It’s not just the fans, you know, who have designs on nine or ten wins and an Iron Bowl to decide the SEC West. Josh Bynes came right out and said “eight ain’t it.” There’s been talk of championships. Trooper Taylor’s had “G2G” emblazoned on his towel–you can see it in the pic above–for what’s apparently a team motto: good to great. This is all as it should be.
But those ambitions are also why last night’s performance remains a small disappointment, even after sleeping on it. Maybe it shouldn’t be, not when the only real question we had about the offense–“Is Cam Newton that good?”–was answered with a Yes so resounding I’d imagine everyone in the SEC could hear it. Whatever else you might say about Auburn after last night, you have to acknowledge that with Newton at the helm of an offense this experienced, this explosive, and this well-balanced, they can beat anyone on the schedule.
But there’s a lot of good teams that can say that. Great teams will beat anyone, or at least all but one or two anyones. And on the basis of last night, Auburn’s not there yet.
Some of that is the defense. To be fair, a short, underneath passing game may just be the rock to the scissors of Ted Roof’s schemes; most of what Arkansas St. ran last night was the same stuff Northwestern ran in the Outback Bowl, with of course much of the same results through the first half. I also feel a little bit hypocritical griping about Roof when this is more-or-less what his resume’ promised when he signed up: terrific run defense (and whoever you’re playing, 43 yards allowed on 35 rushing attempts is pretty damn good), spotty-to-cruddy pass defense. But it’s just too cruddy at the moment to be satisfied, or at least it was during the first half. Not one Auburn fan who watched last night’s performance didn’t say this, but that’s because it’s true: that kind of performance will get us killed against SEC competition.
But it’s not just the defense, not even mostly. It’s mostly
— Terrell Zachery wiping out a first down by somehow screwing up his “rub” route so badly he manages to get called for a pick, which never, ever, ever happens
— Newton checking down to Fannin and Fannin not getting out of bounds when we’re out of timeouts and there’s fewer than 10 seconds left in the half
— Etheridge missing a one-on-one tackle on a lumbering Arkansas St. back at, what, the 4
— Five first-half penalties, one of which was a Mike Berry false start
— Also Berry totally whiffing on a key block to set up 2nd-and-16 before he set up 2nd-and-21
— Demond Washington not holding onto the ball; Mario Fannin not holding onto the ball.
Those things have nothing to do with scheme, or talent, or even preparation. They’re simply a matter of execution, of mental consistency, of–for lack of a better word–discipline. Auburn was not a disciplined team last night. And an undisciplined team is not going to be the Auburn team we want them to be. It sounds horrendously cliched, but again, it’s the truth: unless they start doing the little things, the big things are goign to be beyond their reach.
The good news is that the Auburn we saw this week is hardly guaranteed to be the Auburn we see next week. The defense kind of has to improve, at least a little, and getting Savage’s and Etheridge’s first game back out of the way should pay dividends. First game or not, that the opponent was Arkansas St. (and that the Red Wolves’ defense showed pretty quickly they weren’t going to stand a chance against Auburn’s offense) couldn’t have helped Auburn’s overall focus. And both Malzahn and Roof probably blooded a few more new players than they would have against a stronger opponent.
So it’s far, far, far too early to write Auburn off as the same “good” Auburn we got last year. But on the basis of last night, the offseason hasn’t gotten them to “great” just yet. There’s still too many little things to fix.
Other assorted observations
— No matter the opponent, totaling 608 offensive yards, averaging 9.4 yards per play, rushing for 367 yards, and throwing for 15.1 yards an attempt is pretty damn impressive … particularly since I, for one, got the sense that Malzahn didn’t push the offense to its limits in terms of either tempo or scheme. Aside from the penalties and the lone turnover, there’s not really anything to complain about with the offense. Pick nits if you want, but worrying now is worrying for worrying’s sake.
What’s interesting, though, is that we expected Adams and Zachery, Fannin and McCalebb, and the line to carry Cam Newton to competence in his first start. What happened was more that Newton’s incredible gifts (and ability to run the ball) carried the rest of the offense; Adams and T-Zac combined for three receptions, Fannin was a nonentity at tailback, and the line had a handful of surprising breakdowns.
— About tailback: I was a little harsh on Fannin last night. He got popped, the ball came out, sometimes it happens. Twice is a trend, but once might be a fluke, and Fannin didn’t have any major problems last year. Assuming he doesn’t put the ball on the ground again, I’d like to see him get more than three carries next week. There’s too much potential there to ignore; there always has been.
