Tennessee Post Game

[AUApostle 7,700]

Bo’s short passing game is looking really good.  He made a lot of great 3rd down passes to keep drives alive...many plays that weren’t in our playbook a year ago.  

Last night showed how much Tank does for us in the red zone.  Most of those 1st down hand offs near the 10 yd line were stymied...until DJ’s 4th q run.

[aubiefifty 18,113]

i started to go to bed. when we play teams we should dominate and do not i get depressed. i still love my guys and pull hard for them but it is what it is. i wanted a beat down like we did lsu so people understand the first tennessee game we lost with pruitt was a fluke and i wanted to leave no doubt. serious doubt. bring the pain kind of doubt.

[Duder 241]

Meh.   Felt empty.  Tre Smith is a great one but they shouldn't have been able to run that well with the talent that should be on defense.  Offensive woes didn't help that either.

Bo is still average.

[aubaseball 2,788]

1 minute ago, aubiefifty said:

i started to go to bed. when we play teams we should dominate and do not i get depressed. i still love my guys and pull hard for them but it is what it is. i wanted a beat down like we did lsu so people understand the first tennessee game we lost with pruitt was a fluke and i wanted to leave no doubt. serious doubt. bring the pain kind of doubt.

The only problem with this perception of Auburn football is that the team isn’t that good.   

Taking off the orange and blue glasses, if Auburn played these same teams again they could easily be winless or only have one loss.   I don’t think AU could  beat GA with this team if they played 10 games, same for Bama.   

I believe Bama is going to score as much as they want.   I don’t think Auburn is going to beat Texas A&M either.   After losing two straight, the Mississippi State game will be a toss up.    After a rocky start, it seems that Leach has finally found the players that have bought into his philosophy.   Now, they aren’t a good team so I think Auburn will more than likely win.   

But if Auburn goes 0-3, will it be the end of Gus? That’s a question that the people in charge might have to answer.  

[Swamp Eagle 5,214]

9 hours ago, GwillMac6 said:

RZ scoring has to be perfect next week. It was pretty bad this game again. We lost the 2014 Iron Bowl entirely because of terrible RZ offense.

Trends usually trend... just sayin’

[Swamp Eagle 5,214]

2 hours ago, AUpreacherman22 said:

It’s 2020.  I’ll take the win with no complaints.  

A lot of folks around here have been taking losses the same way for the last 8 years.

[cole256 17,085]

So I'm curious. How do many of you feel about the TN game. 

I'd also be interested in how some think we are as an overall team. Not any stans though if you feel a certain way I assume there would be some sort of explanation as to why

[NoALtiger 3,926]

We seem to have that slant route down, especially at crunch time. We all have been clamoring for that for years and now we’ve got it. Gus still meddles on O for sure but it’s clear Chad has more influence than any OC we’ve had in the Gus era. 

[aubaseball 2,788]

4 minutes ago, cole256 said:

So I'm curious. How do many of you feel about the TN game. 

I'd also be interested in how some think we are as an overall team. Not any stans though if you feel a certain way I assume there would be some sort of explanation as to why

I will sum the game up this way.   If Tennessee’s coaches had any sense, they would have handed the ball off for every play in the second half and won the game.   The literally threw the game away.  

Auburn is a middle of the road team and could win or lose to anyone that’s middle of the road.   This years team will not beat any top tier teams.   

[abw0004 10,244]

I think we just a had a lot of rust to get through offensively.  You could see the rust coming off throughout the game, especially with Nix.  I love that he is making great decisions on when to stay in the pocket and when to run. I am unsure why the defense had so many issues.  I didn’t like that our DB’s were playing so far off their man the majority of the game.  I would rather have them come up to the line.  When they did our defense had better results.

Hope none of our injuries will hold anyone out of the Iron Bowl...

[cole256 17,085]

23 minutes ago, aubaseball said:

I will sum the game up this way.   If Tennessee’s coaches had any sense, they would have handed the ball off for every play in the second half and won the game.   The literally threw the game away.  

Auburn is a middle of the road team and could win or lose to anyone that’s middle of the road.   This years team will not beat any top tier teams.   

A agree with a bunch of this. In the game thread I said they would be stupid and pass the ball. 

I also said we're a middle tier team

[cole256 17,085]

32 minutes ago, NoALtiger said:

We seem to have that slant route down, especially at crunch time. We all have been clamoring for that for years and now we’ve got it. Gus still meddles on O for sure but it’s clear Chad has more influence than any OC we’ve had in the Gus era. 

To me this is sort of pathetic as far as where we're at. We sort of have to celebrate that we as a team now throw slant routes. 

[fredst 9,064]

34 minutes ago, cole256 said:

So I'm curious. How do many of you feel about the TN game. 

I'd also be interested in how some think we are as an overall team. Not any stans though if you feel a certain way I assume there would be some sort of explanation as to why

I think that we are a middling team playing below our talent level but not by much. Our talent and ability on both lines is average at best. Our linebackers are very athletic playmakers but are undersized and consistently misfit runs. Our secondary is above average but continues to be burned with PI because of being too “handsy”. Our wide receivers are good but still misutilized. Our qb is above average but held back by bad mechanics and intermittent terrible decision making. Our RBs are good to very good. Overall, I think we are a middle of the road team that can beat some better teams but has potential to lose to about anybody (see USCe game).

[cole256 17,085]

6 minutes ago, abw0004 said:

I think we just a had a lot of rust to get through offensively.  You could see the rust coming off throughout the game, especially with Nix.  I love that he is making great decisions on when to stay in the pocket and when to run. I am unsure why the defense had so many issues.  I didn’t like that our DB’s were playing so far off their man the majority of the game.  I would rather have them come up to the line.  When they did our defense had better results.

