa.  There is nothing to see there.  Just move on along.  It is all about "the process".  What a load of shi... 

I am not sure what to say about the game.  Auburn is a good running team that cannot pass very well.  They played a defense they cannot run on... so what else was going to happen?  Oops sorry I think our company line is that "hey if Sean White would have been healthy we would have won!".  Yeah that line has sure been used a lot the last two years.  If Sean White would have been healthy we evidently would have beaten Arkansas, Ole Miss, Georgia and maybe Bama last season.  This season you change it to played or healthy and evidently we would have beaten Clemson, Georgia and Bama.  Wow, if only Sean White were healthy evidently he is better than Cam Newton.

I am sure many will be blathering that line next season as well with these coaches running the exact same thing as this year and most likely with the exact same results.  I am called negative but check my preseason post I predicted Auburn to go 8-4, spot on.  Gus will destroy most teams if they have a weak run defense but lose to just about any team that has a good one.  That is usually anywhere from 3 to 5 teams on Auburn's schedule depending on the year.  I am literally shuddering at the thought of watching this exact same offense produce the exact same results next season. 

Gus Malzahn put up another epic coaching performance today as we had 34 yards and ONE FIRST DOWN at halftime.  That means AUBURN WENT A FULL GAME WITH ONE FIRST DOWN AND ONLY 60 YARDS OF OFFENSE combining the second half against Georgia and first half against Bama.  We are paying FIVE MILLION DOLLARS for this pathetic offensive coaching from a supposed offensive coach!!!  It is unbelievable how bad he is against any kind of good defense.  Is this a legitimate big-time college coach???  Injuries are not excuses for a performance as bad as that especially trying to put everything on losing an average quarterback like Sean White

I do not see any point in "breaking down the game" any more.  I have covered the offense above.  The defense played hard but Bama has great players on offense and they can only hold them down so much when our offense keeps giving it back to Bama.  I mean pretty much anybody could see this result coming from a mile away.  Did anyone seriously think we were going to challenge Bama after being coached that bad on offense at Georgia?  It just does not work like that.  Football teams that get better throughout the season show it on the field (even with injuries Gus).  Football teams that get better throughout the season usually have a good passing offense they can rely on.

I keep reading this was a good season on several different sites. Our top wins were over Mississippi schools with overall losing records, an Arkansas team with a losing conference record and a bad run defense plus an LSU team that is 6-4 with no quarterback either. We have lost to all the better teams on our schedule including Georgia and Bama (for the third year in a row). How is that a good season? I t could definitely be worse but for Auburn I don’t think that is a good season.  There is a difference in eight win seasons.  You can tell the difference in a good team that has improved and a team that has not.

There have been eight win seasons (not counting stupid bowls win or lose) that have been seasons to remember and many that have been seasons to forget.  Look at 1984 and 1985, two teams that could not pass and turned in seasons to mainly forget outside Bo's Heisman run.  There is 1996, much like this season, where Auburn lost all their important games.  Nobody is happy with those seasons.  On the other hand there are eight win seasons like 1982, 2002 and 2007 where the team gets better and even after losing tough games to great Georgia teams came back and beat good Bama teams.

Well this season is done and while Auburn finished with a winning record it is just another forgettable one much like 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2015.  All of those seasons Auburn ended up with seven or eight wins running this same offense and lost to all the good teams on their schedule including Georgia and Bama.  I am really looking forward to the high probability of ANOTHER one next season.  Hold the phones though, Auburn still has a bowl game to go this season and if Gus lucks out and draws a team with a less than stellar run defense he can blow them out.  That could get him another big raise and contract extension guaranteeing many more of these seasons to come.

Game 11 Review: Happy and Mad

Auburn 55  Alabama A&M 0.  I have been fortunate enough to be able to be a team manager for a 7A soccer program in this state.  You are around the kids before, during and after every game.  You get close to them.  You find out what a big deal senior night is.  You find out what games like this mean to the kids who do not get to play much.  They finally get to get in and play.  It is a big deal to the players and to the coaches to a certain extent.  I know how happy I was for the seniors I was around all season to have a great senior night.  I know how happy I was for the players that did not play much for our team to get in there and do something good.

So while the fallout continues from the horrific loss last week, I was happy about a few things last night.  I am happy for Jeremy Johnson.  He had a great game in his last game in Auburn.  He deserved it.  I will continue to believe he was criminally under-coached at Auburn and any kind of decent quarterback coach could have made him into a very good quarterback.  He has all the tools and his arm and accurate throws are very rare.  He just needed a legitimate passing coach to help him make reads.  He did not find that at Auburn but he did have a few good game moments.  He also appeared to handle this very tough situation with a lot of dignity and class.

