Auburn Vs. Ball State: The Review

By The WarBlogler

Two weeks ago, Tommy Trott seemed to be down again, unlikely to return. Two months ago, Auburn seemed to be down again, unlikely to return. After this past week's game against the Cardinals of Ball State, it looks as if both of these statements were false.

Offense continues to click. For the second straight week, Auburn's opponent dared Chris Todd to beat them. Both Ball State and West Virginia put eight and nine in the box determined to stop the run. The problem with that line of coaching is that Chris Todd is proving that he can win a game with his arm and a collection of speedy, ankle-breaking, game-changing receivers.

Terrell Zachary shook one Ball State defender out of his shoes on his way to a 46-yard touchdown. Later in that same quarter, he ran a stop-and-go on a pump fake from Todd and caught a 65-yard touchdown pass in stride. Last week, Darvin Adams was the man as he caught three touchdown passes against West Virginia. Both this week and last week, Mario Fannin pitched in with his customary screen pass touchdowns. Even the aforementioned Trott caught the first touchdown pass of this week's game. Oh, and when the passing game started to open up, guess what else started opening up? That's right, Onterrio McCalleb joined in with the scoring on a 1-yard run following a 62-yard scamper off an option pitch from Todd. Put simply, Auburn is spreading the ball around, and it's working.

Chris Todd has thrown for nine touchdown passes in two weeks and had a career high in passing yards last week. To say he's in the zone would be an understatement. When the running game gets stuffed, he loosens up the defense with pump-and-go's and record breaking bombs. This isn't a one trick offense, but keep trying it.

Defense put in tough situations. Reserves struggle like reserves do. The thirty points scored by Ball State this week were a little disappointing, but also misleading. Ten of those points came from drives on very, very short fields given to the defense by a fumbled punt and a failed fake punt. Ball State scored ten points on two legitimate drives against the 1st-team defense. The last ten points were scored on the 2nd and 3rd-team defense, and even three of those came after a late interception thrown by Neil Caudle.

I'm surprised the media hasn't said much about Auburn giving up thirty points to a team that hasn't won a game or scored more than seventeen points in a single game this year. Maybe it's the 54 that Auburn scored or maybe they still haven't realized Auburn is fielding a team this year.

I've heard many fans complaining about the defense, and at this point I will admit it is the weaker of the two sides of the ball, but when the offense looks as good as it has, it's going to be a little bit harder than usual for the defense to be the better side of the team. They may be giving up a few more yards and points than fans are used to, but that's what's so good about having such a productive offense.

Plus, when they are causing so many turnovers, yards don't seem to matter as much. Currently Auburn is third in the nation with eight interceptions.

Special Teams are half and half. Wes Byrum has been a perfect 6-for-6 in FGs this season. Besides one blocked punt, Clinton Durst has been his normal "booming" self. Things start to get bad anytime anyone in an Auburn jersey tries to catch a kicked ball, especially punts.

Some number of players greater than "too many" have been given a shot at catching punts this year. Notice I didn't say return punts. Auburn is worried about catching punts. Most players have only been giving one shot: one fumble and they're pulled. I want the best guy out there just as much as anybody, but I fear that the Auburn coaching staff has created a similar problem to the quarterback fiasco from last year. It seems like every guy who gets back there to field the punt is thinking "catch the ball, catch the ball, catch the ball and the job is mine". That's a problem. It's all mental right now, and something has to be done about it. I don't care if it's a lineman, just get someone back there who can catch the ball.

The line this week has been "now the real season starts." In a way, I agree. The media and all those people who still don't respect Auburn won't start to give the Tigers a second look until they win their first road game against an SEC foe. Auburn will get their chance this weekend. The problem I have with this statement is that it makes what Auburn has done for the past month look like it didn't matter. Well yeah, it matters, and every one of you knows it.

Auburn Vs. West Virginia: The Review

By The WarBlogler

The night began with plenty of rain, thunder, and lightning. While the game didn't feature much thunder or lightning in regards to Auburn's offense, touchdown passes were raining down all night.

Todd's a man. Battling the flu, Todd took his first sack, threw his first interception, and found his team down fourteen points less than five minutes into the game. Then, in a change from the first two games, Todd gained the majority of Auburn's offense with his arm, and threw for four touchdowns, the most for an Auburn quarterback since 2001. With lots of help from his defense, Todd helped stage one of the best full-game comebacks in Auburn history. Given his condition, the weather conditions, and the deficit, Todd showed that he will do whatever it takes to get his team on top. 7-5, 8-4? They don't exist in his record-keeping vocabulary. "12-0 will do just fine, thank you", he says.

Defense gives up yards, but gets a few too. The defense gave up two big, fluky plays to start the game, but settled down and really only allowed two decent scoring drives the rest of the way. With five interceptions and one fumble recovery, they definitely took away the sting of those first two plays that sucked the life out of the rain-drenched crowd. West Virginia quarterback Jarret Brown reminded Auburn fans of how it was to "tackle" Jamarcus Russell of LSU past. It didn't matter what kind of angle, how many limbs were pinned down, he always seemed to get away and throw a perfect 70-yard strike.

Another connection between this game and LSU was the four interceptions in the 4th quarter alone. As you all know, in 1994 Auburn intercepted four LSU passes in the 4th quarter to stage a monumental comeback and extend Terry Bowden's two year winning streak. Auburn did the same last Saturday night. Well, minus Terry Bowden, and LSU, and all that.