But facts are facts, too: McCalebb and Dyer carried 23 times for 175 yards (7.6 per-carry) and never fumbled; Fannin carried 3 times for 14 yards (4.7 per-carry) and fumbled. I think that comparison pretty well speaks for itself.
— Ladies and gentlemen, we have both a punt returner (9.4 yards per return!) and a viable third receiver. Quindarius Carr, welcome to mattering.
— As for the rest of the special teams … eh. 37 yards per net punt is all right, but not great. Kickoff return (21 per attempt) wasn’t as explosive as we expected and Washington fumbled. Thanks in large part to Craig Sanders’ marauding runs downfield, kickoff coverage looked much better statistically (18.4 a return) that last year, but that included a couple of squibs, and Cody Parkey didn’t seem noticeably better than Byrum. OVerall: good enough, I guess. But nothing difference-making aside from the FG block and Byrum’s usual reliability.
— Dude, when did Antoine Carter get 2.5 sacks?!? I was going to gripe about how we had to rely on our tackles for a pass rush–those of you who thought I was too harsh on Michael Goggans in the A-U Pre-view, please note that he totaled all of one assisted tackle last night–but I guess this is why you need box scores and rewatches to really know what was going on.
The bottom line
Auburn will have to be better defensively against Mississippi St. to win that game. We know this. But there’s no reason to think they won’t be better; no more jitters, no more safeties returning for the first time from devastating injury, more rushes and fewer quick outs. And the offense should continue to be a terror. The time to panic is later, if at all.
Photo by Van Emst.
That photo gets me really excited about this team. Newton, Carter, Freeman, plus Dyer, McCalebb, Fairley and others make up what is now Auburn football. There are pure playmakers on both sides of the ball, at almost every position. Yeah, we may have some lapses, but it’s going to be entertaining. MSU is the perfect team to start the SEC schedule with. They’re good enough to get the team focused, but not so good that we can’t win even with some mistakes. I’ll be there, too, so I’m sure that means we win.
“can’t win” should be “can win”
we can win, even with some mistakes.
Zero turnovers forced by the defense last night. Zero. I’m chalking up the defense’s performance as a whole last night to first game jitters. It better be.
Might I be the first to point out, as I did at a rather high volume last night, that what TZach did was precisely what the bammer WR did about 4 times last year on their final drive against us. He might’ve been a touch more subtle than Terrell, but two forearms to the chest of a defender attempting to cover a receiver is the same thing.
Honestly, last night in the stadium, people were freaking out waaaaaay too much.
You know Arkansas State was going to make a run and give us a scare at some point. That’s a given. It happened against LA Tech and Ball State last year, it happens to everybody every year. This time, it just happened to happen in the 3rd quarter rather than the 1st, and everyone just freaked out.
The defense will get better. These are things that can be improved. Besides, the freshmen on defense were getting very significant time — I’m hoping that this was a strategy to get our still-relatively-thin defense well rested for Mississippi State.
Kodi Burns knowshon’d somebody. Anyone still doubting him as Wildcat QB?
Man, with the Byrum field goal at the end of the 3rd, I was scared to death for a second that his perfect season would end before it got started. Because the clock was ticking down, literally to like one second left when the snap was made. And when Wes looked up to line up the field goal, and the clock was ticking from 5 to 4 to 3, I just know he saw that clock going down and that messed with him in his head a little bit. But, as they say, “How cool is Wes Byrum?”
Personally, I saw many many more reasons to be encouraged than to be discouraged.
Uhhhhh………………..isn’t Arky State a SUN BELT team?
I am glad y’all think my freaking out over the defense was unwarranted because we looked out of position the entire night to me. Am I wrong? I don’t see how that defense holds Dan Mullen (in 5 days mind you) or Bobby Petrino, much less, to a manageable score. It looked no better than last year to me, the worst statistical defense in school history. What roll is Coach Chizik playing in coaching the defense? With what he did as a defensive coordinator at Auburn and Texas I expected more than giving up 26 points to a sunbelt team, no matter who our actual defensive coordinator is.
I am usually a loyal kool-aid drinker and I enjoy that a lot better than being a naysayer, but I don’t see how the defense I saw last night enables Auburn to get those Arkansas, UGA, and Bama scalps we talked about a couple of weeks ago.
