If burying Mississippi St. under an avalanche of yards and points was like devouring a perfectly-cooked and -seasoned steak, Auburn’s defensive performance was like that one tiny piece of gristle left over between your teeth. It’s not that big a deal, it doesn’t change how good the meal you just had was … but goshamighty, when it’s still there the entire drive home from the restaurant and you just keep thinking about it and thinking about it, it’s still more than a minor annoyance.
It was that way for me, I bet it was that way for a lot of you, and we know it was that way–or, rather, something a little more intense– for Track’Em writer WarDamnZach. I won’t rehash the entirety of his post (titled “Defense Wins Championships”), but I’ll sum it up for you: This Auburn defense hasn’t been good enough.
Again, I won’t blame any Auburn fan for being disappointed in how our defense has played to date. Hell, even the post game text from the Official Mother of WBE took a moment to gripe about the D between the “War Eagle”‘s and “Wow”‘s. The defenses of the Tuberville era were terrifying things that regularly strangled the life out of their opponents. The 2009 version has yet to meet those wonderfully high standards, giving up two long first-half scoring drives to a La. Tech offense that would put up fewer points the following week against Navy. Last Saturday, a Miss. St. offense that was utterly moribund a year ago and features few players that would start for any other offense in the SEC gained an average of five yards per-snap and put 17 points on the board. Auburn is already 36th in the country in yards allowed per-play, with all of 2009’s biggest defensive challenges still ahead of them. Destroyers of Worlds, they probably are not.
Which couldn’t be more OK. It’s going to be hard for Auburn fans to adjust to it, after 10 years of Tubby (and the decade’s worth of Dye before him) asking his defense and special teams to win the game and the offense not to just screw it up, but those teams are gone and past. This Auburn team is going to have to win the game with offense and ask the defense and special teams not to screw it up.
With Mad Dr. Gustav at the helm, Auburn doesn’t have any other choice. It’s just a fact: if you’re going with the Malzahn no-huddle, your defense is going to suffer. It’s a trade-off the Chiznick has been willing to make, and thus far he’s been a genius for making it.
Not only because it was always going to take a savant like Malzahn to turn Auburn’s collection of offensive “talent” into a unit worth fearing, but because this defense was always going to struggle trying to carry the team. By now, we know the litany by heart: new defensive tackles. Zero linebacking depth. Starting true freshman safety. Brand-new JUCO starters at nickelback and linebacker. And it’s not like last year’s unit was quite the ’85 Bears; 29th in total defense, but having suffered shred jobs at the hands of West Virginia, Arkansas, the Tide, etc.
It’s a point I was trying to make in Sunday’s knee-jerk post and never quite spelled out as cleanly as I wanted: Auburn’s not going to be the sort of team that wins any (meaningful) games 24-3 this year. It’s going to be 37-13 and 49-24 in the laughers, 33-30 or 42-38 in the close ones. It’s going to be exhilarating and scary and more than a little just-plain-weird to see Auburn playing the kind of game we’re used to seeing from the WAC (or from, uh, Georgia and South Carolina), but as long as we win, am I going to care in the tiniest bit?
Well … not exactly. Zach’s probably right that that kind of team isn’t going to be winning a championship in the SEC. (Probably.) But this year isn’t about championships. It’s about undoing the damage of 2008, about becoming Auburn again.
Well, Auburn in terms of the win column, even if the scoreboard and yardage totals are as un-Auburn as defined by the Tubby era as possible. For that first kind of Auburn, we don’t need a top-10 defense. We just need a defense that plays with pride and effort and focus and gets just enough stops that the offense can do its thing.
So no, the defense hasn’t been quite as stout as we’d like. But it’s been more than stout enough for this Auburn team, and the guess here is that we’ll see it be stout enough again tomorrow.
After 3 years of not scoring almost anything every game it started getting harder and harder to say, “Well at least the defense is doing awesome.” Pointing out defensive stats to friends who go to rival schools is just that, trying to defend your team’s worth and most of everyone just pays attention to the score. Holding superstars like Darren McFadden and Felix Jones to 43 yards a piece is great thing to hang your hat on but when a couple of weeks later they go to town on LSU (who would then go on to win the BCS), that game at War Memorial becomes pretty forgettable. From 2006 to 2008 in 50% of games played, Auburn scored 25 points or less (19/38); that is not a stat I’m particularly proud of to say the least.
Yes, Auburn hasn’t exactly played any juggernauts as of yet but I am willing to give some for a lot more firepower from the offense. As much as I frown upon espn and they’re obvious bias towards the offensive side of the ball, I certainly would love to see Tiger tailbacks, quarterbacks and wideouts being featured on the highlight reels than other teams. Exposure is awesome, especially when you’re not getting exposed for a change…
Whoops, my stat is way wrong, there were 26 of those 38 games that Auburn scored less than 25 points bringing that up to 68%. Auburn won half their games in the time frame when scoring under 25 points.
Jerry- Great points here. Actually, I think this is VERY insightful. But it is SUCH a mind shift for Auburn fans, that I think I am mainly just in shock about it.
Another case in point- -coaching adjustments at halftime? It appears in the past 2 weeks, we’ve actually made adjustments during the halftime intermission. . . that worked. . .what the heck? Something else that AU fans are going to have to get used to.
