In attempt to lessen the off-season withdrawals we’re all currently suffering, I’m introducing a new column to SECCRUSH that I’m calling “The Season of Destiny” in which I’m going to take a retroactive look at the National Championship season of the 2010 Auburn Tigers. If the title strikes you as a little grandiose and biased (and really, really corny), well, you’re correct. I am an Auburn fan and the 2010-11 season was the greatest experience in my life as a sports fan. I can’t deny that every game brings me an incredible amount of joy and I’m not going to apologize for that. However, I think that, as this series goes along, you’ll come to agree that no other title could possibly suffice. When you look back at all the happenings of the season - close calls, breaking in a new QB, the Cam drama and multiple unbelievable comebacks - the most consistent idea that comes to mind to describe what was happening on the field was that this team had a destiny. That’s not to say it was all luck, though, like all championship seasons, some luck was needed. It’s more that this collection of people brought together at this specific time seemed to only be able to play out in one specific way. I’ve been around for a few Auburn undefeated seasons, but this is the only one that carried an almost mystical air about it. My hope is to capture some of that mystique as well as provide some solid football analysis of how this team grew and dealt with the various obstacles it faced along the way. I think you’ll find most of the analysis unbiased and I hope you also find it informative and entertaining. By the way, if you want to watch each game along with me, I friend of mine’s cousin’s step-son got his hands on these impossibly amazing Blu-Ray copies of each and every game of the season from somebody at hddvd1@yahoo.com. I totally didn’t buy the full season for the embarrassingly low price of $145, but I’m sure you could if you wanted to. Just thought I’d pass that along. So, here we go! We start with the beginning: Arkansas St. vs. Auburn, September 4, 2010.
First, though, a little talk about expectations. It’s funny to think back on the beginning of this season and realize how divergent were the views of the 2010 Auburn Tigers between the general public and the Auburn faithful. The public had Auburn lowly-ranked nationally and picked to finish 4th in the absurdly competitive SEC West. Thus, most people thought that the Auburn run to the National Championship came out of nowhere. The Auburn faithful were a little less surprised. Prior to the season - even before anyone really knew what we had in Cam Newton - the vast majority of Auburn fans were considerably more optimistic about the Tigers’ chances. The thinking was that they went 8-5 the year before, all while learning a brand new offense and defense and while getting a solid D+ from Chris Todd in the QB position. Now, they were bringing virtually everyone back for their second year in their new systems to face a very favorable schedule. If Cam Newton (or whoever won the job) could give them a B or B+ at QB, double digit wins seemed exceedingly possible. So, when Cam ended up giving them an A+++, it wasn’t a huge shock that Auburn could win the SEC and be in the National Championship hunt. No one seems to remember this now, but it’s true. Now, on to the game (NOTE: I must give a big hat tip to Jerry Hinnen over at www.warblogeagle.com whose weekly game recaps are an obvious inspiration to these columns).
Pregame. Our first game is being brought to us in remarkably awesome HD clarity by Fox Sports South. Our announcers today are Bob Rathbun and the original SEC spread QB, Tim Couch. I’ve never seen anyone look as nervous as Tim Couch does during his opening of the game. I’ve seen DUI suspects show more poise on camera. Fortunately, his opening analysis is pretty smooth and he nails the early promise of Cam. Rathbun says Cam “seems to be the perfect QB to fit into Gus Mazahn’s system.” Seems to be, Bob. Seems to be.
Poor Fred Hickman is stuck doing the FS South studio show that appears to constructed out of Sportscenter sets from 1996 in the back of a moving truck. He throws it to meteorologist Katie Fehlinger who rated an impressive #22 on the list of hottest weather women in America. Finally, someone has found a more useless function for the internet than this column. Katie tells us the temperature could “plummet” to 71 degrees by the fourth quarter. I’m really missing the South right about now.
I haven’t been to a game in Auburn in about 10 years (I know, bad alumnus), so I’m not totally familiar with the current gameday traditions, so I’m very disappointed to hear the opening chords of “Eye of the Tiger” blare behind the sideline reporters opening remarks. Oh well, at least it’s not the introduction music anymore.
