Auburn vs LSU Takeaways - 22 year edition

[Dual-Threat Rigby 9,091]

Probably the last time i'll be doing this with the eliteness of the rest of the schedule, but I'm feeling good and we'll do some truncated takeaways

1. Harsin got the win he needed (you needed to come out of this 5 game stretch 4-1 or better. Needed)

2. This offensive line is putrid

3. Friend should be fired if GREAT talent isn't recruited THIS cycle

4. Whoever got into Bobo's ear for the 2nd quarter and about half of the 3rd and 4th should probably be calling plays. WHOEVER 

5.The receivers aren't very good, but they try

6. The tight ends are very good, and they try 

7. Shivers is as mandatory as either of the other two backs

8. This game CERTAINLY did not help my perception of Mason, but it didn't hurt it too much. 6-7/10 performance, maybe a 8 with how much was hurt/not able to dress out

9. This should be the line of demarcation between an upper half of the SEC placement and the other. We should be in the former

10. Finley is a consummate professional and navigates the pocket better than any Auburn QB in I don't know how long. 

I can't speak to individual performances with having watched it at the bar, but obviously all the tight ends were just stellar. linebackers played with a ton of soul. Edge rush could still improve on actually finishing plays, but this should be the most mobile guy we play for the rest of the season and even the hurries clearly pressured the guy down the road. Pritchett got hounded and I'd still say he fought his ass off from what I can remember. Smoke Monday is...a guy. Kicking unit may not be as dependable as years past, and there had to be some regression at some point.

[Dual-Threat Rigby 9,091]

hand to God, I didn't mean to forget Bo Nix. As a guy who wasn't alive last time this happened, fought in this game like his life was on the line, and played like a guy who's heard all the s*** being spewed, he came to play. Probably one interception away from beating the GOAT LSU team and cracking the streak at 20, had his then best game ever en route to beating them by 40, and may have permanently buried Ed Orgeron with his own job on the line. A generational game 

[AUwent 3,841]

Harsin has so far shown that he can make adjustments. This is a welcome change.

[Dual-Threat Rigby 9,091]

10 minutes ago, AUwent said:

Harsin has so far shown that he can make adjustments. This is a welcome change.

I don't think I'll ever be able to get over that PSU game (mainly just bc it killed our cushion for the rest of the season), but there were very minute flashes that showed he understood what was working and what wasn't. Just didn't expound on those flashes. I think this was the next step in maturation. Didn't keep running it into stacked boxes (other than the second to last drive where they did do just that), made the side to side game work with some very exotic play calls. 

Did NOT feed Bo a ton of multi read plays, took it back to Gus and really Chad's O, design wise. Sprinkled in some high slants and inside posts too for good measure

Edited October 3, 2021 by Dual-Threat Rigby

[Viper 3,537]

10 minutes ago, Dual-Threat Rigby said:

This offensive line is putrid

And this is all we need to know. Yes I jumped my ass off celebrating this win, woke up the wife doing so, but let’s not be fooled by this monumental win…Georgia is about to bring our asses below planet earth. Nix will once again…you guessed it…running for his life against much a quicker D and endure multiple INTs and sacks. 

I’m enjoying the hell out of this win, but we have an absolute ass kicking headed our way this Saturday.

[tbone4jc 2,393]

I would say the oline is a work in progress and trending better. I don't recall but other than the personal foul, did the oline have any penalties, false starts, holding? Against one of the best lines in the SEC and in that stadium, that to me is impressive. They still have a long way to go but it helps tremendously by not committing self inflicted drive killers

Edited October 3, 2021 by tbone4jc

[JDUBB4AU 5,305]

I could agree more with the Friend OLine comments. 
 

TE are becoming a force and another issue opposing defenses need to worry about

cant say enough about Nix effort. Legendary status. Just has to keep getting better.

WRs are still bad 

Hunter is the best back on the team

[AU9377 6,057]

Harsin needed this game and got it.  Next week is gonna get ugly.

[Rednilla 5,449]

15 minutes ago, JDUBB4AU said:

Hunter is the best back on the team

I'm...not quite ready to make that assertion. I can get on board with him being the most complete back on the team, though.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

8 hours ago, Dual-Threat Rigby said:

8. This game CERTAINLY did not help my perception of Mason, but it didn't hurt it too much. 6-7/10 performance, maybe a 8 with how much was hurt/not able to dress out

The D held LSU to 6 points over the final 45 minutes.  They kept us in that game after making some initial adjustments.

