So 2011 finished on a down note. But the nice thing about bowl games is that there really aren't any negatives to losing them.** Other than not getting all the awesome positives from winning.
Even the way we lost couldn't muster a lot of OUTRAGE and disappointment from me. It only lasted, like, half an hour. A far cry from the weekend-ruination that is a regular-season Saturday loss. It wasn't close enough for me to point to one or two lousy calls (though I could certainly beef with the refs if I felt like it, as they missed a lot of calls both ways) or spend all day Sunday going "if only we had...." And it wasn't, like, a total facewashing.
In fact, the offense played well. Very well. Well enough to win, if it hadn't been forced to play in comeback mode for over half the game. Mike Rocco was terrific. Rocco has surely cemented the right to go into spring and fall camp in 2012 as the unquestioned starter, and it ought to take a superhuman effort - I mean, like, Watford comes out looking like Vince Young - in order to unseat him by the first of September when the team takes the field against Richmond. The Auburn pass defense was exactly as advertised: shaky. But I'll tell you what: if Rocco starts the next two seasons and doesn't get hurt, he will break Matt Schaub's career yardage record. You can bank that. He only needs to average 2,415 yards a season to do it and he had 2,671 this year.
Our own defense could certainly have been better, and the stat sheet makes the following statement look silly, but - it didn't completely suck. Not like the stat sheet says it did. Unfortunately they ended up with a lot of short fields to defend. Which leads us to what you and I and everyone else can all easily pin this loss on.....
....yes, the special teams. Maybe I said the defense didn't completely suck because I was comparing it to the atomic fiasco that was the special teams. How many points do you suppose we gave up because of special teams? I count 22:
- 7 for the first blocked punt, which gave Auburn the ball in the red zone
- 7 for the onside kick, which gave Auburn the ball at our 41
- 3 because we couldn't execute a fake field goal
- 2 for the safety on the second blocked punt
- 3 for the field goal that came after Auburn's long return of the ensuing free kick
You could even get crazy and say 7 for the failed fake FG, and bring the total to 26. Auburn won by 19. I don't subscribe to the notion that "special teams are 1/3 of the game," because obviously you don't spend 1/3 of game time on special teams. But let it never be said they aren't important. They just cost us the Peach Bowl. Period.
I mean, the blocked punts drive you crazy because it's not like there's some mythical athleticism gap that caused them. Anyone who comes through as unblocked as all that will block the punt. And - really? A rugby punt in the end zone? When you have one-third fewer yards to work with? Coaching failures brought on those blocked punts, and a coaching failure led the team to be unprepared for an onside kick. And the kick coverage has been trouble all year, not to mention kicking the ball out of bounds on the kickoff.
So that'll be your number one adjustment for the offseason. It's a tough situation because your special teams coach is none other than UVA legend Anthony Poindexter, whose recruiting chops are crucial to our success. But nobody else on the staff has ever been a special teams coach, either. Idea lobbed in from the back of the peanut gallery: have London take over special teams himself until eventually someone leaves the staff and someone with special-teams experience can be hired. Cause that might've been the worst game anyone in the country has played on special teams, all year long.
I do have one last gripe. And if you have gotten, over the years, a good enough feel for my general, overall attitude toward college football, you might have guessed it already. If you don't know, and I tell you what that attitude is - it can be summed up in the four words "get off my lawn" - maybe you too can guess. Have you figured it out? If you guessed, "Brendan hates the orange helmets" give yourself a smiley sticker.
Look. First off, that makes us, by my count, the 52nd team in college football this year to play helmet reindeer games. 52 of 120 teams did not wear the same helmet in all of their games. So that doesn't exactly make us special, OK? We don't exactly stand out from the crowd. I hear this all the time, too: "Recruits like it." "The players like it." I'll tell you what else players really like: bowl games. But that doesn't stop the majority of college football fans (and annoying writers) from harboring the opinion that the bowls are a parasite that should be replaced with a playoff. The point there is that you can hide behind "players like it" all you want but when you see something that the players like but that's beyond your tolerance level, suddenly it no longer matters what they players think. So that's nothing but a copout.
For the record, I thought orange helmets over orange jerseys - not a great look. Worse yet: I didn't feel like I was watching Virginia. Suddenly it felt like another team was wearing our jerseys. Here's a fact: we are the only team in the ACC that uses navy blue as a primary color. That will change when the conference expands, but we will still be the only team that has true blue helmets. Why is that not good enough???