Hope none of our injuries will hold anyone out of the Iron Bowl...

As far as nix I think he has always played well when he has a lead. I think he's always been above average short. Deep he's been below and making reads. I think it seems like in the pocket he's improved but making reads and throwing deep I'm not seeing it yet. But hopefully he'll get there. 

[CleCoTiger 1,957]

44 minutes ago, cole256 said:

So I'm curious. How do many of you feel about the TN game. 

I'd also be interested in how some think we are as an overall team. Not any stans though if you feel a certain way I assume there would be some sort of explanation as to why

I feel like the TN game was a win after three weeks of layoff in a season with COVID-19 that's been unlike any other. It wasn't a dominating performance, but it got the W. I'll take it and be glad of it. (Folks at LSU, Penn State and Michigan would gladly swap places with us right now.)

As a team, I think on any given day our Tigers could line up and have a shot to beat any team in the nation if things went just right. And I think on any given day our Tigers could line up and lose to USCe.  This year's edition of the Tigers isn't going to go to much less win the college football playoff. But as the Tigers got more comfortable with Chad Morris, it's shown up. They are getting better and I think they are a solid, though not spectacular, team.

War Eagle!

[cole256 17,085]

49 minutes ago, abw0004 said:

I think we just a had a lot of rust to get through offensively.  You could see the rust coming off throughout the game, especially with Nix.  I love that he is making great decisions on when to stay in the pocket and when to run. I am unsure why the defense had so many issues.  I didn’t like that our DB’s were playing so far off their man the majority of the game.  I would rather have them come up to the line.  When they did our defense had better results.

Hope none of our injuries will hold anyone out of the Iron Bowl...

I think playing off was a strategy. I think their QB suck but he can actually throw a pretty good deep ball so let's keep everything underneath because he's going to make a mistake sooner or later. 

I think our d line even though not terrible but being under sized really hurts us and the quickest way for the entire team to get better is them getting better. If we had a big time pass rusher and a big d tackle that consistently got a push up the middle I think this d would actually be very very dangerous

[cole256 17,085]

44 minutes ago, fredst said:

I think that we are a middling team playing below our talent level but not by much. Our talent and ability on both lines is average at best. Our linebackers are very athletic playmakers but are undersized and consistently misfit runs. Our secondary is above average but continues to be burned with PI because of being too “handsy”. Our wide receivers are good but still misutilized. Our qb is above average but held back by bad mechanics and intermittent terrible decision making. Our RBs are good to very good. Overall, I think we are a middle of the road team that can beat some better teams but has potential to lose to about anybody (see USCe game).

I agreed as far as I think we are in the middle. I think a very big weakness for us would be any team with dominant d tackles. And if anybody keys in and stops our run we'd be in trouble. 

[cole256 17,085]

Do you guys feel that we turned a corner?

[fredst 9,064]

7 minutes ago, cole256 said:

Do you guys feel that we turned a corner?

No. I think that we have weakness that can’t be corrected without personnel/talent upgrades. The guys we have are playing hard but size and ability limits us. I think our D would look considerably better if just one of Bryant/Hall/Moultry suddenly became a consistent terror off of the edge. If all the stars aligned we could beat any or all of the next 2 (?3) but I just don’t see us beating Bama for sure and unlikely TAMU.

[japantiger 4,104]

7 minutes ago, cole256 said:

Do you guys feel that we turned a corner?

Yes, we've firmly and finally disabused any notion that I ever had that this team; or any team recruited and developed by Malzahn, can be a championship contender.  We are only capable of putting up about 20 points per game offensively against, well, anyone.  So we are better than Vandy; but neck-n-neck with and capable of losing to, perineal powerhouses South Carolina, Kentucky, Miss State and Tennessee; while our facilities fall behind the rest of the relevant competitors.

[NoALtiger 3,926]

15 minutes ago, cole256 said:

I think playing off was a strategy. I think their QB suck but he can actually throw a pretty good deep ball so let's keep everything underneath because he's going to make a mistake sooner or later. 

This is spot on. Clearly we were content with giving them yardage and first downs to prevent the big play deep ball and waiting on the QB to screw up. It worked really well obviously. I saw Jeremy Pruitt defending the offense (and himself for that) talking about how much yardage they got, defensive breakdowns, how hard they play etc. Basically saying all the crap a losing coach says when his team has lost 5 in a row and he’s looking at getting fired. We were content with not giving up points (duh who isn’t) and waiting for the mess up which is what happened. 

[gravejd 3,304]

Glad we got the win. Offense was able to keep going even with Tank out who is our difference maker in that side of the ball. DJ and Shivers did a great job filling in but tank adds a while different level to the RB position. Hope he gets better quick with bama coming up. 
 

Defense got gashed for huge yardage but kept them off the scoreboard for the most part. And that last bit is the most important.  That Smoke interception was so huge. Totally flipped the game to AU when that happened. 
 

This team continues to fight for wins and I appreciate their hard work. Now we gotta bring our best game against bama and hope for some good breaks. Then anything can happen!! War eagle

[EastAl_Tiger 228]

1 hour ago, japantiger said:

, perineal powerhouses South Carolina, Kentucky, Miss State and Tennessee; 

that too

[Swamp Eagle 5,214]

6 hours ago, cole256 said:

Do you guys feel that we turned a corner?

We probably have, but it’s an inside corner which means we’re going around in squares instead of circles.

[abw0004 10,244]