That Was Fun!

Man, it’s been a long, long time since we walked out of that stadium THAT satisfied.  I’d say since 2014 Auburn, and that was marred by the injury to Todd.  It feels good to feel good about the program. 

 

It all drives me kind of nuts when fans, and especially the media, create narratives based on 60-70% of a completed project.  That’s just not the way sports work.  The most common fallacy in all of sports is that a team or individual will keep doing what they’ve done.  Sometimes they do (see:  Jay Cutler).  Often times they don’t, especially college kids.  You can’t write a narrative about a series when the Cavs and Cubs are down 3-1 because the series isn’t over.  And 8 games in this season wasn’t over.  I’ve just watched too many seasons like 2006 and 2011 to know a team can bounce back.  And I’ve seen enough teams like the 2008 team that are talented but seem disinterested, which might apply to Clemson 2016.  Anyway, it was fun, and a couple things stuck out:

 

·       I think Kirby Smart knows what he’s doing.  I never saw a Muschamp-in-the-making.  He’s not berserk on the sidelines at referees and doesn’t embarrass kids.  Moreover, he never seemed over his head.  He knew immediately when he’d made a mistake, like at the end of the half at South Carolina.  He’s getting better and better.  The draining of the clock at the end was perfect.  We had to run that last play on first down to take an extra 3-4 seconds off the clock before kneeling.  BTW, that also got Nick over 100.

·       Kirby Smart and Mel Tucker know what they’re doing.  The D is starting to take a form that we’ve never quite seen in Athens.  I re-watched the game.  Besides that one scoring drive, they didn’t really do much the entire game.  They went away from the run because they weren’t gashing us, and Gus didn’t have the patience for 3-4 yards at a time.  Our coverage in the secondary was something to behold.  I remember watching Lambert drop back vs. Bama last year and thinking, “Good Lord, no one is open…at all.”  It looked eerily similar.

·       Gotta give Chaney credit.  We’re getting better.  The plan was well designed.  I thought we should have thrown down there on first and second down in the fourth, but we won the game.  We moved the ball all day.  I think he’s seeing things better up top. I can’t imagine we’ll change that.  I also saw a good mix of throwing the kitchen sink at them.  5 wide, I-formation, 1 back, 2 TE.  We’re hard to gameplan against, and Nauta and Woerner are going to make it so for a long, long time.

·       We are ridiculously young and talented at a lot of positions, and man, that #8 sure does remind me from time to time of…okay, I won’t say it.

·       I cannot believe how little talk is really surrounding Eason.  Maybe it will come in the offseason.  The dude is scary good.  I’ll say it.  He’s the best true freshman QB I’ve ever seen doing what we ask him to do, which is essentially be an NFL QB.  Watching the replay, boy Gary is going to loooooooove him some Eason.  He made some ridiculous throws.  Danielson was talking about how the DBs think they’re in position but the ball gets there too quickly and they can’t react.  We have GOT to get some more stud WRs to play w/ that kid.

·       Speaking of QBs, the most fascinating thing to me about college football is the culture that surrounds programs over decades and multiple coaches.  When’s the last time Auburn had a competent passing QB that scares you the way Murray, Stafford, Shockley, Greene and Eason scare you?  Heck, even a Hutson Mason?  I guess Brandon Cox had a fling where he was okay.  I couldn’t think of one besides him.  Campbell never really scared you with his arm.  Cadillac and Ronnie is what scared you.  It can change.  Eric Zeier changed UGA football forever.

 

On a final note, this floors me.  For the last 11 years, this is Auburn’s record against their 4 biggest rivals/best conference foes that they play every year:

 

UGA:  2-9

Bama:  4-7 (assuming a Bama win this year)

LSU:  4-7

Arkansas:  5-6

 

This is ours:

Auburn:  9-2

UT:  6-5

Fla:  4-7

Tech:  9-2

 

And that team up top has won 2 SEC titles, won 1 and played for 2 national championships in the last 11 years.  We have ZERO SEC titles and ZERO national championship game appearances. 

 

Auburn is why college football must hate me.