First Quarter. Arkansas St. has the ball first and comes out in a hurry-up, no-huddle shotgun. It looks more Airraid than Malzahn-esque power spread, which is of course terrible news for Auburn. Offenses featuring accurate, underneath passing attacks will be a recurring problem for Auburn’s defense all year. Not so much on the first drive, though, as ASU has to punt after one first down.
The punt is caught by Quindarious Carr and returned for a few yards before being tackled at the 13 yard line. That sounds trivial, but it marks an approximately 800% improvement over the 2009 Auburn punt-return game.
News breaks that Jacksonville St. has beaten Ole Miss in Oxford. That was a really fun moment.
Cam makes his debut with a veer zone read to McCalleb which will eventually become the primary staple of this offense. They haven’t added the jet motion yet, though, so things are still not quite what they will be. Cam completes a short play-action pass, hands off to McCalleb again and runs his first keeper before Auburn is forced to punt from midfield. It’s not the most auspicious beginning, but the seeds of the SEC’s best offense are obviously already there, but just as obviously need some time to grow.
ASU QB Ryan Aplin gets his first delicious taste of the Auburn pass defense when he completes a 60-yard catch and run to a WR who did not have an Auburn defender within 15 yards of him in any direction. That is not an exaggeration, nor is it going to be a unique occurrence. ASU smartly realizes that the best option against this Auburn D is to throw, throw, throw. Four pass attempts later and Aplin finds a receiver wide open in the middle of the endzone for the game's first TD. A blocked PAT is the only bright spot, but it’s safe to say that Auburn’s 2010 season began...slowly.
After a good return by Washington, Auburn starts their second drive of the Cam Era near midfield. Cam starts off with a run right, but it’s clear that no one’s quite sure how this is supposed to work yet - 3 yard gain negated by holding penalty. Outside zone to McCalleb looks like a read play, but Cam looks to have no serious intentions of keeping it. That will definitely change. Cam’s first downfield pass is a wobbly one to a covered Darvin Adams which is knocked away. Unspectacular except for this: Cam threw it nearly 50 yards with no feet on the ground. Cam’s first big run of the year comes on a QB draw on 3 & 14. 16 yard gain, 1st down. McCalleb then gets loose - first on a sweep left and then on an option right to get them down inside the five. From there, we get our first look at the Kodi Burns-led Wildcat which we all knew was not long for this world, but works just fine here as Burns sweeps right and dives into the endzone for Auburn’s first TD. As an Auburn fan, this makes me happy, but as a Cam-owning fantasy owner who remembers losing this week’s game by 1 point, I’m furious. One week later and Cam is the one running that one in. If he does it here, I win the game and begin my march towards the championship. Wake up, Malzahn!
ASU gets the ball and is quickly introduced to the terror that will come to be known as Nick Fairley. He tossed one linemen out of the way, runs past two others for his first sack of the season. I’m going to have to come up with some shorthand for that series of events, because I don’t want to have to type it 500 times. ASU moves backwards about 20 yards before having to punt from their own endzone. Carr again catches the ball (!) and actually returns it about 12 yards.
Big-play Auburn makes it’s debut on a well-constructed play-action wheel route pass to Mario Fannin. The 40-yard throw is in the air for approximately 28 seconds, but Mario is so wide-open it doesn’t matter. TD Auburn. 14-6 Tigers at the end of the 1st.
Second Quarter. The second quarter brings us our first Mike Dyer sighting of the year. I really don’t remember seeing him this early. He strings together two consecutive runs for about 12 yards before being called off the field so Auburn can run the rest of the offense. Still, a promising start. Unfortunately, the offense proceeds to move directly backwards without him and has to punt.
Auburn’s defensive line is wreaking absolute havoc for Aplin, but a disturbing trend is developing: wide-open WRs. Every time he’s gotten a ball off, his target has been virtually alone in the Auburn backfield. If he had hit even half of those, this game would feel much different. As it is, they go 3 and out.
The first real Newton magic occurs on a 2-and-5 when he drops back to pass, feels pressure, then proceeds to duck and weave, dodging at least 9 defenders, for an awesome 15-yard-gain. It just looks unfair. Malzahn goes back to his magic hat on the next play with a double-pass resulting in a 47-yard completion from Neil Caudle to Darvin Adams. The pass was definitely from Caudle, even though the announcers go to puzzling lengths to insist it was from Burns. Maybe they had Kodi on their fantasy team. Speaking of fantasy teams, Newton dives in on the next play on a very early version of the jet veer read option. That first quarter Kodi TD burns even more now. 21-6 Auburn with 9:43 left in the half.
