🏈 What we knew and what surprised us...

Big_Fan

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Auburn's point output was really no surprise to me, and how it happened was exactly as I would have thought.

- We knew Auburn would come out with trick plays and have some success.

- We suspected Auburn would score first.

- We knew Auburn's offense is predicated on running the maximum number of plays and hoping the defense slips up. It happened once when the DB slipped and AU hit a long TD pass.

- We knew that Auburn would not be able to sustain that type of play for 4 quarters.

- I told a friend that Auburn hired Malzahn for the sole purpose of beating Saban. They wanted to emulate what Utah did last season in the Sugar Bowl, and they tried. They have been planning for this game all season, and it showed.

What we didn't expect

- Auburn's ability to scheme to stop Alabama's rushing attack. The week off for Auburn was definitely used to their advantage. They spied Ingram the whole game, and we never countered it. Why did they have an unblocked LB on every running play?

- Where was the deep ball? It was a surprise that Alabama never tried to loosen the defense by throwing it long. The Auburn secondary has been vulerable at times.

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Other comments:

Alabama pretty much shut Auburn down for most of the game. Half of their total offensive numbers came on 2 big plays, which is what their offense is designed to do.

Officiating was questionable. While the barners are complaining about our OL holding, that is pretty bogus. If we were holding, how did we not rush for more than 75 yards? On their long TD run off of the reverse, there was a flagrant hold that appeared to also be a facemask, that went uncalled. Auburn held on every play, but that was never called. How does an OL rip a linebacker's helmet off without there being a penalty? Julio was in bounds. There could be a long list made of no-calls against Auburn. In the end, it didn't matter.

12-0 and 2 in a row.

We beat them in their house.

Now we go after the gators.
 
Yeah, it REALLY PISSED ME OFF when Julio DID make that catch to start the game & the ref's didn't review it & CBS moved on quickly from it despite the close call. Even though they replayed to death the LSU 'interception' but when it might be in favor of 'Bama, move along there is nothing to see here...

:swear:
 
Yeah, it REALLY PISSED ME OFF when Julio DID make that catch to start the game & the ref's didn't review it & CBS moved on quickly from it despite the close call. Even though they replayed to death the LSU 'interception' but when it might be in favor of 'Bama, move along there is nothing to see here...

:swear:


I was also disgusted by the lack of replay on that one. Julio was gesturing to the sideline that it was a catch. No challenge, no replay. More disgusting to me was the casual attitude of that whole first series. It was like, "yeah, we got this. no big deal." I would have liked to have seen us attack more and be more aggressive. Ah well, game over and it's a win. We get the extra day this time to prep for UF.
 
I tried to tell y'all about all of this. ;)

No seriously, how do you have one of the SEC's bottom rush defenses and shut out our run game? That's one case of throw out the record book. We should have been able to run for over 150-200 on them. Noel Devine did and so did McCluster. We got squat.

I was frustrated at the lack of deep throws as well. We had what? one? The long one to Julio that was bobbled by the AU defender in the back of the end zone comes to mind. That's it. No Maze, no Julio, no Hanks deep. I know the staff knows what they're doing, but the aubie hubby said their secondary was a huge problem for them all year. He said they were more than vulnerable, and what do we do? Run it up the middle. :headscratch:

Hey, I'm not complaining though. I never agree with all the calls win or lose.:smile:
 
I am still at a loss over the run MI up the gut all game and the unblocked LB spying him. I tell you the AU coaches put a red 22 jersey on someone and let the defense chase him. There defense lost intensity when TR was in there and it showed.

Under the last coaching staff the game would have been over in the first quarter. All that matters now is 26-21
 
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