2024 GAME REVIEW: This team is just not very good...

Auburn 45  New Mexico 19.  Auburn pulled away in the end but what an awful game.  Blame Payton Thorne, blame Hugh Freeze, blame Bryan Harsin, blame Gus Malzahn, blame whoever you want but this team is just not very good.  They will be very fortunate to win many other games this season.  The defense is just plain bad, the offense is below average, and the coaching is flat out terrible at times.  I am not sure what these coaches do during fall and spring practice.  New Mexico is not a good team and the final tally again looked better than the game really was.  I am frankly starting to wonder if I will see another good Auburn team in my lifetime. 

In fact both teams and the refs were so bad that this game was extremely hard to watch.  The bottom line at Auburn is most of the recruiting news is propaganda to try and make everyone think that things are going better than they are.  I am sorry, I want Auburn to do well but it is kind of obvious now.  There are no highly ranked freshman linemen on the roster than can start a real resurgence of Auburn football.  I am wondering if I will ever see an All-SEC left tackle at Auburn ever again.  The same could be said at defensive tackle as well.  The latter is making the young talent recruited at linebacker and defensive back look pretty bad.  

I am honestly not sure what else to say.  Auburn will have a chance in a few SEC games as they will just luck up and play good one game like they did last year against Arkansas.  However things could also spiral quickly if they lose next week against Arkansas at home.  Right now I see Bobby Petrino carving up this bad Auburn defense up but a lot of these teams have their own issues as well.  I just wish Florida was on Auburn's schedule this year.  On the flip side, I also watched a good bit of the Bama game at Wisconsin today and the reality is bitterly painful.  Bama is better than Auburn at every position on the field except kicker by a pretty wide margin.  

On the great quarterback debate, Hank Brown had a good game but I personally think Payton Thorne would also have had a good game.  I will give credit and big props if Brown can lead a win over an SEC opponent.  I have referenced next week's Arkansas game several times now.  In my opinion it is looming large all things considered.  Arkansas is not a juggernaut and it is at home plus last week's loss to Cal makes it even bigger and more important.  Auburn and head coach Hugh Freeze can finally take one real positive step this season by winning next Saturday.  In fact, looking at the Auburn schedule coming up after I would call it an absolute must-win game.

2024 GAME 2 REVIEW: FROZEN

Cal 21  Auburn 14.  There is no doubt that Hugh Freeze inherited an unbelievable mess at Auburn after the years of decline under Gus Malzahn and the program-killing mistake of hiring Bryan Harsin.  Recruiting has been mediocre to bad for years before Freeze got there.  That is why Auburn is mediocre and will continue to struggle some.  There is no quick fix and much of what ails Auburn is not his fault HOWEVER with that said you cannot lose home games to New Mexico State and Cal.  You cannot lose those game while also blowing a 4th and 31 gift to lose what could have been the biggest win of your career and then not show up for the bowl game between those two hideous losses.  One big win over Alabama A&M does not even come close to making up for all of that.  

That is the bottom line.  We can talk about all the things still wrong with Auburn's football team and the mistakes that the coaches made but Auburn should have still beat Cal at home, period.  The defensive game plan to start the game was hideous and the offensive coaching was absolutely terrible the rest of the game.  It is just unacceptable especially when these men are paid millions of dollars.  I looked back at my last three posts of last year before writing last week's post and after reading six months of sunshine pumping on Auburn's homer web sites I thought wow maybe I was too hard on Freeze at the end of last season...  I no longer think that.  It is really starting to look like Auburn made another bad hire.  Yes he has done a little better recruiting but not as much as they want you to believe and it appears he cannot coach it when he gets it.

On top of all that, as predicted, the "we just have to run the ball" crowd is back.  In fact, I read the statement "Auburn would have won the game if they would have run the ball 70 percent of the time yesterday" from a famous Auburn columnist this morning.  Yes we would have won if we would have run that much but you will not beat anybody any good running like that and you won't be able to recruit offensive tackles or wide receivers.  I mean that is why Gus Malzahn never had a losing season but rarely beat anybody any good.  We have already watched that show for ten years.  I knew as soon as things went bad this would happen.  The decision to be more of a passing team was not the reason Auburn lost yesterday.  There are a lot of ways to throw the ball.