I get that we are in an age where people have microwaveable attention spans. Nobody's happy any more, everyone's bored, if you come out looking the same week to week. They want the newest, sickest, latest thing. They want wikked sikk warriorzz uniformzz from Nike, they want black, they want chrome, they want to be able to strut around glove-pimping for the cameras or watch their favorite player do it, they want new and different every year, if not every week, or else they get bored. All I ask is that one damn thing stay the same every now and again. As I said: we are the only team in the conference with blue helmets and with navy blue as a point of emphasis. Why that's not good enough, I have no idea.
(I know, I know: I probably just spent more words on the helmets than the special teams fiasco. Priorities, etc. Whatever, it's my blog. I have my rights.)
**Unless the other team's fans are assholes. I have no idea if that's the case here. I do know it was kind of a thing when I went to Purdue-Maryland a few years ago in support of my Boilermaker brother.
Showing posts with label auburn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label auburn. Show all posts
Monday, January 2, 2012
Thursday, December 29, 2011
game preview: Auburn
Date/Time: Saturday, December 31; 7:30
TV: ESPN
History against the Tigers: 1-1
Last matchup: UVA 19, AU 0; 9/3/98; Auburn
Last game: VT 38, UVA 0; UA 42, AU 14
Line: Auburn by 3
Opposing blogs: Track 'Em Tigers
In 2011, UVA won a national championship in lacrosse, went to the College World Series on the heels of a thrilling ninth-inning comeback, won multiple ACC titles, and placed the basketball team in the top 25.....so what better way to cap off an awesome year than with a prime-time bowl game - the best we've had since, well, the last time we went to the Peach Bowl. It's a well-deserved reward for a great season. Auburn and UVA don't share a lot of history, at least on the field; the last and only matchup was a home-and-home series in the late '90s, in which each team won on the other's field. Perhaps a little-known fact: it was a Virginia grad who founded Auburn's program and gave them their school colors. (So Auburners ought to be grateful to Allen Potts for his summer excursion to England, or else today they might be looking like Ohio State!) UVA has a golden chance here to make a huge impression in a prime-time slot; Auburn, as we've seen, is nothing like the Auburn of last year, but that's the kind of thing that filters out of impressions.
-- UVA run offense vs. AU run defense
Top backs:
Perry Jones: 176 carries, 883 yards, 5.0 avg.
Kevin Parks: 141 carries, 661 yards, 4.7 avg.
UVA offense:
165.33 yards/game, 4.26 yards/attempt
54th of 120 (national), 5th of 12 (ACC)
AU defense:
194.75 yards/game, 4.66 yards/attempt
88th of 12 (national), 11th of 12 (SEC)
If there's an area of this matchup that has Auburn fans worried, this is it. UVA's run game hasn't been as productive lately as it was earlier in the season, but then, the last two games of the year (FSU and VT) were against the best run defenses we've seen all season. Auburn's run defense is more comparable to Georgia Tech or Maryland, both of whom we rolled.
The Auburn front four is inexperienced; three sophomores and a freshman. Defensive tackles Jeffrey Whitaker and Gabe Wright each top 310 pounds, so there is cloggability in the middle. But neither is a dynamic playmaker. Quite a bit of the runstopping is done by outside 'backer Daren Bates, plus the safeties in run support. UVA's higly seasoned and cohesive offensive line should at least occasionally be able to blow a few holes in the Auburn line, and I expect a quality performance overall.
I don't think an overly complicated game plan will be necessary here. I think the old Big Ten plan should work just fine: line 'em up and see if your guys are better than theirs. I'll bet they are. Do that and at a minimum, UVA should be able to control the ball and the tempo. Auburn has pulled out a couple really nice games this year (they shut down South Carolina's Marcus Lattimore) but for every game like that one there are three in which they presented no obstacle. I don't doubt we'll have a 100-yard rusher in this game, and we should be able to pound out 175 yards in total.
-- UVA pass offense vs. AU pass defense
Quarterback:
Michael Rocco: 196/325, 60.3%; 2,359 yards, 11 TD, 11 INT, 7.26 yds/attempt
Top receivers:
Kris Burd: 60 rec., 810 yards, 1 TD
Perry Jones: 41 rec., 416 yards, 3 TD
UVA offense:
231.5 yards/game, 6.9 yards/attempt
65th of 120 (national), 8th of 12 (ACC)
AU defense:
211.0 yards/game, 7.2 yards/attempt
70th of 120 (national), 11th of 12 (SEC)
The UVA passing game has never been described, exactly, as explosive, but since Rocco took the reins (NOT "reigns") for good, he's produced eight touchdowns against just three interceptions, and has averaged 8.2 yards a throw. That's a very nice number that, if extended to the whole season, would've put UVA in the top 20 passing offenses in the country.
