Sorry, everyone, even 48-plus hours after the game my brain is a little too … stretched these days to come up with a coherent theme for this post. It’s bullet point time. Note that I’m trying hard not to repeat Amorak’s points in his excellent Sunday post, which you should read first. Enjoy:
— No question that Cam Newton is entirely incredible. And no question that every accolade he receives for his leadership, toughness, and execution on The Drive is deserved and then some.
But a drive like that one–almost entirely on the ground, almost entirely a handful of gritty yards at a time, almost entirely with the defense knowing well ahead of time there was no chance the ball was going to be put in the air–doesn’t start with a quarterback, no matter how good he is. It starts with Messrs. Ziemba, Berry, Pugh, Isom, and Mosley. Those guys simply wouldn’t allow Kentucky to get a push. They didn’t open any gaping, easy-20-yards type of holes, either, but they didn’t have to. They only needed to give Cam a crease. Which they did, over, and over, and over again. And they won the damn game.
Those same guys were terrible against Clemson. They know it, their coaches know it, we know it. But in the two SEC games since, Auburn has run for a total of 645 yards. And not against bodybag teams, either; one of those games came on the road in the SEC, the other against a defensive line that just got finished manhandling Alabama. Auburn is now the No. 1 rushing offense in the SEC and No. 8 in the country. That Clemson game wasn’t fun, but if that’s what it took to remind this line of the way they ought to be playing–and the dominant way they are playing now–it’ll have been worth it.
— Auburn’s sort of a weird team. The scoreboard suggests they’re the most fortunate team this side of LSU, having now played four games that came down to the final possession and having won all four. We can all think of plays–the Parker pass in overtime, the Miss. St. drop, the fumbles out of bounds against both the ‘Cocks and ‘Cats–that would have singlehandedly turned those games around.
Then again, to look at the box scores, you’d think Auburn shouldn’t have been in that much danger in the first place. Well, against Clemson, sure. But they outgained Mississippi State by 102 yards. South Carolina, they outgained by 108 yards. And now Kentucky, 185 yards. That’s an average margin of 132 yards per SEC game–spread over the course of a season, that’s championship-grade. Even last year’s Tide team barely cracked 100.
Of course, that number is likely to fall as the schedule gets tougher, and it’s not an entirely accurate portrayal of the Kentucky game anyway, since the ‘Cats took over at midfield so often. But the point remains the same: Auburn may be on the fortunate side, but they’ve been playing excellent football regardless. 2007 Mississippi St., 2008 Vanderbilt, 2009 LSU they are not.
— I hate criticizing Ted Roof, because ever since the 2009 Mississippi State game, Roof-bashing has been the unofficial official pastime of Auburn’s message board types and al.com commenters. That’s not the sort of company a blogger wants to keep, particularly since it’s typically borne of brainless WE OUGHTA BE BETTER WE’RE AUBURN reflexiveness than any actual thought. Seriously, what’s more important: that we gave up some yards and points in tofu coverage against Arkansas St., or that we’re second in the SEC in rush defense despite facing both State and Carolina?
That said: Auburn’s defense was awful Saturday. Awful. Worst outing since last year’s LSU game awful. And Roof’s game-planning had a lot to do with that. We can talk about not giving up big plays all we want, but when you’ve given up 34 points in only 10 possessions–and yielded more touchdown drives (4) than you’ve forced punts (3)–that’s bad defense no matter how those 34 points get put up. (For the record, the special teams breakdowns and consistent midfield starting positions didn’t help matters much, but every one of Kentucky’s six scoring drives covered at least 48 yards. There were no kick returns for TD or fumbles on our own 11. Auburn had chances to make stops and didn’t.)
I’m starting to think that Roof’s approach towards a Kentucky-like (or Arkansas St.-like) dink-and-dunk approach is fundamentally broken. The stop-the-run, play-soft-against-the-pass, wait-for-a-big-play-or-offensive-screwup philosophy makes a lot of sense in a lot of situations–like last year, when even playing conservatively couldn’t stop the flood of long touchdowns, or when you’re facing mistake-prone QBs like Miss. St.’s, or a big-play reliant offense like Clemson’s–but against players as difficult to tackle in space as Cobb and Locke and a quarterback as accurate as Hartline, it just doesn’t work. The scoreboard from the other night is all the evidence you need, but that Auburn struggled so badly in similar situations against Northwestern and Arkansas St. makes it even more conclusive. Roof–and Chizik, who knew when he hired Roof that his m.o. was terrific run defense and shaky pass defense–need to do better work against these kinds of teams.