Special Teams a little better. It looks like Anthony Gulley might have staked his claim at the punt returner position, not that anyone was trying to take it from him. He's a former baseball player, center-fielder for 1A Brantley High School to be exact, so catching fly balls seemed to help him get comfortable with catching footballs falling from the sky with 300-pounders running towards him. Now that we've got catching down, let's working on running.

Kickoff returns are still just mediocre, with our average starting point being somewhere around the 20-25 yard lines. Kickoff coverage has still been the worst. I don't know how many drives the opponents have started at the 40. It seems like there is no one down there to tackle the guy and we end up having to chase him down.

Clinton Durst is still kicking the ball well and giving his guys plenty of time to get down there and make the tackle. Oh, and Wes Byrum is back.

This team showed that they have what it takes to endure a long delay, get punched in the mouth, and take over the game in the 4th quarter. It was a struggle from the start, and they came out on top, like champions do. This only adds to the trust that they have for their coaching staff. Auburn has been down in every game this season and won by at least 10 points in the end. This team is amazing and we'll see it grow for the rest of the year and years to come.

Auburn vs. Louisiana Tech: The Review

By The WarBlogler

Going into the season opener, we all knew the questions that surrounded the Auburn football team. Will Malzahn's offense be Franklin 2.0? Will Chizik show us why he only won five games in two years at Iowa State? How will Todd handle the starting spot again? And although this was just one game, against a WAC opponent (albeit a decent one), a lot of those questions started to get something close to positive answers.

For starters, this is not Tony Franklin's spread, and besides the fact that the wideouts, and sometimes the quarterback, are spread across the line of scrimmage, the plays don't resemble anything put on the field by Mr. 5 o'clock Shadow. Malzahn's offense has all the bells and whistles of a shiny new spread, but with the way the running plays are designed, it's like it was made for Running Back U. Not once did I think that the players who were mostly recruited to run a West Coast offense, weren't made for this fast, flashy, ball of fun. It was between the tackles (or over and around the tackles if you're talking about Onterio McCalebb), setting up play action, pump fakes, and long bombs, with an occasional fake give, pitch, and pass. I've never seen plays so cool. The whole game I was like a little kid yelling "Oh man! Wow, that was awesome!", and that was even when the play tanked. Point blank: this offense is fun, but more importantly this offense is productive (see: 556 yards). Oh yeah, it's balanced too (see: 301 rushing, 255 passing).

The biggest criticism of the Auburn administration this offseason was obviously the Chizik hire. Most of that criticism as gone away due to a strong coaching staff and their recruiting prowess. The only factor keeping the fans from complete trust was winning. 5-19, 5-19, yeah, yeah, we get it. Would Chizik look like a coach who went 5-19 in his first game at Auburn? Again, it was just La. Tech, but I would say no. Chizik walked (well actually stalked) the sideline like he had won the last three Super Bowls. He definitely didn't act like a man that knew he had more than half the stadium just waiting for something to complain about. He was a man on a mission, a man with a purpose, a man who planned the work and worked the plan. I don't care if he was 5-19 before Auburn anymore. He knows what he has to do to turn that into 100-19, or at least acts like he does, and something can be said for that.

On a side note, the most unsettling problems that I saw Saturday night were the drive-extending, only-reason-La. Tech-scored-a-point penalties, and the almost unprovoked fumbles. The Bulldogs first scoring drive was aided by a pretty bad pass interference call on 3rd down, and back-to-back facemasks. Coach Chizik called these penalties "try hard" penalties and I completely agree. Unless you played at Miami in the 90's, 99% of facemasks are usually not intentional. What made these penalties so frustrating was that they usually occurred on 3rd down, during a sack or tackle for loss, and allowed La. Tech to hang around longer than they should have. The positive from this is that, like Chizik said, these penalties came from playing hard, flying after the ball, and trying to make a play. We can safely say that these penalties won't be a recurring, every game thing. They seemed to be just a little bad luck.

What I will also chalk up to bad luck were the two fumbles that occurred on promising drives. Ben Tate fumbled inside the 10-yard line and Darvin Adams fumbled after a decent gain on a pass from Todd. Both seemed to just have the ball knocked out from a normal tackle. Not a punch out or a strip, just a plain a tackle. Either way, I'm sure this will be corrected, or let's a least hope so. Take away the "try hard" penalties and the two fumbles, and this game wouldn't have been close by halftime (i.e. there would have been a lot less toothless smiles in Atlanta).

Something I didn't really worry about, but most armchair quarterbacks did, was Chris Todd. Would this be the same noodle arm as last year? And once again, it was just La. Tech, but I will say no. Todd made maybe 2-3 legitimately bad throws, but no bad decisions from what this guy could see. He knows the offense, he knows the coaches have his back, and he knows the team has his back. And like Chizik, he almost looks like he doesn't care what the naysayers say anymore. He's bought in, and knows this is going to work. If he throws an interception, chant "Kodi, Kodi", he doesn't care. He'll just come back and throw a 93 yard, perfectly-pump-faked touchdown pass in your face. And that's what an SEC-caliber QB has to be able to do.

Oh, and another guy who's bought in is Mr. Auburn, Kodi Burns, but you already knew that. Dang this team has the chance to be scary good. Kodi, Mario, Onterio, Zachary, Darvin, Tate...I see playmakers, but that's for another post.

All in all, the first half was scary because of the penalties, but the second half was great. A huge weight has been lifted and we can look forward to SEC play. Hopefully, that's when more of these questions will start to disappear.

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