AuburnAlum05: If Chizik was a roll, I’d imagine him as a nice kaiser–hard shell on the outside, soft on the inside.
For those of you not slitting your wrists this morning, check this link:
http://espn.go.com/college-football/heisman10/index
Where ws the defense, in 3rd qtr game was still not ‘put away’!
Yeah, yeah. Of course I meant “role”. Thanks for the correction though, Professor.
tarkus, I will agree that our defense looked a little exposed in the 1st half but Ark St had a brand new offensive coordinator. After the second half when the defense adjusted to their schemes, Auburn held St’s offense to 125 total yards and Aplin to 73 yards on 9-of-17 passing.
To anyone that isn’t satisfied that we don’t have elite defensive stats on the other side of a quick striking breakneck speed hurry-up no huddle offense that gives the opponent’s offense 90+ snaps a game, I would like to remind you that such a balance has never been achieved by anyone ever.
I think it’s perfectly fair to say the defense was subpar last night, certainly in pass D. But it’s still just one game. And too soon to pass summary judgment. Last night wasn’t good enough to beat MSU. But that doesn’t automatically mean the effort Thursday won’t be.
“AuburnAlum05 says:
I am glad y’all think my freaking out over the defense was unwarranted because we looked out of position the entire night to me. Am I wrong?”
Yes, you are wrong. I’m not trying to be mean, but that’s the truth.
– other than the one 60 yrd completion in the first half, there were no significant breakdowns in coverage
– we were playing very “loose” zone coverage to start the game. There are any number of reasons that the coaches could have chosen to do this, including that they didn’t know quite what to expect from the opposing offense, and they weren’t completely certain who well our rebuilt secondary would perform in their first game, with so many emotions.
Once we made half-time adjustments, we did extremely well. Go back and watch the replay and you’ll see what I mean. We also did well when we did press coverage and when we were one on one. (Thank god, because I’m literally going to punch the next guy that I hear complaining about Thorpe.)
– the run defense, what really killed us last year, was vastly improved. We gave up less than 50 yards all night.
– overall, it was a tale of two halves. Other than the one touchdown after the fumble at the beginning of the half, we played very well defensively in the second half – particularly when you consider how many young guys were playing. Take away those 7 points and we only gave up 3 points all second half. Run D = A. Pass D = C in first half, A- in second half.
Considering that we were able to fix the first half problems largely fixed by the time we came out in the second half, there’s no reason to really expect that we won’t have those same problems fixed by Thursday.
Or, as Adam Douglas would say “Don’t Panic.”
Hey Brian, are you in Ft Lauderdale?
I’m in Hawaii and had a hard time finding the game on-line – so granted I couldn’t see it. But how could our line not be in there disrupting their offense?
No panic here, and I think we have a conducive schedule to get things right. Miss St ought to be a great first step into the SEC, then believe Clemson should be another tune-up before S. Car (whom looked pretty good, but we’ll see this weekend against GA)
So I look at the schedule:
Ark St – easy win (learning game)
Misss St – win big (statement)
Clemson – win big
S. Car – win in a battle
ULM – win (lick wounds)
Ken – win big (for last year)
Ark – win in a close one
LSU – win
Miss – win big, (Jax St was not a fluke)
Chatt – Homecoming
Georgia -close
Bama – close
be grerat if we got to play Texas Tech down the road
Watching TT now (does TT stand for Tommy Tuberville or Texas Tech)?
oh and Thomas you can’t dismiss their long play in 1st half, it kills us to give those up
I am so tired of seeing Lou Holtz on TV
bad as Terry Bowden
watched highlights for three hours last night, not one single Auburn play
even the preseason on ESPN did not show Auburn, lumped us with Miss St as ‘others’, so EPSN is on my sh!t list
“tarkus says:
oh and Thomas you can’t dismiss their long play in 1st half, it kills us to give those up”
When did I dismiss it? I said that there were no other significant breakdowns in coverage, which is true. Considering that fact, combined with the fact that our safeties came out with a lot of emotion and I believe got sucked out of position on that play (I’ll have to watch to replay to be sure), I don’t think there’s any cause for panic. If it had happened more than once, and was because of some key player not performing, I’d be concerned. As is, it’s sort of like Fannin’s fumble – it doesn’t make me feel great, but I’m not going to lose my mind over it just yet.
Also, don’t go to sleep on Clemson.