(The good news: no one else on the schedule is that kind of team. Mallett’s better about checking down these days, but the Hogs still throw deep with regularity. LSU, Georgia, and ‘Bama are all pro-style offenses that start with the run. Ole Miss is even more ground-heavy with Masoli at the helm. Roof’s still probably going to look OK by the time the season’s over.)
— So, if you’ve been paying attention to this post so far, you know Auburn is No. 1 in the SEC in rushing and No. 2 in rushing defense. If “run the ball and stop the run” really is the formula for success in the SEC, Auburn’s still in damn good shape going forward.
— A quick note about the punting: I’m OK with unreturnable moonshot 32-yarders against Randall Cobb and, in a couple of weeks, Patrick Peterson. But I’m not OK with finishing the season 91st in the country in net punting. That’s a ton of hidden yards to concede … and another reason Auburn hasn’t been able to put away the teams they’ve been outplaying.
— There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of excitement out there about the tailbacks in the wake of Newton’s reign of terror, but dude, Fannin and Dyer combined to run for 106 yards on just 17 (evenly split) total carries–an average of better than 6 yards a pop. That’s good. If McCalebb hadn’t had a peculiar off-night (9 yards on 5 carries), it would have been even better.
— About Alabama: like everyone else, I watched the Carolina game in a state of mid- to low-level delirium. Jeremy, as always, is right.
But we should also realize that unless the Tide also trips up against LSU or … uh … Mississippi St., it doesn’t change anything for Auburn. Before the Carolina game, we knew Auburn would have to win in Tuscaloosa to get to Atlanta. After, we still know Auburn’s going to have to win in Tuscaloosa to get to Atlanta. No point in pretending it’s not awful nice to have the Tide’s chances of a back-to-back national title downgraded to DEFCON 3, awful nice to see them (along with every other SEC team!) behind Auburn in the polls, but even if Auburn takes care of business at home these next two weeks, it’s still all about the Iron Bowl.
(Unless LSU wins in Baton Rouge. That would be truly phenomenal.)
I’m not sure what I’d give to have the SECW wrapped up before we head to the concrete jungle in West AL, but it’d be substantial. Please, oh please…for one game, Jordan Jefferson, don’t play like Jordan Jefferson. Even still, the Purple Tiger D has the opportunity to wreak some S. Cackalacky type havoc on McElginger. ‘Twill be interesting.
All that aside, it’s really all about the next game. Arky this week, CornDogs next week…so on and so forth. We absolutely can not afford a brain-dead screwup like those that have characterized AU in the past – the Arky/UGA 06/MSU 07/UK 09 type game. The opportunity is too great.
the two nearly back-to-back personal foul calls on zac saturday night, especially the second one, were outright horseshit. having said that, however, and considering the one he got against south carolina for targeting the dude’s head, i have to wonder if zac isn’t overcompensating a bit, maybe playing with a little bit of overzealous headhunting style just to show everybody he’s not afraid to get in the mix?
hey – i love the guy, and anybody that comes back from a friggin’ broken NECK to play tackle football deserves all the accolades he can get, and certainly deserves to not be second-guessed by old fat dudes who never played a snap of college ball. but he must be doing something to get the zebras’ attention, cuz they seem to be quick on the trigger with him.
And, in reference to the pic, would anyone take Julio Jones or AJ Greene for Adams? Not me! I don’t think I’ve seen any better this year. That includes those monsters at SC and Ark.
Big Sexy – those two late hit calls along with the roughing the passer on Fairely add up to 45 free yards.
The zebras didn’t do us any favors in Lexington – that’s for sure.
The personal fouls on Zac were awful, but did the “pass interference” on T Bell look as bad on TV as it did in person? Even my UK buddy next to me said it was horrible.
To be fair, the highly questionable PI flag that kept Auburn’s opening drive was a gift in our favor. The refs were simply flag happy. Flag-delirious, in fact.
But yes, UK ended up more the beneficiary than Auburn. The Fairley roughing and first Etheridge PF were atrocious calls.
Is it just me or has the SEC officiating taken a nosedive in general this year?
Every game I come away thinking of 3 or 4 horrible calls.