The problem is also not quarterback Payton Thorne in my opinion.  Thorne was bad yesterday and came completely unglued late but I think the coaches were putting him in a bad position throughout the game.  The majority of teams across the country do not have the quarterback they want.  You recruit the best you can and then you have to make do with what you got.  Thorne unfortunately is the best Auburn has got.  You also have to factor in that Auburn, as I said last week, is still not even close to the top teams on the line of scrimmage.  The offensive line is just not that good.  The Auburn coaches did not improve the quarterback position OR the offensive line much this past recruiting season and they brought in a bunch of highly rated wide receivers.  It is obvious after this game that that is probably not the best recipe for success.  So with all that said, what should the Auburn offensive coaches have done yesterday???

THEY SHOULD HAVE COME OUT WITH A GAME PLAN OF SHORT PASSES.  I mean this is not rocket science.  You throw high percentage passes and get the ball in the hands of these hot shot wide receivers and soon or later they will break one!  YES it is that simple.  Would Cal have stopped us a few times?  Sure but do you think Cal was such a good tackling team that if we got the ball to each of the "Freeze Four", Coleman-Thompson-Simmons-Cain, several times they would stop them every time?  Do you really believe these guys would not pile up the "YAC" yards and eventually break one?  Did the coaches really see the Malcolm Simmons short catch and unbelievable move last week???  Did they not see Coleman's stop-and-go moves in the first quarter of this game and last game???  Did they not see Perry Thompson's speed last game?  Did they put Bryce Cain at backup returner for this slowness?

I am not talking the Malzahn bubble screens although you could run some of those too.  Malzahn could not get any wide receivers like this to come to Auburn!  You have them, USE THEM.  This accomplishes so many things...  1. The quarterback throws a lot more short high-percentage passes which makes him more successful and gets his confidence up.  2. This also helps your offensive line as they do not have to hold them out so long... and gets their confidence up.  3. This USES THESE HIGHLY RECRUITED WIDE RECEIVERS AND GETS THEM THE BALL.  This is basically running the ball! It works!  Again they will stop us some but these wide receivers ARE GOING TO BREAK SOME!  You know it.  I think it is more effective than a handoff and it spreads the work load.  

Instead while Cam Coleman got a few catches, the rest of the "Freeze Four" basically sat the bench and did not contribute.  I do not know how many times I have to say it, you have many more games like this and they are GOING TO LEAVE.  We will then be back to square one and have no wide receivers like last year and like during the Malzahn years.  YES IT IS THIS EASY YET DUMB FOOTBALL COACHES PAID MILLIONS OF DOLLARS CANNOT FIGURE THIS OUT.  It is simply baffling to me.  It literally drive me insane watching it.  I mean most football coaches seem to be just con men, they are not smart enough to get in out of the rain and yet they somehow get these million dollar jobs.  I mean I do not know how to lay it out any simpler than I did above.  Auburn will still lose some games due to their roster deficiencies but they would NOT have lost yesterday with this strategy.  

These moronic coaches can either figure this out or it is going to be a very long painful season...

2024 GAME 1 REVIEW: Video Game Night

Auburn 73  Alabama A&M 3.  After a decade away, EA Sports finally brought back their college football video game.  Chalk one thing up on the positive side of the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) board.  I did the same thing with this new one that I did with the previous games starting back in 1999, I put it on easy mode and got to live my dream of watching Auburn actually pass the ball.  Auburn has pretty much never actually had a wide receiver really accrue any meaningful stats outside of Terry Beasley in 1971.  He and largely unknown wide receiver Ronney Daniels in 1999 have the only 1000 yard receiving seasons in Auburn history.  That is it.  Most big time football schools have many but not Auburn.  That is a pretty big fact when the most visible part of your best recruiting class in years is a group of wide receivers.

The "Freeze Four" quartet of freshman wide receivers have been the talk of the preseason in Auburn.  The group includes five stars Cam Coleman and Perry Thompson plus four stars Malcom Simmons and Bryce Cain.  I have wondered how this whole thing would turn out when again no wide receiver has had a thousand yards in a season this millennium at Auburn.  Auburn has had good passing attacks but all of them were still run-first teams, i.e. Pat Sullivan, the late 80s, 1993-94, 2004-05, 2010, and 2013.  The question I had for this season was could Auburn change and do something they have simply never done?  Could Auburn be an even slightly pass-first team?  Since it has NEVER been done I did and still do not think so but for one night Auburn was that team with the stats to back it up.  