I was also happy for Kam Martin who while a freshman had maybe the best game of the night.  I know it was in the second half against a lower echelon team but it sure looks like the team could have used him against Georgia last week.  I was happy for the defense to get a shutout.  Obviously Alabama A&M was completely overmatched but it is still hard to get a shutout.  I was glad to see senior safety Rudy Ford get some snaps at running back.  I know he is glad he moved to safety as it is a much higher paid position in the NFL but I always thought he would have been a great running back.  Finally as I said earlier I am happy for all the players behind the scenes who got playing time last night.

I also want to give kudos to all the seniors who played their last game in Auburn last night.  I have already mentioned Jeremy Johnson.  I want to thank Montravius Adams, one of the better defensive tackles to play at Auburn.  He has been special since he started as a freshman but really broke through this season.  I want to thank Josh Holsey and Rudy Ford.  These guys have been pillars and battled so hard in the secondary in their four years at Auburn.  Holsey battled through injuries but really turned in a great season this year.  Jonathan "Rudy" Ford will leave as one of the greatest tacklers in Auburn history.  I want to thank Alex Kozan who also had to battle through a serious injury but was an impact player his whole time at Auburn.

Thanks to all the other guys who were kind of behind-the-scenes but had some great moments: Tony Stevens, T.J. Davis, Xavier Dampeer, Robert Leff, Marcus Davis, etc...  I will never forget Marcus Davis catching all those clutch passes from Nick Marshall on that epic last second drive to beat Mississippi State in 2013.  Finally kudos to Carl Lawson who we all thought was leaving for the NFL last January till he tweeted the "I am not leaving" scene from "Wolf of Wall Street" out to let everyone know he was staying at Auburn.  I have never been so fired up in the offseason!!!  He delivered too, he has been the leader of the defense and the leader of this team and has been awesome this season.  Kudos to Auburn too for recognizing Lawson, a fourth year junior, as a senior last night. 

There was a lot to be happy about last night but unfortunately I am still steaming mad over last week.  All I have read this week from coaches and from fan posts on various sites is using injuries as excuses.  I have read next to no accountability from the coaches other than a few obligatory lines.  There has been no true sincere accountability from the coaches.  There has only been continual in-so-many-words blaming the loss on injuries.  Plain and simple INJURIES ARE NOT AN EXCUSE for losing to a team as bad as Georgia.  I am sick to death of hearing it.  Louisiana Lafayette somehow managed to score 21 points on the Georgia juggernaut yesterday.

The coaches had to work really hard to lose that game last week that would have meant so much to Auburn.  I believe if the coaches put in John Franklin and Kam Martin in last week and run the entire second half that Auburn wins that game.  I believe if the coaches put in Jeremy Johnson in last week for the entire second half that Auburn wins the game.  ANY CHANGE would have resulted in our best offensive player, kicker Daniel Carlson, getting some opportunities.  Instead our coaches in their stubborn lunacy stuck with a quarterback and strategy that DID NOT WORK AT ALL and basically RUINED THE SEASON.  That was a game Auburn should have and could have won.

I also believe if we had any coaches that could remotely coach a good high-school level passing game we could have won.  I think it says a lot that many Auburn people the last two seasons are mad that Auburn even threw a pass in the second half against Georgia.  If that does not prove my point I do not know what will.  I am incredulous when I hear that stuff.  I believe the opposite, I believe we should have a good enough passing game to get the job done at critical moments.  Nobody was more ground-based than Pat Dye and he did what he had to do to develop a passing game that got the job done in the critical moments.  Gus Malzahn has not and never will.

With that said Auburn now heads to Tuscaloosa and the one team you cannot beat without a good quarterback and a good passing game.  I do not think Auburn has much of a chance in this one with a fully healthy team.  I do not believe Sean White on his best day is good enough to beat a really good defense like Bama has.  Unfortunately I see a game a lot like last season where Auburn keeps it close mostly due to defense through 2 or 3 quarters before that defense wears out.  Last season it was Bama 29 Auburn 13, I think that is pretty close to what it will be this season.  I sure could have taken a game like that and another loss to Bama better if we would have beaten a bad Georgia team like we should have.

Game 10 Review: NO PASSING ZONE

(For any interested I posted my review of last week's game today, my apologies)

 

Georgia 13  Auburn 7.  Let me be really clear here, I am DONE with Gus Malzahn.  DONE.  I have written over and over and over in this blog how he is incapable of putting together a competent passing game and he proved me right once again.  He never makes the passing game a part of the main game plan, he continues to not use lesser games to get better in the passing game and he continues to pat himself on the back for rushing for a bazillion yards against bad defenses.  He has done it over and over and over again. 

 

He will simply never change.  The Auburn offense under him will never change.  It does not matter how many times he runs lesser teams out of the stadium, he will always lose to good defenses every time.  The 2013 season was the exception and it will not happen again.  Of course he still lost the big one that season because he would not pass.  I am just DONE.  I am so tired of watching this garbage.  He is very good at running the ball and he will continue to get a few big wins every year with this one-dimensional offense but he will also continue to not have a good passing game and get beat in games like this.  I am so tired of watching it.

