Thoughts on Auburn and the SEC

A win is a win and I'll definitely take it, but I wasn't really encouraged by the offensive effort on Saturday against State. I was working over at Turner and only got to watch about 45-50% of the game so I may be talking a little bit out of my ass on some of these points. I know the coaches were trying to prove a point and just run the ball even if Mississippi State was going to put 8 or 9 guys in the box (kinda like a normal Saturday for Frankie), but it seems like the offense is still very sluggish and way behind last year. Granted that's going to happen when you lose a fifth year Senior QB, a Senior RB and a fifth year Senior RB, but we have SO MUCH talent at wide receiver it is hard to believe we could play a conference game and only complete two passes to starting wideouts and four overall. I read a couple of stories from today's paper and Borges was saying he probably shouldn't have gotten so conservative in the second half but he just wanted to keep Brandon confident and didn't want him to force any plays and make a couple of turnovers. That's all good, but he isn't going to get any meaningful snaps in the next two weeks against Ball State and Western Kentucky. At least he was playing against SEC athletes Saturday. If he's going to lead wins over South Carolina (their defense looked pretty solid against the pass versus Georgia...not so much against the run though) and at Arkansas (more on this in a minute...Vandy????) he needs to work on some passing plays in pressure situations. The running backs look pretty pathetic at times. Kenny ripped a couple of decent runs but he lost a fumble and he had a ton of rushes for no or minimal gain. Carl is a bruiser but he kind of plods through the line. He doesn't look like he has an extra gear or a good burst. Brad Lester may end up being the best of the bunch. He looked fast, fresh, and ready to rumble out there. But he doesn't have any game experience and he hasn't been getting a lot of reps in practice against the first or second team D so I have no idea if he can handle pass protection at all. Larry's statement about Tre not sniffing the field after the fourth game might be prophetic after all (let's add psychic to Larry's already long and distinguished list of accomplishments). I just feel for the wideouts. Courtney was garnering all sorts of All America and All SEC accolades before the season and now he has a grand total of 80 receiving yards and no touchdowns after two games. I'd be willing to bet we don't throw the ball a lot the next two weeks so he's not going to produce numbers until the meat of the SEC schedule. On the bright side, if his numbers aren't out of this world maybe he'll stick around for his senior year. Ben and Devin are borderline middle round draft picks and need to make some plays so they'll get noticed by the scouts. If we ain't throwin', they ain't catchin', and the NFL ain't lookin', and they ain't gettin' drafted. Tight ends looked good though:)

Defense looked pretty hungry out there. I think they were a bit embarassed after the Tech game. LBs were flying around and the linemen were holding their own against a bigger O-line. Groves looks like he might be the real deal at DE, supplanting McClover as the best defensive player. The secondary looked pretty solid. Montae made some nice plays in coverage as did David Irons. They're just not causing enough big plays. Picky I know, considering the D scored a touchdown and notched their first SEC shutout since 2000 (that would be the Vandy game where Vince kicked me out of the camper at 6:00 AM and I cracked my engine block trying to back my car over the curb so we could listen to my stereo...good times). I just want to see them shut down a good offensive team before I start looking at them the same way we could look at last year's D.

Kicking game remains sporadic. Bliss is a freaking stud punter (James I don't think you got to watch the game so let me clue you in on the best sequence of the day: Bliss knocks the holy hell out of a punt, 61 yards in the air. The MSU punt returner is going back so far he loses track of where he is and calls for a fair catch on the five yard line. AU stuffs a run on first down. MSU completes a short pass on 2nd down. The corner stands the receiver up and a gang tackle ensues during which someone knocks the ball away and Herring runs it into the end zone for a touchdown. Without Kody's huge punt the defense doesn't score a touchdown right there) but neither Vaughn nore Kutch are impressing me at all. Vaughn seems to have gone backward in his development. The coaches didn't have enough faith in him to try a 47 yarder against Tech and he missed a thirty-something yarder against State. Kutch's kickoffs either go out of bounds or end up at the ten, leading to good field position for the opponent.

Overall, I'm kind of blah on the team right now. We're probably not going to learn a lot about them over the next couple of games and I'll be in Paris for the South Carolina game (oui, oui). So I won't get to see a decent game until mid October when we head to Arkansas. I'm just not seeing anything more than 8-3 out of this team...which is a shame because they are loaded with talent. It's just inexperienced talent. I don't see how we can match scores with LSU and Georgia. The South Carolina and Arkansas games are going to be tougher than they should be and I hate to admit it but the Bama game is going to be huge.

SEC thoughts: how in the hell can Arkansas lose in Fayetteville to Vandy?? Well the answer is probably Vandy's Senior four year starter QB versus Arky's Redshirt freshman second game starter QB. But still. It's Vandy. In Fayettenam. The SEC West is far behind the East right now and the gap is only going to get bigger. I think Les Miles is a good coach but unless he goes 10-1 or 11-0 this year he's not going to recruit as well as Saban did. Orgeron at Ole Miss is a fraud and they'll be exposed as the year goes on. The only reason they beat Memphis is because Memphis' QB got injured on the first play of the game. The Rebs are heading for 4-7 again. Arky is talented but they won't win six games. We saw State's offense in rare form Saturday. Bama is one injury away from going back to sub-.500 ball, and it doesn't matter if it is Crodie or Darby. Either one of them goes down and their season is toast. We obviously aren't looking too hot on offense. Just based on the talent gap between us and most of the teams on the schedule we should have no problem winning seven games at the bare minimum, but I think more than eight would be a mini-miracle at this point. I'll be more than happy to be proven wrong though. LSU is the clear class of the West and probably shouldn't lose a game to a West Division opponent. I think they'll handle UT next week and their only conference loss might come against Florida. But that game is in Baton Rouge so you never know. They might be good enough to go undefeated. We'll see how much has changed if they go undefeated, and USC and Texas stay unbeaten as well. But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. The East is just better this year. I think UT is overrated but Florida and Georgia are pretty solid. Carolina is going to beat some people and UK and Vandy are obviously better than they were last year. Neither one of them is going to a bowl game but they're still better than last year.

This week: I like Florida over UT in a close one, Carolina to put a decent sized smack down on Bama, and Vandy to continue the dream season with a win over Ole Miss. AU 36 - Ball State 9.