ASU returns to their play-action short passing game and it works, though the receivers are surprisingly covered this time. They catch the ball anyway. Alpin takes off an a rather impressive 12-yard scramble for a first down before being dragged down my Jessel Curry, who I just realized is white. That’s the most surprising racial revelation in the SEC since I first laid eyes on Jevan Snead. One play later, ASU surprisingly breaks a buck sweep left for a 13-yard gain into the end zone and their second TD of the day. That won’t happen much to Auburn’s D this year. 21-13 Auburn with 6:30 left in the half.
Auburn responds by getting a quick first down on the ground before Cam drops a 50-yard bomb into the hands of Quindarius Carr who might just have gotten away with the slightest of Michael Irvin-style shove-offs. TD Auburn. 28-13 Auburn. Total drive: 3 plays, 65 yards, 0:43. A drive that was unthinkable just 2 years ago is soon to become so regular an occurrence that we barely notice it. Good times.
My disappointment with the Auburn gameday music selection continues as “Living on a Prayer” blares out of our tin-can quality sound-system. Seriously, does one current Auburn student even know that song? Let’s hope not. We’ve passed enough crap down to our young. Let’s not add insult to injury by forcing Bon Jovi onto the poor kids. I’m assuming Auburn Band is not playing because they’re preparing for the halftime show. At least, I hope that’s what’s happening.
The crowd seems to think this is a 50-point game in the 4th quarter instead of a 15-point game with 6 minutes to go before halftime. It is whisper quiet in there. I blame Mr. Bovine Joni himself. ASU returns to the quick passing game and is suddenly at the Auburn 30. Despite regular pressure from our front 4 and wide-open receivers in the secondary, Roof is now dialing up blitzes. I don’t understand. This curious strategy allows ASU to convert a 3-and-9 and puts them inside the 10 yard line. After passing all the way down the field, ASU makes on odd move by running twice before a play-action pass is knocked down. They settle for a field goal. 28-16 Auburn with 3:04 remaining in the half.
Auburn continues their quick-striking ways when Newton play-fakes to McCalleb, sets to throw and then decides running straight ahead 72 yards for a TD would be more fun. That looked like some sort of no-contact scrimmage play. At no point is any ASU defender within 7 yards of Cam. I honestly thought the play had been blown dead or something. Just unreal. Couch responds by calling him “Vince Young with Daunte Culpepper’s arm.” We apparently still can’t find a white QB to compare him with, but that’s still pretty high praise. 35-16 Auburn with 2:19 remaining in the half.
After forcing a quick 3-and-out by ASU and using both their remaining TOs, Auburn gets the ball back and tries to punch in one more score before the half. They fail, but this showed that Chizik and Malzahn were still going to press the opposition at every turn - something that was a welcome change to the Auburn faithful after a decade of Tuberville conservatism.
Third Quarter. Demond Washington takes the kickoff almost to midfield only to just kind of give it away at the end of the run. Couch claims the ball was stripped, but I maintain he just dropped it on purpose. It appears to have been part of Auburn's second half strategy, as we'll see. It’s oddly comforting to have the first special teams mistake out of the way. After the cavalcade of horrors that was the 2009 special teams, most Auburn fans were expecting the worst from the 2010 squad.
ASU again makes the surprising choice of starting with the run, which goes nowhere, before again turning to the short passing game bail them out. They get inside the 10 before a clever mini-draw lands them in the endzone. It’s now 35-23 and much closer than any Auburn fan wanted it to be.
Things only get worse after the ensuing kickoff. On the first play from scrimmage, Malzahn calls the Fannin fumble play (Note: I don’t know the official name of the play, but I’m quite certain it’s a designed fumble. That’s really the only explanation for how predictable it is.) and ASU is suddenly in serious business at the Auburn 29.