There have been references to Roof addressing the offense (or maybe the whole team)- -that I haven’t gotten the full story on. But he basically alluded to it in one of his other sound bytes. That basically the staff as a whole had the conversation that you outlined- -and that everyone realized that to run CGM’s offense, the defense would suffer. But Roof was fine being a middle of the pack defense in the rankings, as long as they won games. He said the staff had talked “alot” about it. So, sounds like Chizik did make a concerted decision as part of his much referenced “plan” (and got his whole staff to buy in, as well as the team).
And that might be the most encouraging thing to take from all this. Did Chizik actually look at the roster before being hired (or shortly thereafter)- -understand that we didn’t have the horses to be a top 5 defense, and do things they way CTT did (get 1 score and then hang on for dear life)- -so he opted to instead get CGM; jumpstart the offense; and make sure the D didn’t cost us games? If so, that’s alot of foresight that appears at least now to be paying off.
Finally- after years of having friends that root for other SEC programs that score points (UF, UGA, etc.)- -it’s a real breath of fresh air to think that we can now compete in games where the point totals climb into the 20’s and 30’s. At the very least, I don’t have to be so crestfallen if the other team scores one or two TD’s, like I have been for the past few years. Couldn’t have said that since 2004 (and even then CTT was content to shut things down- -which probably cost us at least a shot at MNC- -which don’t even get me started).
Speaking of defense, I was curious how the fast-paced offense is doing in the time of possession category. So I took the drive chart info from ESPN and ran some numbers:
Median drive time: 2:03
Median # of plays: 6
Median yards: 40.5
To break it down a little further:
Avg Scoring drive time: 2:37
Avg Non-scoring drive time: 2:01
I have no idea how that compares to a “normal” offense, but it sure seems like the defense is going to be back on the field pretty quick, even if we have a scoring drive.
Huge HOWEVER;
Out of 24 drives, 13 resulted in scores (10 TD, 3 FG), 7 punts, 3 Turnovers (one on downs) and 1 end of game.
I don’t know if scoring on over 54% of your drives is considered good, but it sure seems like it should be. So, as long as the offense is scoring points like that, we can afford for the defense to give up a few yards.
Another point… when you win with great offense and so-so defense, you attract blue chip offensive talent, while it probably doesn’t effect defensive recruiting negatively (I could even make it a defensive plus by saying more snaps for the offense means more snaps for the defense, and who wouldn’t want more snaps, offense or defense… playas want to play). Tubbs knew how to win with boring (bad) offense and great defense, but even I could recruit against that… don’t go to Auburn if you want to spend any time in the endzone. I actually think Alabama will suffer a little from this eventually since Saban is philosophically an uber-version of Tubbs (and therefore why I think Tubbs would have eventually been firmly under Saban’s thumb if he wasn’t already).
I also like to think that Chizik, being a defensive guy, is relishing the challenge of producing that rarest of things: a top 5 defense on a no huddle spread team. Its like he stacked the deck against himself just to see if he and Roof can do it.
“Well … not exactly. Zach’s probably right that that kind of team isn’t going to be winning a championship in the SEC. (Probably.)”
Why is he right about this? This statement is the ugly cousin of “the spread will never produce in the SEC.” This absurd logic is engrained in the Auburn psyche, I know. But that doesn’t reduce it’s sheer ridiculousness. I suppose we should put Tate and Fannin in the linebacker rotation and shift McCalebb to corner, then let the water boys run the ball? I know this is all hyperbole, and you responded in a much more measured tone, but this line of thought represents the same folks in the stands at JHS that yell “RUN THE BALL!!” after the game’s first incompletion.
“But this year isn’t about championships. It’s about undoing the damage of 2008, about becoming Auburn again.”
That’s obviously goal #1, but can’t we have the other one too?
Chris Brown over at http://www.smartfootball.com (http://tinyurl.com/ce3wup) made the argument in the off-season that Chizik may be trying to copy the model of Bob Stoops at Oklahoma. Like Chizik, Stoops was a respected defensive coordinator who installed very aggressive offensive schemes when he became a head coach – first with the Mike Leach-lead Airraid and now with the hurry-up system that led the nation in plays run last year. Both schemes likely cost Oklahoma somewhat in the defensive statistics categories, but Stoops was more than willing to make the trade off to have a potent offense. I know he’s had some trouble winning the big one of late, but if Chizik can replicate Stoops’ success at Auburn, I think we’d all be okay with that.
Great analogy. I’ve had that piece of gristle in my tooth all week even though I just wanted to keep thinking about how good the steak was. WVU will also leave us with a chunk of never ending fat to chew on next week if we don’t contain them on the underneath stuff. Here’s to a big filet on Saturday night instead. Beef analogies rule.
By the way. Love the new website after I got over the initial “new Coke sucks” feeling. I was skeptical at first but I’m very impressed with what ya’ll have assembled. As an alum, it’s very cool to have one site that kind of ties the whole “this is Auburn” theme together. Make me want to move back.
BUT – how about a slight name change to pay a little homage to the days of the JCCW? I mean do you know how many people you hooked just like me that had to find out what the Joe Cribbs Car Wash was all about? How about the JCCW at WarBlog Eagle? Or War Eagle Reader presents the Joe Cribbs Car Wash? YOU GOTTA WORK IT IN THERE SOMEWHERE JERRY!!!
Hmm…. Dynamic spread offense and less effective defense doesn’t win championships…..
Anyone tell Urban Meyer yet?
Sullivan013