This game would scare me more if Auburn's best cornerback weren't on the sidelines with a destroyed-up knee. Without him, the Auburn cornerbacks are green as hell. That said, though, the safeties are to be accounted for. Neiko Thorpe is a good playmaker, and Demetruce McNeal isn't bad either. And the number-one threat when Rocco drops back is the speed-rushing terror, Corey Lemonier. With 9.5 sacks, he's arguably Auburn's best defensive player. Oday Aboushi will have his hands full with Lemonier all day.
The first priority, I think, should be to attack the edges and test Auburn's rookie cornerbacks. They will probably start the game in something close to press coverage on our receivers, trusting their safeties to cover for mistakes. If the run has been established and the safeties have their eyes on the handoff, throwing deep on play-action could pay off. I think Kris Burd, the grizzled veteran of the WR corps, will have a big day working on whoever has him as their assignment, catching at least six Rocco passes. As long as Lemonier doesn't end up setting up camp in the backfield, Rocco should become the seventh passer to complete more than 2/3 of his passes against Auburn.
-- AU run offense vs. UVA run defense
Top backs:
Onterio McCalebb: 102 carries, 532 yards, 5.2 avg.
Tre Mason: 19 carries, 97 yards, 5.1 avg.
AU offense:
174.75 yards/game, 4.26 yards/attempt
54th of 120 (national), 7th of 12 (SEC)
UVA defense:
128.33 yards/game, 3.70 yards/attempt
38th of 120 (national), 4th of 12 (ACC)
Those running backs might look a little thin on stats, but there's no point in including the suspended Michael Dyer. Without him, Auburn no longer has the bruising workhorse that carried their running game all season. In his place, there's scatback Onterio McCalebb and relative unknown, lightly-used Tre Mason.
McCalebb can be dangerous; he'll also be returning kicks for Auburn and has taken at least one to the house this year. He's broken a double-digit run in every game this year, despite never having more than 15 carries and often having just 3 to 5. On the other hand, his season-long is 21. Mason - I have no idea. In limited time, his per-carry average is every bit as good as anyone else Auburn has, but it's not even out of the question that he'll see as many carries in this game as he's had all year combined.
The key matchup here will be our defensive tackles vs. Auburn's excellent freshman center, Reese Dismukes. Dismukes is the only Tiger O-lineman to start every game at one position. The defensive line must also be prepared to play entire series without substitution because of Auburn's fast-paced no-huddle. This is where it will hurt not having Bill Schautz - with him, we had a highly dependable three-man rotation at each of the two D-line positions.
UVA will also have to defend the zone read and other running plays designed for freshman quarterback Kiehl Frazier, who comes in the game primarily to run the ball. Frazier can scoot. I'd rather have the ball in his hands than McCalebb's, but not by much.
The ground game is Auburn's best chance at moving the ball, and even though we likely have the trench advantage, I expect Auburn to be able to pick up some yards, in fits and starts at worst. Auburn's up-tempo offense is something we haven't seen before, and that's probably good for at least a long drive or two. Since they don't have Dyer to lean on, I think Frazier, McCalebb, and Mason will split the carries pretty evenly, so as to keep the defense off-balance. Really good run defenses have held Auburn under 100 yards, but we're not LSU - I think they'll top 175 just as we will.
-- AU pass offense vs. UVA pass defense
Quarterback:
Clint Moseley: 65/104, 62.5%; 794 yards, 5 TD, 3 INT; 7.64 yds/attempt
Top receivers:
Emory Blake: 30 rec., 505 yards, 5 TDs
Onterio McCalebb: 30 rec., 291 yards, 1 TD
AU offense:
153.4 yards/game, 6.8 yards/attempt
73rd of 120 (national); 8th of 12 (SEC)
UVA defense:
214.8 yards/game, 6.7 yards/attempt
40th of 120 (national), 2nd of 12 (ACC)
Evidence of the lack of confidence Auburn has in their quarterbacks is the 65-35 split in playcalling, leaning heavily towards the run. They actually had an even heavier split last year, but that had everything to do with Cam Newton. Newton's passes and non-Newton runs were much more evenly balanced.
Clint Moseley and Kiehl Frazier will platoon, but it's highly unlikely Frazier will do much throwing. Gene Chizik says "the whole playbook is open," but that's almost certainly just coachspeak. Frazier hasn't thrown but 12 times all year, I don't think he's suddenly good for 10-15 passes.
