Tirals & Tribulations: Lessons in perseverance

Good Lord, fitting is the scripture, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” If the last two weeks are any indication, Auburn fans are going to develop a lot of perseverance in the coming months. Auburn came into this game as a touchdown favorite yet managed to wrestle defeat away from the jaws of victory (with the help of 4 second-half turnovers) in a 26-23 loss to a game South Florida squad in overtime.

As expected, it don’t take long for the online quarterback/play calling savants to point out all of the mistakes and start offering advice on the best way to fix it. “Bench the quarterback the myrmidons cried!” Granted, as a 5th year senior, Brandon Cox’s performance to this point will need to improve before it could be fairly described as mediocre. Still, I can understand why the coaches are hesitant to give up on Cox. Cox is a known (albeit not highly talented) commodity. All we know about Blake Field is that he is capable of handing the ball off and not turning it over against inferior competition. Neil Caudle’s knees are made out of paper mache, and Kodi Burns in the heralded blue chip du jour.

“Let loose with the playbook! hark the cries from above!" Listen, everyone loved the ultra sexy double-reverse-to- the-halfback-fleaflicker play. But guess what, all the fancy play calling and multiple formations doesn’t mean shit when you can’t block, run routes, and catch the ball. When it gets right down to it, in order for Auburn’s offense to work, they must be able to run the ball effectively. To this point, we can’t. Auburn has yet to top 200 yards rushing, averaging 2.6 yards per carry. And I don’t mean 200 yards per game, I’m talking about we’re sitting on 187 total rushing yards through the first two games. That’s pathetic. Until we start running the ball with consistency we are going to continue to struggle on offense. In order for those fancy plays to work, opposing defenses have to fear some part of your offense. They have to fear it to the point that they overcompensate to try and stop it; Thus, leaving them vulnerable to things like play action, mis-direction, and the afore mentioned ultra-sexy wizz bang play. For the last several years, our running game was what opponents feared. Now, it’s more like a running joke (a bad offense deserves a bad pun made it its expense).

***Amber Alert*** Missing: Jason Campbell, Carnell Williams, Ronnie Brown, Kenny Irons, Ben Grubbs, Marcus McNiel, Ben Obomanu, Devin Aromashudu, Anthony Mix. If Found, please return (with a box of chocolate glazed cream filled KKs) to Auburn Athletic Dept. Offices Attn: Al Borges.

I’ve even heard some of the unwashed whine that Borges’ offense has been figured out and he’s really not that good. "Quick! Someone run over to Tommy Bahama, the Gorgeous one has no clothes!" Amazing how fast one goes form genius to idiot after losing 6 offensive players in the top 40 or so picks of the NFL draft over the last two years. We are very young on offense. That’s not an excuse, that’s just a fact. Coach Dye once said you could count on a loss for every freshman you had to play. Well, that’s one down with several more to come.

One area that continues to plague the team, and the one that bothers me the most personally, is our kick coverage. We continue to set the opposition up in tremendous field position by flying down out of control, diving at the ball carriers feet, and then chasing him down as he returns the ball another 15 yards up field. We don’t have a place kicker that can put the ball out of the endzone right now, so it is imperative that we pursue (under control) and tackle. Failure to tackle gave USF a short field on their final game-tying drive. According to Tuberville, there will be some personnel changes made here this week. Good.

In more positive news, I was highly impressed by the play of the defense and the true freshman kicker Wes Byrum. Wes might be the antithesis to that Dye adage, and actually win us a game. The defense gave an inspired performance, stonewalling the USF offense each time the Tiger offense put them in awful position after each turnover. This defense, and our kicking game, will keep us close in every game (provided the offense doesn’t keep turning the ball over 5 times per).

The offensive line played a lot better against USF. They only allowed one sack, and that was more of a case of good coverage down field and Brandon’s perpetual indecisiveness. (Apparently, on that play, he was unable to find triple coverage to float a pass into). Mario Fannin also gave the offense a real spark in the 2nd quarter. The fumbles really hurt, however (evoking of Dye adage here) I think he will learn from that and the offense will be much better as a result. I also noticed that Ben Tate ran the ball much more effectively when Fannin was sharing carries. Their running styles seem to compliment each other well. Gabe McKenzie continues to make me scratch my head and mumble, “Why, exactly, is Tommy Trott starting ahead of this guy again?” The receivers need to step up. Robert Dunn, thus far, is our most consistent guy. Prechae has made a lot of catches, but he’s also dropped a few key passes. Again, this is another area where the coaches have indicated we’ll see some personnel changes.

So, in summation, Auburn’s offense sucks. It does, however, suck slightly less than what is being reported. If/when the ground game starts to once more become reliable, I really think that will translate into Brandon becoming more confident. This should (knock on wood) result in better decisions on his part and fewer turnovers. This season is far from over, and I'm no where near ready to throw throw in the towel. Just keep in mind that right now there are probably a lot of jaded Tiger faithful, and the bandwagon over-floweth with those of the fair weather variety (Winning 36 out of the last 42 will do that). But take heart Auburn fans, it could be worse... We could be wearing the colors of Michigan or Notre Dame.