Fortunately, they go back to the run, draw a couple of penalties and then Fairley does his thing again and they turn the ball over on downs. However, after Auburn gets called for an illegal pick on a play that Alabama ran approximately 45 times in a row during the 2009 Iron Bowl, they have to punt back to ASU. They can’t do anything with it and send it right back.
Welcome back, Mr. Dyer. Mike breaks the first play of the drive for a solid gain and a first down and they continue riding him, clearly trying to settle this game down a little. Just as you can see Fannin’s future carries disappearing right in front of his eyes, he takes a short pass 40-something yards to the house. 42-23, Auburn with 8:07 left in the quarter. It must be noted what a good job this was by Newton. For my money, it’s his first really impressive play in the passing game of the season. It starts with a rare under-center snap, two play-fakes and at least 2 down-field reads before he checks down to a wide-open Fannin. That’s a complicated play to make in your first game as a starter.
After another ASU punt, Auburn tries to run something we did not see much of the rest of the year - a zone read with a WR screen constraint option. Basically, Newton runs the zone read with Dyer, keeps the ball and then flicks it out to Zachery on the edge once the defense attacks him. It’s a play that Malzahn’s had in the playbook for a while (I remember him running it in the 2009 A-day game), but that we’ve rarely seen called in a game. Maybe this play shows why. It’s ugly and possibly very dangerous since the WR screen can easily become a backwards pass, which turns an incompletion like the one here into a fumble and a serious problem. Oh well, it was a pretty cool idea. Auburn punts on a 4-and-1, which is a proof that this offense is not yet what it will become. The Newton power play was a certain first down there. They just haven’t discovered it yet.
This is getting out of hand quickly. ASU turns the ball over on downs and Auburn replies with a healthy dose of Dyer following by long play-action pass to Carr (Q had 2 catches for 87 yards and a TD this game and 1 catch for 16 yards and a TD the rest of the season. I wonder what happened.). Malzahn tries to torture me a little more by putting Burns back in as the wildcat so he can lose 4 yards and force Auburn to settle for a 27-yard field goal.
Fourth Quarter. In a game that’s clearly out of reach, ASU makes yet another curious decision to keep running their starting QB directly into the teeth of the Auburn defensive line. You almost feel sorry for the poor guy.
Auburn sees ASU questionable decision-making and raises by keeping all of their starters in, despite the game being over and a road game at Mississippi State looming only short 4 days away. 105-lb. Onterrio McCalebb gets hit hard twice, then Newton gets hit, then Dyer. I know the outcome and I’m STILL nervous. Reeling myself back in, I realize that it’s only a 22-point game with over 11 mins left and I try to admire Chizik’s willingness to crush teams when possible. Plus, it’s obvious everyone wants to get Dyer his first TD. Still, Newton gets dragged down on an uncalled horse collar tackle and my heart stops for just a second. Dyer finally plunges in from the 3 and it’s officially way out of hand at 52-23 Auburn with 9:11 left.
The scrubs are in for both sides now. ASU manages a field goal and then Trotter and company run out the final few minutes. Final score: Auburn 53, ASU 23.
What Did We Learn? Auburn has playmakers. This wasn’t news to any Auburn fans. McCalleb and Fannin were more-or-less proven commodities and Dyer and Newton were the awesome additions that most everyone expected them to be. While things were still a little rough around the edges, it was obvious to see the potential of this offense. McCalleb outside, Newton and Dyer inside, Adams and Carr (?) down the field - all with Malzahn pulling the strings and clearly having a blast doing so. The Tigers rolled up an almost-quiet 608 yards of total offense without ever looking especially sharp in the passing game (see below). Clearly, this offense could be great.
The pass defense was still mediocre, at best. They allowed 323 passing yards to what we thought would be one of the worse offenses they’d face all year. When ASU's QB had time, he had his choice of wide open receivers both deep and shallow. A slightly better passer could have easily gone for 450 yards and made this game much more competitive that it ended up being. Still, they never gave up the big play and absolutely dominated against the run. Who knows? Maybe that will be enough.