And LSU never saw the end zone after that opening drive score.

Thought Mason schemed very well last night for much of the game.

[Carnell 600]

We are not a good football team at this time due to the reasons you guys cited above.  I was not a Harsin fan when we hired him but I would like to give him a couple of accolades for last night.  1.  Although he had tremendous amount of pressure to start Finley he proved he would not bow to pressure and he started the guy he thought would give us the best shot to win.  2.  He went to being under center which did not require our lineman to hold their blocks as long and prevented their defense from swarming and with play action linebackers had to play the run and created small seams for our receivers to operate.  We would have lost if he had not gone under center.

[Dual-Threat Rigby 9,091]

6 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

The D held LSU to 6 points over the final 45 minutes.  They kept us in that game after making some initial adjustments.

And LSU never saw the end zone after that opening drive score.

Thought Mason schemed very well last night for much of the game.

After thinking over it, I can see that. I think a big part of it was faith in that pressure and pressing Booty would eventually force Max to just be off his game, bc he really did just miss a ton of open plays, but if you can look at the film and feel confident that gameplan works, then do it! And they did it, and it worked. He certainly adjusted, and it seemed like the LSU OC didn't have a real counter punch to it

[Dual-Threat Rigby 9,091]

6 hours ago, JDUBB4AU said:

I could agree more with the Friend OLine comments. 
 

TE are becoming a force and another issue opposing defenses need to worry about

cant say enough about Nix effort. Legendary status. Just has to keep getting better.

WRs are still bad 

Hunter is the best back on the team

I think it's two things. I think they optimize Hunter more and I think defenses do not key in on Hunter as much. You can chalk up the former to Hunter maybe being able to do more things like mentioned above, and he does seem to be better at "creating a hole" when he is asked to run inside, but those sexy tosses and sweeps...Tank never gets those. Maybe you can't run slot sweeps with Tank like you can for Shivers and Jarquez bc the D keys in on him and that's a TFL waiting to happen, but I'd like to see them try

It feels so much more predictable, kinda like LSU's O under Miles, the way they use Tank

[slyinsocal 831]

If only Shivers had been available for the PSU game..............

[Hank2020 3,381]

1 hour ago, slyinsocal said:

If only Shivers had been available for the PSU game..............

I would like to see them get him a few more touches. Not sure if the stats but seems to be a solid yard per touch average.

[metafour 4,985]

The offensive line gave up 0 sacks to a team that led the nation in sacks coming into this game.

They were far from "good", but if you really analyze the game objectively, our DL which was called "bad" all week handled LSU's OL considerably more than LSU's "great" DL handled our "putrid" OL. 

This unit is fundamentally lacking pieces (ie: you have Guards trying to play Tackle) - but really, they played well enough to win at LSU and they played well enough to beat Penn State as well. Georgia and Bama are probably going to be ugly, but the talent differential there is massive.

[Dual-Threat Rigby 9,091]

40 minutes ago, metafour said:

The offensive line gave up 0 sacks to a team that led the nation in sacks coming into this game.

They were far from "good", but if you really analyze the game objectively, our DL which was called "bad" all week handled LSU's OL considerably more than LSU's "great" DL handled our "putrid" OL. 

This unit is fundamentally lacking pieces (ie: you have Guards trying to play Tackle) - but really, they played well enough to win at LSU and they played well enough to beat Penn State as well. Georgia and Bama are probably going to be ugly, but the talent differential there is massive.

Max Johnson isn't able to spin 4 different ways to avoid pressure and Bo Nix is. That is the difference between the two OL. Using sack numbers is absolutely useless when evaluating how they played. They did enough to make sure he had about a second to get his feet set before moving instead of being immediately hit, but alot of the plays that ended up as rolling out were not designated roll outs. If you have to tell the QB a variation "hey, just run around to your heart's content", that's probably indicative of not a very high level of trust in the OL 

Edit: This also isn't an evaluation of the OL during Penn State or before that. Almost anyone who's watched all 5 games would tell you that unit performed considerably different than they have since, and that's why many people's objective (wish people would stop using this word in 99% of instances) perspective on how far the offense could go sunk. You should be able to objectively watch this game and see they're substantially worse than they were vs PSU. 

Edited October 3, 2021 by Dual-Threat Rigby