 

I am also sick and tired of being told how great this offense is, how great these coaches are, how great Sean White is, blah blah blah.  I cannot wait to hear the excuses for this one.  Yes Kamryn Pettway was injured but you cannot win big games without alternative game plans.  Yes Sean White was probably hurt as well but either he can do the job or you put the back up in, it is as simple as that.  Of course our coaches decided not to get our backup any experience passing the ball in real games so I am sure he is not ready for a game like this.  A good coach, one paid ALMOST FIVE MILLION DOLLARS should be able to win a game against a bad Georgia team even with these injuries. 

 

You had a senior quarterback on the bench who led the way to our biggest road win in the last two seasons at Texas A&M last season.  Everyone hates him but I think he would have done a better job than 6 for 20 for 27 yards and one pick six.  I cannot describe how horrible that is or how bad the coaching has to be for that to happen.  These coaches knew Pettway would be out as soon as he pulled up lame last week however they did nothing to get our young wide receivers involved other than jet sweeps to Eli Stove. 

 

I have noted several times the last few weeks that our game plan only seem to consist of running Kamryn Pettway.  It seems all our coaches tried to do this week was the same thing with Kerryon Johnson and Stanton Truitt.  I guess they did not take into account that Georgia has a very good run defense.  I guess it never entered their mind that they might have to pass.  It sure looked like that.  Sean White may have been hurt but he was poorly prepared as well.  I mean people can throw out as many excuses as they like but that does not explain 32 TOTAL YARDS AND NO FIRST DOWNS IN THE SECOND HALF.  I MEAN COME ON!!!!!!

 

Auburn lost to a Georgia team WHO DID NOT SCORE AN OFFENSIVE TOUCHDOWN.  It simply boggles the mind that a team with Auburn's talent can play that bad.  I am so sick and tired of watching this stupid offense.  I am so tired of watching us run up the middle out of the shotgun.  I want Malzahn gone, period end of story.  He cannot make it up to me, I don't care how many lesser teams he runs out of the stadium.  He will never be able to coach up a competent passing game.  It will be just however many more years of watching him run up the middle 60 times a game.

 

The only thing left now is a garbage game against Alabama A&M and an execution in Tuscaloosa.  You can go ahead and FILE OUR THIRD SEASON IN A ROW LOSING TO GEORGIA AND BAMA.  That is right THREE IN A ROW with MORE TO COME most likely.  Who cares though?  We sure beat the heck out of a bad Mississippi State team and an Arkansas team with no run defense.  Our equally as inept athletic director will probably give Malzahn a raise and a five year extension.  They will continue to talk about 2013 and ignore three years of evidence since then that this is all Malzahn is ever going to give us.   

 

I am not even sure about the history of this blog till Malzahn is gone.  It seems like he will probably be here several more years and they will be exactly the same as the last three.  I do not think I can summarize his lack of ability to coach up a passing game again.  I do not think I can list the pieces of evidence from the last seven seasons he has been either offensive coordinator or head coach that show this is all the coach he will ever be.  I guess our only hope is that another Cam Newton will appear or a host of NFL-caliber great players will come in like 2013.  Otherwise enjoy the hundreds of times he will run up the middle and the inevitable losses to Georgia and Bama.

Game 9 Review: Cubs Win!

(I apologize to my readers for the lateness of this post.  My daughter had an all weekend soccer tournament and then I had more soccer practices and of course the election this past week.)

 

Auburn 23  Vanderbilt 16.  This is one of the few Auburn games for me that was completely overshadowed by events the week before and after.  The week before the Chicago Cubs finally overcame the odds and won a World Series title.  It was an unbelievable effort throughout the season and in the playoffs with the pressure of that long a drought hanging over those young men.  There was one old man in that lineup of course and he went to Auburn.  I am of course talking about catcher David Ross who went out in fine style helping the Cubs to the title and becoming the oldest player in baseball history to hit a homerun in game seven of the World Series.

 

Anyone who keeps up with Auburn baseball remembers David Ross and his walk-off home run against Florida State in the 1997 NCAA Regionals that is perhaps the signature moment in Auburn baseball history.  It has been a time to be proud of the Auburn baseball program the last few years.  Frank Thomas became the first Auburn baseball player to enter the Hall of Fame while Tim Hudson and David Ross both went out helping their teams win epic World Series titles.  I actually became a baseball fan when I started playing Rotisserie fantasy baseball while at Auburn in 1989.  Rotisserie baseball was the first fantasy sport and is what started the billion dollar industry that is now fantasy football.  I had kind of lost touch with baseball the last few years but really enjoyed coming back to watch the finale of this World Series.

