I was never really impressed with Todd even when you guys were lighting up the scoreboards. He was making a lot of throws, with a lot of time, to a lot of wide open receivers, and the running game was working the same way. I kind of dismissed the Malzahn hire as a major unknown at the time, but I’ll give the man credit, I think it’s fair to say that for a few weeks he stumped the hell out of a lot of opposing defenses and defensive coordinators. There were blown defensive assignments galore, and it seemed fairly evident to me that opposing players / coaches didn’t have a great grasp of exactly what they needed to do. The past couple of weeks, though, it’s been far different. Opposing defenses have eaten everything up… runs are getting stuffed and receivers aren’t running free anymore.

I don’t think Auburn has (or had) the talent offensively needed to consistently out-execute higher end SEC opponents, they needed Malzahn’s genius to get the job done. Of course, though, opposing SEC coordinators and players at this level are pretty damn good, so it’s really only a matter of time that you can out-smart teams that way.

Defensively, it’s just a no-win situation. Very little top-end talent, no depth whatsoever, lots of freshmen playing, and an offensive style of attack that will guarantee the defense spends a lot of time on the field. Roof has gotten a lot of criticism for his defense, but honestly I couldn’t rationally blame him for anything. You could hire Bill Belichick as DC for this group and it wouldn’t be good.

As ridiculed as the Chizik hire was, I really cannot say that has been the problem to date. Malzahn’s hire was still huge for the program, and honestly I cannot say anything bad about him over the recent struggles. Most OC’s would have never done what he did to start with, and defensively, again, it’s a no-win situation. At some point, Auburn is just going to have to recruit better players and develop more quality depth.

But seriously: get lost.

I’m bad at metaphors.