Clemson let North Texas get almost 450 yards of offense on them and couldn’t really put the ball in the end zone all that well. They’re hurting a little bit.
clemson = joke
their nat’l championship was a joke
we are 1-6-1 against em
It is S. Car we need to be at top notch for
tarkus, I’m actually in Birmingham.
Sorry you didn’t get to watch the game, here are the highlights if you haven’t seen them yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZDnSaRRB8g
I thought our D-line was “Fairley” impressive. 4 sacks isnt too shabby against an O-line made up of nothing but seniors. And I would think we would have to be pretty disruptive to only allow 50 rushing yards.
I would like to see some improvement in the pass rush though.
Tarkus, I did the same thing, waiting on the 72 yard td run or just the overall performance of Cam, but nothing. They’ll learn soon enough.
Also, I believe Arky State had 5 SENIOR STARTING OFFENSIVE LINEMEN. Whether they stack up to our D-line in talent or size, that experience is not a cake walk to overcome by any team. They did a pretty decent job of protecting the QB all night and allowing the 1.5 seconds it took him to throw those short passes (most of which were extremely quick and accurate.)
Cam Newton is on the Heisman watch list.
Is this a new development, or has he been there for a while?
First of all, Jerry, I’d like to thank you for your outstanding coverage/analysis throughout the offseason. This has been the longest one I remember, with maybe the exception of the 2002-2003 offseason. I discovered your blog sometime in the 2007 season, and have been reading pretty much everyday since then…The blog has really become a part of the overall Auburn football experience for me, so much so that I checked the halftime post from JHS on my cellphone last night (My first game in JHS, by the way…It sucks being an Auburn fan that grew up in Gainesville, FL). Thank you, and keep up the great work.
A few things:
Cam Newton. He’s exactly who I’d thought he would be, after seeing him in the Orange and Blue game in Gainesville back in 07..better, even. Wow. On one of the long touchdown passes, he was on the run and jumped off his back foot as he was throwing, delivering a perfect strike some 40 yards down field. That throw was pure arm strength…No time to plant both feet. His scrambling ability speaks for itself. I can’t wait to see him lower his shoulder against SEC competition, instead of sliding. The one thing that concerned me was the overthrow in the back of the endzone. We know he has a cannon, but can he make that kind of throw? I hope so, cause he needs to against the SEC.
The wildcat: I thought it was nice of the coaches to get Neil Caudle in for that play. You’d never see that from Saban’s staff. Pretty awesome that our coaches care enough, after all that has happened with Caudle. After Kodi’s second oppurtunity on the goaline that went nowhere, there was grumbling from some of the fans about keeping Newton in, and understandably so. But I still believe that the wildcat is going to be a force this year. For the first game, it was never going to be anything but a Burns keeper..no need to show too much, but the wildcat package has unlimited possibilties. On one of the wildcat snaps, Sir Cam Newton was the man in motion (!!!!). Just think about that for a minute. In the (unlikely) event that the wildcat is innefective this year, opposing defensive coordinators will at least have to address it, taking up valuable time scheming for this already hard to defend offense.
The receivers: Darvin Adams had 2 or 3 drops last night. They were all tough to catch, but they touched his hands, and he dropped them. That’s not like him at all. Hopefully this doesn’t become a trend. For the first time, the patented Zachery reverse failed. I don’t remember ever seeing it gain less than 10 yards. I’m very happy to see that Carr is going to be a reliable target. He fought off double teams for a couple of those catches. Sweet.
Rbs: Good job by McCalebb. I was hoping to see him running free down the sideline at some point. I’m anxious to see if he still has that top end speed. Not quite sure why Fannin didn’t get more carries in the first half. They didn’t let him carry the ball til it was like 3rd and 30. Dyer was awesome, and also freaking hilarious to watch. He was obviously very nervous…after every carry he would drop the ball, take a few steps back to the line, then jump, turn back around, and pick the ball up to hand it to the official. Also, there was just something funny about the way he jogged off the field…graceful definitely wouldn’t be the word to describe it. You can tell he’s going to be a very likeable kid.
The defensive line did an outstanding job, despite being held all night, which of course was never called. It looks like the refs still have it in for us.
Jeffery Whitaker was being double teamed. Already. It’s his first freaking game. AC is going to be a terror, I think.
Not really sure how much we missed Craig Stevens. Hopefully, he’s back on Thursday. Overall, our defense played well in the second half. They stopped the Red Wolves dead in their tracks after we gave up that second fumble, which was good to see. Last year, they would have folded like a piece of paper.