 

This Game 7 classic might be the best baseball game I have ever seen.  What a back and forth battle.  The Cubs opened the game with a home run only to see the Indians tie it up two innings later.  The Cubs would then score five more runs including the home run by David Ross only to see the Indians tie it again on an epic two-run homer by centerfielder Rajai Davis.  It looked pretty bleak then for the Cubs.  I thought the Indians would win at that point.  The cardiac kids did it again though and the Cubs won 8-7 in one of the greatest World Series games of all times. 

 

This might have been my favorite baseball moment although for me two more are right there with it.  I am not sure anything can replace the 1991 Braves "worst-to-first" season that included another all-time classic Game 7 except the Braves came down on the wrong side of it.  I was still at Auburn in 1991 and everyone just got caught up in Braves mania.  It was an unbelievable ride and continued in to 1992 and my favorite single Braves baseball moment.  That is of course Sid Bream beating Barry Bonds throw to win Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS.  I remember going absolutely bonkers and waking up both my parents.  BRAVES WIN!  BRAVES WIN!  BRAVES WIN!

 

My other favorite baseball moment was the 2004 NLCS between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.  At that time it was easy of course for Auburn fans to sympathize with the Red Sox as the relationship between them and the Yankees is very similar to Auburn and Bama.  Somehow I flipped by and got sucked into Game 4 and the incredible comeback by the Red Sox.  It just grabbed you and my wife and I watched the rest of the series.  That series also had an Auburn connection in Red Sox second baseman Mark Bellhorn.  Bellhorn helped lead Auburn to the College World Series in 1994 and then started his career in the minors in my city of Huntsville, Alabama. 

 

I am sorry for the walk down memory lane in another sport but I thought the Cubs monumental victory deserved it.  There is also not a lot new to say about Auburn's win over Vanderbilt.  The first half was awful with quarterback Sean White out.  I understood making John Franklin the backup before Auburn became a contender again.  I do not understand it now, senior Jeremy Johnson would have done a better job and should be the backup now that Auburn is playing for something.  John Franklin either cannot throw the ball or the coaches do not trust him to throw the ball. 

 

I complain about Auburn not throwing enough anyway but with Franklin in the game they literally do not throw at all.  This is not 1940, you cannot win against anybody not throwing it all.  Franklin is not even close to being that good.  I agree he should get some wildcat looks but does not appear to be a viable quarterback.  Play the young fast runner when you are getting ready for next year but bring in your experienced senior if you are contending.  Nobody knows of course what was or is wrong with Sean White but he looked OK coming back in the second half to lead Auburn to the win.

 

The offense had it's moments but their effort was overshadowed by injuries, turnovers and penalties.  The biggest injury of course being Kamryn Pettway's pulled hamstring or whatever happened to him on that run.  It does not look good and does not appear he will play this week against Georgia.  I will say it is not surprising as the coaches have ridiculously overused Pettway the last few weeks.  I have learned personally this fall about muscles tightening up when your knees or other places are sore.  I pulled my hamstring as well and it all stemmed from a sore knee due to overdoing it.  The Auburn coaches should feel responsibility and regret for overusing Pettway. 

 

Pettway before the injury had another monster day gaining 173 yards and surpassing 1000 for the season.  The guy has become Auburn's offense and will be sorely missed if he is out this week.  I wonder what the game plan for Georgia will be since the only one Auburn has used the last few weeks is running Pettway with a few passes sprinkled in.  I think leaning on Auburn's corps of young wide receivers would be a good place to start but I doubt that will happen.  Kerryon Johnson will be first up and then we will get a mix of Stanton Truitt, Chandler Cox and Kam Martin. 

 

The Auburn defense was stung through the air for the second week in a row.  The defense that looked so good early on has looked very vulnerable lately.  I expected the pass rush and coverage to be better.  It looks like Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele is only rushing four and laying back in coverage waiting for the other team to make a mistake.  That is a sound strategy at times but as bad as Auburn looked against Ole Miss I think he needs to come out more aggressive against Georgia.  I believe Georgia will pass a lot more against Auburn after watching the game film from Ole Miss and Vanderbilt.  It is time for the Auburn defense to return to form and lead the way against the Bulldogs.

 

Amen Corner is here and it begins with Georgia, "The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry".  The game this week will be the premiere game in the SEC and take center stage.  It is always a special week.  It is Auburn vs. Georgia, maybe the closest rivalry in all of college football.  Georgia leads by a single game 56-55-8.  Georgia leads in total points after over a 100 years of playing by about 50 points.  It is that close.  I do not think there is one rivalry that is even close stat-wise.  This is a true rivalry not a lot of talk about a series dominated by one team most of the time.  I do not think there is any other rivalry that has the history of Auburn and Georgia either.  I am talking history like both of their greatest coaches being alumni from the other school and many other ties like that.

 

It is time again.