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...
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