I have posted my Florida Atlantic review entitled “The Win Before the Storm” on al.com‘s Tigers Corner. Here’s how it starts:
Given how most of Auburn’s games dating back to last season have gone, I’ve grown to love the cupcake opponents. I used to hate them and saw them as a waste of a week. Only recently have I understood their importance. Chizik’s Auburn Tigers love to cause heart attacks most weeks out of the year, but the cupcakes usually give a nice little break to our coronary problems. Yeah…that really didn’t happen against Florida Atlantic.
Auburn’s offense looked pretty decent in the first two games of the season, but took a step back in the 2nd half against Clemson. Saturday’s game should have been a good chance to work out the kinks and get the train back on track. I figured Michael Dyer would get most of the rushes in the first half, and Tre Mason would split carries with McCalebb in the 2nd half. I figured we would see some newcomers catching touchdown passes in the 2nd half as well. However, whatever was off at Clemson, was still off for a good part of the 1st half against FAU.
You can read the rest here and follow me on Twitter here.
4 comments
I love Auburn. But I think saying things like “They will go into October looking to go 4-0, and they should. Auburn has the talent, albeit young, and the wizardry of Malzahn to beat anybody on any given Saturday.” is stupid and sets our fans up to expect unreasonable things.
I am all about drinking the Koolaid – but at this time I think someone spiked yours. I am not looking for 4-0 (actually we play 5 games in Oct.) just steady improvement each week. If we can learn the offensive and defensive schemes this year next year we should be planning a trip to Atlanta.
Sorry, there was a typo on the 4-0. Fixed it. But as for your other comments…
Without just saying it’s stupid, explain to me what I’m wrong about in the sentences you quoted.
Do you think the coaches are going into these games expecting losses?
Does Auburn not have young talent?
Has Gus Malzahn (and his wizardry) not confused defenses for the majority of his coaching career?
Maybe I’m missing your point…
Stupid was probably the wrong word. Sorry – I get frustrated easily though when it appears to me that people of consequence make statements like that.
I think one of the worst things you can do to a program like this is have unreasonable expectations.
Let’s pretend for a second. You just got an interview lined up with Chizik and his whole staff for a column for your site. They recognize the quality of the writing and the fact that you actually keep writing and want to reward you with it. So you head in with your tape recorder – (MP3?) and ask this whole slew of questions. And then it is over. But before you leave you reach over and make of show of turning off the recorder and you say something like “Coach, I am an Auburn fan at heart and not a real reporter – man to man how bad is it going to be the rest of the year?” I think he looks left at Roof and then right at Malzahn then leans back in his chair and lets out a long sigh. Then he says – “You’ve seen the games; the kids have some skills but they don’t have cohesion as a team yet. They are just too young and get excited. Looking at Trooper – The blocking by the receivers is not as good as last year and with a side glance at Roof the tackling is just atrocious. I think on both offense and defense the guys are just thinking too much. We are going to try and simplify our plays some so they can calm down and hopefully execute. That said it will be easier on the opposing teams to out play us or figure out what we are trying to do. I think realistically our goal is to get to a bowl game and see the kids get better each week. I want to see them start to calm down and get familiar with the schemes. If we can do that we have something to build on. I’d say we can be in a lot of our games but we have to have a lot of help from the other team and to be honest this is probably one of the disadvantages of being the reigning national champs. We should get everyone’s A game. We have a really good chance of going 1-4 in October based on how we have played so far.“
So yes I think Chizik might say one thing to media folks and his kids but is thinking something different entirely.
I was a little disappointed in the defense week 1 now I’m saying wait until next year. with our offense we should be able to stick with anyone but our defense is bad bad
If they can’t tackle better they wil be watching football come bowl season