What Didn’t We Learn? Lots. First and foremost, we still had no real idea if Newton was going to be able to deliver what was needed at QB. It seems silly to say something like that after a game where he threw for 186 yards, ran for 171 and accounted for 5 touchdowns, but only the most optimistic Auburn fan could pretend he’d really answered the serious questions we all had about him. Yes, he was an incredible athlete, but no one expected those huge scrambles to be quite so easy against SEC defenses. Plus, even though he was 9/14 passing with three touchdowns, I would argue he didn’t have a single impressive throw. The two bombs had way too much hang time and the rest were check-downs to wide open receivers underneath. He had no big third down throws and only appeared to make any sort of read once. He still had a long way to go.
We also still didn’t know if Malzahn’s pressure-down play-calling had improved. This was mostly because Auburn never really faced a pressure down in this game, but it was still very much on the minds of most Auburn fans how exactly this team would convert 3-and-less than 5s. The vicious Cam-based running attack had not yet taken form and the Kodi-as-wildcat idea was still being used, much to the chagrin of many fans. Would the proper adjustments be made in time for a touch road game in Starkville? We’ll find out next week.
First, though, a little talk about expectations. It’s funny to think back on the beginning of this season and realize how divergent were the views of the 2010 Auburn Tigers between the general public and the Auburn faithful. The public had Auburn lowly-ranked nationally and picked to finish 4th in the absurdly competitive SEC West. Thus, most people thought that the Auburn run to the National Championship came out of nowhere. The Auburn faithful were a little less surprised. Prior to the season - even before anyone really knew what we had in Cam Newton - the vast majority of Auburn fans were considerably more optimistic about the Tigers’ chances. The thinking was that they went 8-5 the year before, all while learning a brand new offense and defense and while getting a solid D+ from Chris Todd in the QB position. Now, they were bringing virtually everyone back for their second year in their new systems to face a very favorable schedule. If Cam Newton (or whoever won the job) could give them a B or B+ at QB, double digit wins seemed exceedingly possible. So, when Cam ended up giving them an A+++, it wasn’t a huge shock that Auburn could win the SEC and be in the National Championship hunt. No one seems to remember this now, but it’s true. Now, on to the game (NOTE: I must give a big hat tip to Jerry Hinnen over at www.warblogeagle.com whose weekly game recaps are an obvious inspiration to these columns).
Pregame. Our first game is being brought to us in remarkably awesome HD clarity by Fox Sports South. Our announcers today are Bob Rathbun and the original SEC spread QB, Tim Couch. I’ve never seen anyone look as nervous as Tim Couch does during his opening of the game. I’ve seen DUI suspects show more poise on camera. Fortunately, his opening analysis is pretty smooth and he nails the early promise of Cam. Rathbun says Cam “seems to be the perfect QB to fit into Gus Mazahn’s system.” Seems to be, Bob. Seems to be.
Poor Fred Hickman is stuck doing the FS South studio show that appears to constructed out of Sportscenter sets from 1996 in the back of a moving truck. He throws it to meteorologist Katie Fehlinger who rated an impressive #22 on the list of hottest weather women in America. Finally, someone has found a more useless function for the internet than this column. Katie tells us the temperature could “plummet” to 71 degrees by the fourth quarter. I’m really missing the South right about now.
I haven’t been to a game in Auburn in about 10 years (I know, bad alumnus), so I’m not totally familiar with the current gameday traditions, so I’m very disappointed to hear the opening chords of “Eye of the Tiger” blare behind the sideline reporters opening remarks. Oh well, at least it’s not the introduction music anymore.
First Quarter. Arkansas St. has the ball first and comes out in a hurry-up, no-huddle shotgun. It looks more Airraid than Malzahn-esque power spread, which is of course terrible news for Auburn. Offenses featuring accurate, underneath passing attacks will be a recurring problem for Auburn’s defense all year. Not so much on the first drive, though, as ASU has to punt after one first down.
The punt is caught by Quindarious Carr and returned for a few yards before being tackled at the 13 yard line. That sounds trivial, but it marks an approximately 800% improvement over the 2009 Auburn punt-return game.
News breaks that Jacksonville St. has beaten Ole Miss in Oxford. That was a really fun moment.
Cam makes his debut with a veer zone read to McCalleb which will eventually become the primary staple of this offense. They haven’t added the jet motion yet, though, so things are still not quite what they will be. Cam completes a short play-action pass, hands off to McCalleb again and runs his first keeper before Auburn is forced to punt from midfield. It’s not the most auspicious beginning, but the seeds of the SEC’s best offense are obviously already there, but just as obviously need some time to grow.