For one night, Auburn played just like I did when I started off my season on the video game.  First, a long touchdown run by Jarquez Hunter, I mean come on it is still Auburn.  Next though came a barrage of scoring passes from quarterback Payton Thorne to KeAndre Lambert-Smith (another big wide receiver acquisition during the offseason), Cam Colman, Lambert-Smith again, and then to Perry Thompson.  It was just like playing the video game!  The Tigers added a couple of running touchdowns and then got the third member of the "Freeze Four" Malcolm Simmons involved with two touchdowns, one off a recovered block punt and one making a nasty move off a short pass from Thorne.  Auburn then ended the night with backup quarterback Hank Brown throwing one up for grabs in the end zone and another new wide receiver in Cal transfer Sam Jackson coming down with it. 

I guess the only sad part of the night was that Bryce Cain only had two catches for thirty plus yards and no touchdowns.  Obviously if that is the worst thing that happened it was a pretty good night.  It was about the best start Auburn could have hoped for.  There was a big crowd, a bunch of excitement, and plenty of passing offense featuring Auburn's new found talent at wide receiver.  Every game going forward will be harder but after the bitter end to last season this type of win was sorely needed.  Also everything I have described passing-wise about this night cannot be overstated.  Gus Malzahn did not call a game like this against an out-matched opponent ONE TIME IN A DECADE.  I said over and over and over during that time that you have to practice passing in these games even if you are a running team.  He would never do it.  That is one reason that regardless of the opponent this game and the way it was played was huge.

The question going forward will be does Freeze have the stones to keep throwing the ball when things get tight, Thorne misses a few, the offense has a few three-and-outs, and Auburn loses a game where the coaches tried to pass the ball and were not very successful. Will he stick with it when the same old tired group of fans pounce and start going on about Auburn having to always run the ball to be successful?  These people do not understand that the answer to these questions will, in my opinion, determine Auburn's short-term future and maybe Freeze's career at Auburn.  The facts are that many of these playmakers at wide receiver will transfer out if they do not get the ball enough.  It doesn't matter if fans think they are prima donnas and call them names, it is a fact.  Auburn cannot just "malzahn" a few wins playing conservative and keep the momentum going.

This was my biggest overall concern coming into the season and it remains my biggest concern.  I had a few others after last night as well.  First, the Auburn play callers really need to stop running quarterback Payton Thorne.  The season pretty much goes down the tubes if he gets hurt.  If you doubt that then ask Senator Tommy Tuberville why he had a losing season his first year...  Tuberville's first quarterback coach and offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone resurrected quarterback Ben Leard's career and Auburn slaughtered LSU and Georgia that year but made the HUGE MISTAKE of running Leard on the option early in the season and got his shoulder separated.  Auburn then lost just about every game between those two big wins.  All this momentum also goes down the drain if Thorne gets hurt running the ball before the Tigers at least get to the Oklahoma game.

My final concern is the Auburn defense.  After all the sunshine pumping on the homer web sites, this unit looks small and frankly not very good to me.  I hope I am wrong and they certainly crushed Alabama A&M but I just got a bad vibe all night.  I do not see hardly an All-SEC type players especially on the line.  I think Auburn may have to pass the ball in many games because this group looks to me like it will give up plenty of points.  Also, if you sift through all the propaganda on the recruiting sites, the truth is Auburn is still not even close to the top teams on either side of the line of scrimmage.  Auburn has improved recruiting dramatically but still has not been able to bring in the five star offensive or defensive tackles.  Auburn will not be able to challenge for a championship until that changes.  I hate to bring that up after such an awesome night but I think it has to be said.

I am infuriated that Auburn does not play at home in the month of October.  It is obvious the SEC schedule makers took care of Bama's schedule and then made up everyone else's, even Georgia.  Auburn was obviously way down the line.  However Auburn does need to take advantage of it's home "preseason" in September.  The Tigers get Cal, New Mexico (not State (-: ), and a rebuilding Arkansas team to open up the SEC schedule in the coming weeks.  Hugh Freeze needs to stick with the game plan that was used last night and get all these young playmaking wide receivers as many touches as possible.  Auburn needs to establish this style of play and lay the foundation for what kind of offensive team it will be.  On the season checklist though, a near perfect start can be checked off...