I read the officials for the KY game were the same ones that were suspended after last year’s ARK-FL game…the game they gave ARK a bogus PF that allowed FL to kick the field goal and win.
645 rushing yards in 2 games….I think that was the vision Tubs had when he wanted to switch to the spread….Just thinking if he was here and we had that production on the ground, the other team would never even get to see the ball
Girltiger, yes, it’s the Marc Curles crew. The next 15-yard flag they keep in their pocket will be the first, I guess.
WDR, that’s true, but I have a hard time giving Tubby much credit for that vision when he clearly had no idea how to make it reality.
I don’t think anyone should be making a big deal about the defense. They were in a terrible matchup against Kentucky, and if it weren’t for a big Cobb kick return, a huge Cobb scramble and run, and the referees, they’d have looked a lot better than they did. They shut down Locke and company, and made Hartline try to beat us, and he couldn’t.
Shut down Derrick Locke, and prevent the deep passes to Cobb and Matthews. You wouldn’t have thought that was a bad gameplan going in.
Auburn is 2-0 in Lexington and Starkville this year. The rest of the universe is 0-5 in those places. I’m encouraged.
WokDontRun — Yeah, but if Tubs was here we wouldn’t be seeing this kind of production. We’d be seeing an anemic offense and onside kicks being returned for touchdowns.
Thanks for the thoughts. We love it when you have time to post.
Regarding our advantage in box score yards: We can blame some of the closeness of the 4 “real” games on a disparity in net kicking yards. Auburn has averaged 354 net kickoff + punt yards per game on 8.8 kicks per game and opponents have averaged 416 net kicking yards on 9.5 kicks per game. So we’re down 62 yards per game from special teams.
We’re averaging 43 net yards per kickoff and 37 net yards per punt. The four bad guys got 46 net yards per kickoff and 42 net yards per punt.
Calling all freshman kickers…
I should have written, “As Jerry said, we can blame…”
This may be getting a bit nerdy, but wouldn’t it be a better predictor of dominance to measure yards gained versus yards allowed as a ratio?
For example Team A outgains their opponent 500 to 400 and Team B outgains their opponent 200 to 100. Both teams outgained their opponent by 100 yards, but Team A was more dominate since they gained two yards for every one yard allowed while Team B gained five yards for every four yards allowed.
If it is hard to see how this is different, think of it this way. Which boxer would win the most fights, the one who lands two punches for every one punch his opponent lands, or the one who lands five punches for every four his opponent lands?
My point is that while the Auburn yardage numbers are encouraging I think that because Auburn is gaining so many yards, looking purely at the difference between yards v. yards allowed is a little misleading in terms of overall dominance.
Jerry,
Nice to have you back (even for a short while). Have really missed your insights and musings about our team. Know you have very important business to attend to, but as soon as you can get away to give us another dose of WBE I’ll be here to read it!
300 yards rushing anywhere anytime is damn good. 300 yards rushing in Back-to-back SEC games is damn dominant. 300 yards in Back-to-back games (when one of those 300 yard games came against the defense that just shut down bama’s run game COMPLETELY) is Lui Kang Finish HIM dominant. WDE
And oh yeah Darvin Adams is the man. The Drive doesn’t get out of 1st Gear without that AUsome foot control on the sideline. That little sliver of green between his foot and the sideline looked so good in HD.
I see us losing 2 games unless they do something about this horrid defense. No defense should be allowing this many points with so few rushing yards and ypc allowed. We should be averaging less than 15 ppg. Its hard to watch compared to years past and will be catching up to us soon.
Opponents YPC and YPR are very low, but given enough field, our D has shown the ability to figure out what the opponent is doing and stop the drive. That’s how it’s designed and that’s about all our secondary can handle.
I think Luke has nailed it: Auburn has been working from a field position disadvantage all season – and still winning.
For the most part returns/coverage are much improved from last year. At least we can catch a punt and have covered KOs much better – with a few exceptions. But the kick/punt distance/hang time are killing us.
Maybe that’s making excuses for the defense. But damning the D totally is making excuses for the kicking game too.
Does anyone else notice how bad Antoine Carter is playing? He is either hurt or not trying. I watched the UK game and notice quite a few times when is was just walking during a play.
Know you’re plenty busy Jerry, but I noticed you over there at al.com. Well done, but what about us here? We’re hungry too. Waa! Waa!
Sorry you’ve got plenty of that I’m sure.