ASU QB Ryan Aplin gets his first delicious taste of the Auburn pass defense when he completes a 60-yard catch and run to a WR who did not have an Auburn defender within 15 yards of him in any direction. That is not an exaggeration, nor is it going to be a unique occurrence. ASU smartly realizes that the best option against this Auburn D is to throw, throw, throw. Four pass attempts later and Aplin finds a receiver wide open in the middle of the endzone for the game's first TD. A blocked PAT is the only bright spot, but it’s safe to say that Auburn’s 2010 season began...slowly.
After a good return by Washington, Auburn starts their second drive of the Cam Era near midfield. Cam starts off with a run right, but it’s clear that no one’s quite sure how this is supposed to work yet - 3 yard gain negated by holding penalty. Outside zone to McCalleb looks like a read play, but Cam looks to have no serious intentions of keeping it. That will definitely change. Cam’s first downfield pass is a wobbly one to a covered Darvin Adams which is knocked away. Unspectacular except for this: Cam threw it nearly 50 yards with no feet on the ground. Cam’s first big run of the year comes on a QB draw on 3 & 14. 16 yard gain, 1st down. McCalleb then gets loose - first on a sweep left and then on an option right to get them down inside the five. From there, we get our first look at the Kodi Burns-led Wildcat which we all knew was not long for this world, but works just fine here as Burns sweeps right and dives into the endzone for Auburn’s first TD. As an Auburn fan, this makes me happy, but as a Cam-owning fantasy owner who remembers losing this week’s game by 1 point, I’m furious. One week later and Cam is the one running that one in. If he does it here, I win the game and begin my march towards the championship. Wake up, Malzahn!
ASU gets the ball and is quickly introduced to the terror that will come to be known as Nick Fairley. He tossed one linemen out of the way, runs past two others for his first sack of the season. I’m going to have to come up with some shorthand for that series of events, because I don’t want to have to type it 500 times. ASU moves backwards about 20 yards before having to punt from their own endzone. Carr again catches the ball (!) and actually returns it about 12 yards.
Big-play Auburn makes it’s debut on a well-constructed play-action wheel route pass to Mario Fannin. The 40-yard throw is in the air for approximately 28 seconds, but Mario is so wide-open it doesn’t matter. TD Auburn. 14-6 Tigers at the end of the 1st.
Second Quarter. The second quarter brings us our first Mike Dyer sighting of the year. I really don’t remember seeing him this early. He strings together two consecutive runs for about 12 yards before being called off the field so Auburn can run the rest of the offense. Still, a promising start. Unfortunately, the offense proceeds to move directly backwards without him and has to punt.
Auburn’s defensive line is wreaking absolute havoc for Aplin, but a disturbing trend is developing: wide-open WRs. Every time he’s gotten a ball off, his target has been virtually alone in the Auburn backfield. If he had hit even half of those, this game would feel much different. As it is, they go 3 and out.
The first real Newton magic occurs on a 2-and-5 when he drops back to pass, feels pressure, then proceeds to duck and weave, dodging at least 9 defenders, for an awesome 15-yard-gain. It just looks unfair. Malzahn goes back to his magic hat on the next play with a double-pass resulting in a 47-yard completion from Neil Caudle to Darvin Adams. The pass was definitely from Caudle, even though the announcers go to puzzling lengths to insist it was from Burns. Maybe they had Kodi on their fantasy team. Speaking of fantasy teams, Newton dives in on the next play on a very early version of the jet veer read option. That first quarter Kodi TD burns even more now. 21-6 Auburn with 9:43 left in the half.
ASU returns to their play-action short passing game and it works, though the receivers are surprisingly covered this time. They catch the ball anyway. Alpin takes off an a rather impressive 12-yard scramble for a first down before being dragged down my Jessel Curry, who I just realized is white. That’s the most surprising racial revelation in the SEC since I first laid eyes on Jevan Snead. One play later, ASU surprisingly breaks a buck sweep left for a 13-yard gain into the end zone and their second TD of the day. That won’t happen much to Auburn’s D this year. 21-13 Auburn with 6:30 left in the half.