It was very frustrating to see them move the ball like that, but I don’t think we did a very good job preparing for them. That’s forgiveable, since they have a brand new offense. I’m reserving judgement on the D until Thursday. Regardless..as long as we can hold the opponent under 30 points, how can we lose with this offense??
Brian, I thought our pass rush did pretty good. They kept killing us with those quick passes. Hard to get pressure in that situation, but it seemed like every time Aplin tried to drop back, we were in his face.
Havent seen anyone hypothesize but maybe Fannin gets 3 carries because we have such a short week. Defense did make 2nd half adjustments, nice to see good coaching. It’s week 1. War Eagle, hope we can roll toomers 13 more times this season.
Thomas:
Don’t worry about being mean. If I didn’t want to hear how I might be wrong, I wouldn’t have asked. And believe me, I want to be wrong on this. I know that this season is an opportunity that Auburn has to take advantage of. And the defense last night did not look like the kind of D that would be able to do that once we get into SEC play, to me. I am glad to hear you and others think differently.
War Eagle.
One more thing regarding the defense;
The scheme, as it seems, was to stop their run — make sure they can’t keep the ball out of our offense’s hands, while we try to work out any kinks and get everyone acclimated on offense — and make their sophomore quarterback try to beat us. Turns out, the sophomore quarterback had a good game. Good on him. But looking back, the scheme makes perfect sense.
Thorpe?????????
The “scheme” was for a brand new offensive system, so I will forgive its shortcomings. If we have a similar game Thursday, I will really start to worry. Until then, I choose only to focus on the improved play in the second half.
Defense Positives: I think we finally have a couple of key ingredients to a great defense.
1. Fairley will DEMAND a double team in the middle or he will make the opposing offense hurt. This effectively gives us an extra defender against the run.
2. Thorpe can be a lockdown corner. If we can put him on one WR during each game and let the FS roll to the other side of the field this effectively provides an additional coverage man against the pass.
If you can be in a position to play with a 2 man advantage against both the run and the pass, you are ahead of the game the whole time.
These are the things that make great defenses.
Defense Negatives: Some problems that are still occuring from last year.
1. Missed tackles. The Auburn scheme does not seem to revolve around the “get 11 to the ball” philosopy. So, that means that we need great tacklers – which today’s spread offenses require any way. The level of execution is just not there, yet. Bynes and Etheridge I know both missed tackes that HAVE to be made. And those specific guys HAVE to make those plays for Auburn to go from Good to Great.
2. Soft zone. WHY!!!!! Maybe it’s just because it’s Arky State, but if I see our corners giving 10 yard cushions to WR’s on both sides of the line again, I’m going down to the field to call the defense myself. Someone help me understand!!!!!
my two cents:
soft zone- why show anything other than vanilla D against arky st? it’s too early to look for style points. play vanilla D and get some stuff on film so your D can gel together and get young guys some PT when it matters.
tackling- have to do a better job LOCKING UP. when you try to be the human missle you knock the ball out sometimes, but others you bounce off and they get the first down or TD. bynes, etheridge, bates I’m talking to you.
wildcat-forget burns. just leave newton in and run a normal play. burns is too indecisive in his running and too unreliable as a passer. if we continue to do that inside the 10 in SEC play it will be same results as last year. NOT IMPRESSED.
special teams- improved. I’ll take a washington fumble now and then in exchange for starting at the 35-45 most times because that dude runs with abandon. sanders was a beast and carr was reliable and even a plus most times.
newton touch- had it for the most part. the pass in the back of the endzone that was missed I will take. he threw a dart knowing our guy would make a great catch or it would not get picked. protect the football.
defense- we are doing pretty well on everything but short-mid level passing. In a perfect world we defend everything well, but for sake of arguement we aren’t giving up the big play and nobody is running on us. there will be opponents that can’t complete short passes this year and we will dominate them. we should also get better at defending short passes as the season goes OR we don’t win.
Offense-was quick strike, but did prove that we could run the ball and kill clock in the 4th with the dyer heavy drive. that was the biggest thing I wanted to see, aside from the fact that we should be able to outscore ANYONE we play regardless of how are D does.
There is work to be done, but overall I was happy with the first game. They say most teams take a big step from week 1 -2, so I guess we know more after state and they seemed sharp on O as well so I’ll say this “If this is another 3-2 game I will go to BD and polish Saban’s statue!” See you in Starkville and War Eagle!
Reason # 487 why I love Auburn:
The coach’s reaction to Demond Washington after his fumble… hugs on the sidelines.
WBE,
What I don’t understand about the defense is that Gene Chizik made his name as a genius DC. He went undefeated at Auburn and won a national title at Texas. If Roof isn’t getting it done, then Chizik should have stepped in a long time ago. We have a very small window of opportunity to do great things this season. Let’s not let Roof screw it up. We have talent on defense. Let’s not waste it. And if Chizik already has stepped in and the Defense is still this bas, then I am all about one thing: NOT LETTING GUS GO. He is nearly the sole reason for the success we have had last year on the field and off the field (recruiting).
So two questions. PLEASE answer!
1) Chizik is supposed to be just as much the D genius as Gus is the O genius. Why not take over the play calling?
2) If the problems cannot be fixed on D, and even tho this most definitely wont happen, why not offer the HC job to Gus??? I’m sure there are other Auburn fans who agree with this. (Oh, and keep Luper and Trooper)
sorry zach, but chizik isn’t losing the HC job until we lose some games. probably alot of them to make that happen. Gus is a good coach. Remains to be seen if he should be called great. Remember he was a HIGH SCHOOL coach about 5 or 6 years ago. Sure it’s frustrating to give up 26 to arky st, but this is the same suspect D we had last year only now it has FRESHMEN backups and starters and a couple of “veteran” safeties that haven’t played in over a year. Calm down. It’s not suicide watch time just yet. I can appreciate high expectations, but we won the friggin’ game. Celebrate it!
also, gus will continue to be a hot commodity as a potential HC each year. Odds are his first HC job will not be Auburn, same for troop and lup. Sure we love them now and want to keep them forever, but it’s tough to find those guys that don’t have ambition for an HC position. Plus in a few years when we have a bad recruiting year and the O is down everyone will be calling for their heads. that’s just how it works.
Zach, as TT points out, it’s still, well, sort of ridiculously premature to be talking about replacing Chizik with Dr. Gustav. Sorry if that’s hasrh. There’s a ton more that goes into being a head coach than an assistant, and Chizik has done a terrific job with most if not all of that; the criteria for which a head coach is judged are if he’s getting the most out of his talent and what direction the program is headed, and between the 8-5 record last year and overall upwards trend, Chizik’s grading out fine.
But the one thing he hasn’t done–yet–is show that he can translate his defensive acumen into defensive prograss as a head coach. Didn’t happen at Iowa St., hasn’t happened at Auburn yet. I’m plenty willing to grant a mulligan on last year, and I’m a little more forgiving this morning of the D’s play against ASU than I was yesterday … but there’s going to have be some improvement at some point or there may be a ceiling on how good Chizik’s tenure can be, if that makes sense.
That’s not to say I’m perfectly a-OK with the D vs. ASU; mitigating circumstances or not, three long scoring drives in a half is three long scoring drives in a half. We’re probably going to see some improvement this week, though, I’m guessing.
i was being facetious about gus taking chizik’s job. i’m just shocked that the D has gone downhill after chizik took over the HC job. it amazes me actually. auburn is known for their great D. something has to be fixed, or it will be another 8-4 season.
my real question was the first one. chizik needs to take more control of the defensive strategy and pla ycalling if Roof’s D continues to falter. anyone agree there?
I’m sure Chiz would do that if he saw that he needed to. But it would hardly matter — I have a feeling Roof thinks a lot like Chizik. Not only would Chizik not have hired him if he had completely different philosophies, but after 2 years I’m sure both of their takes on defense has kind of fused a little bit, if that makes any sense.
As far as Malzahn as a head coach — Remember, the three game losing skid last year was pretty much entirely the offense’s fault. He’s not perfect. Not yet, anyway.
The defense will be fine. ASU had a brand new offensive coordinator and a brand new system, while we were rotating in pretty much every single defensive freshman, getting the rust off of our safeties, and the whole time trying to stay relatively vanilla.
We’ll learn a whole lot more about the defense on Thursday.
With 10 more weeks before the bye, a second string full of underclassmen, an offense that neither the opponent’s defense nor their offense can keep pace with, and Mississippi State coming up this Thursday, I don’t blame Ted Roof at all for using the scheme he used. The folks sitting around me at the stadium, of course, all disagreed, but let’s wait until Thursday before we run Ted Roof out on a rail.