Auburn responds by getting a quick first down on the ground before Cam drops a 50-yard bomb into the hands of Quindarius Carr who might just have gotten away with the slightest of Michael Irvin-style shove-offs. TD Auburn. 28-13 Auburn. Total drive: 3 plays, 65 yards, 0:43. A drive that was unthinkable just 2 years ago is soon to become so regular an occurrence that we barely notice it. Good times.
My disappointment with the Auburn gameday music selection continues as “Living on a Prayer” blares out of our tin-can quality sound-system. Seriously, does one current Auburn student even know that song? Let’s hope not. We’ve passed enough crap down to our young. Let’s not add insult to injury by forcing Bon Jovi onto the poor kids. I’m assuming Auburn Band is not playing because they’re preparing for the halftime show. At least, I hope that’s what’s happening.
The crowd seems to think this is a 50-point game in the 4th quarter instead of a 15-point game with 6 minutes to go before halftime. It is whisper quiet in there. I blame Mr. Bovine Joni himself. ASU returns to the quick passing game and is suddenly at the Auburn 30. Despite regular pressure from our front 4 and wide-open receivers in the secondary, Roof is now dialing up blitzes. I don’t understand. This curious strategy allows ASU to convert a 3-and-9 and puts them inside the 10 yard line. After passing all the way down the field, ASU makes on odd move by running twice before a play-action pass is knocked down. They settle for a field goal. 28-16 Auburn with 3:04 remaining in the half.
Auburn continues their quick-striking ways when Newton play-fakes to McCalleb, sets to throw and then decides running straight ahead 72 yards for a TD would be more fun. That looked like some sort of no-contact scrimmage play. At no point is any ASU defender within 7 yards of Cam. I honestly thought the play had been blown dead or something. Just unreal. Couch responds by calling him “Vince Young with Daunte Culpepper’s arm.” We apparently still can’t find a white QB to compare him with, but that’s still pretty high praise. 35-16 Auburn with 2:19 remaining in the half.
After forcing a quick 3-and-out by ASU and using both their remaining TOs, Auburn gets the ball back and tries to punch in one more score before the half. They fail, but this showed that Chizik and Malzahn were still going to press the opposition at every turn - something that was a welcome change to the Auburn faithful after a decade of Tuberville conservatism.
Third Quarter. Demond Washington takes the kickoff almost to midfield only to just kind of give it away at the end of the run. Couch claims the ball was stripped, but I maintain he just dropped it on purpose. It appears to have been part of Auburn's second half strategy, as we'll see. It’s oddly comforting to have the first special teams mistake out of the way. After the cavalcade of horrors that was the 2009 special teams, most Auburn fans were expecting the worst from the 2010 squad.
ASU again makes the surprising choice of starting with the run, which goes nowhere, before again turning to the short passing game bail them out. They get inside the 10 before a clever mini-draw lands them in the endzone. It’s now 35-23 and much closer than any Auburn fan wanted it to be.
Things only get worse after the ensuing kickoff. On the first play from scrimmage, Malzahn calls the Fannin fumble play (Note: I don’t know the official name of the play, but I’m quite certain it’s a designed fumble. That’s really the only explanation for how predictable it is.) and ASU is suddenly in serious business at the Auburn 29.
Fortunately, they go back to the run, draw a couple of penalties and then Fairley does his thing again and they turn the ball over on downs. However, after Auburn gets called for an illegal pick on a play that Alabama ran approximately 45 times in a row during the 2009 Iron Bowl, they have to punt back to ASU. They can’t do anything with it and send it right back.
Welcome back, Mr. Dyer. Mike breaks the first play of the drive for a solid gain and a first down and they continue riding him, clearly trying to settle this game down a little. Just as you can see Fannin’s future carries disappearing right in front of his eyes, he takes a short pass 40-something yards to the house. 42-23, Auburn with 8:07 left in the quarter. It must be noted what a good job this was by Newton. For my money, it’s his first really impressive play in the passing game of the season. It starts with a rare under-center snap, two play-fakes and at least 2 down-field reads before he checks down to a wide-open Fannin. That’s a complicated play to make in your first game as a starter.
After another ASU punt, Auburn tries to run something we did not see much of the rest of the year - a zone read with a WR screen constraint option. Basically, Newton runs the zone read with Dyer, keeps the ball and then flicks it out to Zachery on the edge once the defense attacks him. It’s a play that Malzahn’s had in the playbook for a while (I remember him running it in the 2009 A-day game), but that we’ve rarely seen called in a game. Maybe this play shows why. It’s ugly and possibly very dangerous since the WR screen can easily become a backwards pass, which turns an incompletion like the one here into a fumble and a serious problem. Oh well, it was a pretty cool idea. Auburn punts on a 4-and-1, which is a proof that this offense is not yet what it will become. The Newton power play was a certain first down there. They just haven’t discovered it yet.
This is getting out of hand quickly. ASU turns the ball over on downs and Auburn replies with a healthy dose of Dyer following by long play-action pass to Carr (Q had 2 catches for 87 yards and a TD this game and 1 catch for 16 yards and a TD the rest of the season. I wonder what happened.). Malzahn tries to torture me a little more by putting Burns back in as the wildcat so he can lose 4 yards and force Auburn to settle for a 27-yard field goal.
Fourth Quarter. In a game that’s clearly out of reach, ASU makes yet another curious decision to keep running their starting QB directly into the teeth of the Auburn defensive line. You almost feel sorry for the poor guy.
Auburn sees ASU questionable decision-making and raises by keeping all of their starters in, despite the game being over and a road game at Mississippi State looming only short 4 days away. 105-lb. Onterrio McCalebb gets hit hard twice, then Newton gets hit, then Dyer. I know the outcome and I’m STILL nervous. Reeling myself back in, I realize that it’s only a 22-point game with over 11 mins left and I try to admire Chizik’s willingness to crush teams when possible. Plus, it’s obvious everyone wants to get Dyer his first TD. Still, Newton gets dragged down on an uncalled horse collar tackle and my heart stops for just a second. Dyer finally plunges in from the 3 and it’s officially way out of hand at 52-23 Auburn with 9:11 left.
The scrubs are in for both sides now. ASU manages a field goal and then Trotter and company run out the final few minutes. Final score: Auburn 53, ASU 23.
What Did We Learn? Auburn has playmakers. This wasn’t news to any Auburn fans. McCalleb and Fannin were more-or-less proven commodities and Dyer and Newton were the awesome additions that most everyone expected them to be. While things were still a little rough around the edges, it was obvious to see the potential of this offense. McCalleb outside, Newton and Dyer inside, Adams and Carr (?) down the field - all with Malzahn pulling the strings and clearly having a blast doing so. The Tigers rolled up an almost-quiet 608 yards of total offense without ever looking especially sharp in the passing game (see below). Clearly, this offense could be great.
The pass defense was still mediocre, at best. They allowed 323 passing yards to what we thought would be one of the worse offenses they’d face all year. When ASU's QB had time, he had his choice of wide open receivers both deep and shallow. A slightly better passer could have easily gone for 450 yards and made this game much more competitive that it ended up being. Still, they never gave up the big play and absolutely dominated against the run. Who knows? Maybe that will be enough.
What Didn’t We Learn? Lots. First and foremost, we still had no real idea if Newton was going to be able to deliver what was needed at QB. It seems silly to say something like that after a game where he threw for 186 yards, ran for 171 and accounted for 5 touchdowns, but only the most optimistic Auburn fan could pretend he’d really answered the serious questions we all had about him. Yes, he was an incredible athlete, but no one expected those huge scrambles to be quite so easy against SEC defenses. Plus, even though he was 9/14 passing with three touchdowns, I would argue he didn’t have a single impressive throw. The two bombs had way too much hang time and the rest were check-downs to wide open receivers underneath. He had no big third down throws and only appeared to make any sort of read once. He still had a long way to go.
We also still didn’t know if Malzahn’s pressure-down play-calling had improved. This was mostly because Auburn never really faced a pressure down in this game, but it was still very much on the minds of most Auburn fans how exactly this team would convert 3-and-less than 5s. The vicious Cam-based running attack had not yet taken form and the Kodi-as-wildcat idea was still being used, much to the chagrin of many fans. Would the proper adjustments be made in time for a touch road game in Starkville? We’ll find out next week.
Sean
Follow me on Twitter - @seccrush