Auburn's receivers might be part of the reason for their lack of desire to pass. Emory Blake is the only one that has numbers that look like a starting receiver. Trovon Reed has 21 catches but averages a paltry 7.8 yards a catch. A lot of the passing game involves McCalebb and/or H-back Philip Lutzenkirchen. Lutzenkirchen is a red-zone weapon; nearly one-third of his 24 receptions are touchdowns. McCalebb is also a frequent target; in fact, between the emphasis they give him in the passing game and suddenly being the #1 running back, it's probable he'll have his best game of the season, well outstripping the 119 combined yards he had against Arkansas.
But, you have to like the idea of Chase Minnifield on Blake. Blake is a good receiver, but Minnifield's covered better this year. I expect Auburn will try and pick on Demetrious Nicholson, being a true freshman and all, but I don't think they have the weapons to do that consistently. When it comes to moving the ball through the air, Auburn will have to scheme to get their yardage - getting Lutzenkirchen in mismatches and things like that. Moseley and Rocco are about even as far as their effectiveness, but Rocco has more weapons to work with.
-- Outlook
Vegas has UVA as three-point underdogs, and that's not even where it started; the money came in and moved the line from an opening of 1.5. Is this largely on reputation? Either as a halo effect from last year's championship, or from being in the SEC? I think so. UVA has a big advantage in the trenches. Our offensive line is a veteran group and everyone has started at the same position, every game, all year. The same for the defensive line. Auburn's are inexperienced and shuffley. The Tigers' advantage is in the versatility of their schemes and personnel, but if the UVA lines are dominant enough, it won't matter. There's a decent chance I'm overrating our talent. I'm a UVA fan, it's what we do. But I think I've done my homework enough on Auburn to be able to say: I think we pull off the upset and wrap up 2011 in fine style.
-- Prediction summary
- UVA has a 100-yard rusher.
- UVA runs for over 175 yards.
- So does Auburn.
- Kris Burd has at least six receptions.
- Mike Rocco's completion percentage is over two-thirds.
- Onterio McCalebb leads Auburn in receptions.
- McCalebb has at least 120 combined yards, not counting returns.
Final score: UVA 28, AU 21
-- Rest of the ACC
- Missouri 41, North Carolina 24 (Independence Bowl; not even as close as the score indicated)
- NC State 31, Louisville 24 (Tire Bowl; the Pack made me nervous, because that's not a game we wanted to lose if we want to act like the ACC is a high-major conference.)
- Florida State 18, Notre Dame 14 (Tangerine Bowl; probably the first time in my life I've actively pulled for FSU** - it felt really, really weird.)
- Wake Forest vs. Mississippi State (Music City Bowl; Wake is very likely to get rolled, which means they'll probably win.)
- Georgia Tech vs. Utah (Sun Bowl; I keep forgetting this game is actually happening.)
- Virginia Tech vs. Michigan (Sugar Bowl; this is like another Ohio State game for the Michigan fan in me.)
- Clemson vs. West Virginia (Orange Bowl; let's be honest - this ought to be a blowout for Clemson.)
**I realize Florida State has played VT before, but the fact is my hatred for FSU used to be deep and abiding, and it goes back much further than my hatred for Tech. So that was always a meteor game. I still don't like the Noles, exactly, but since they've stopped being the ACC hegemon and Bobby Bowden is no longer the coach, it's begun dissipating to where I can at least root for them for the sake of the ACC.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
auburnscouting: the defense
In the final installation in our weekly series looking at UVA's Peach Bowl opponent, we'll check out the somewhat-maligned Auburn Tiger defense. It wasn't up to SEC standards; Auburn finished in the bottom half of the country in all major categories, and the result was that DC Ted Roof "left" to take the same position at Central Florida.
Auburn's defensive scheme is not complicated. Gene Chizik's roots are on the defense - he was a DC at four prior stops (Auburn included) before taking the head job at Iowa State, and he'll play that role during the bowl game as well. Chizik and Roof run a very basic 4-3 defense that's not especially different from the one run here at UVA. They spend a lot of time in Cover 2 with two deep safeties and the corners playing close to the line of scrimmage. So there isn't much that an experienced offensive coordinator hasn't seen before; Auburn depends on being able to recruit faster, better players and letting them make plays.
One media report suggests Roof was let go because Auburn has had trouble against the pass even while being stout against the run; I don't know about past years but the truth in 2011 was that more opponents than not outgained their per-game average on the ground, and the reverse was true through the air.
This defense has a few playmakers, but nobody quite like Nick Fairley, who's off to the pros. It's a very young defense. There are no upperclass starters on the defensive line and only one in the secondary. Nickel corner Jermaine Whitehead and starting DT Gabe Wright are both true freshmen; starting cornerback Jonathan Mincy is a redshirt freshman. They start five sophomores, too. The only veteran unit is the linebackers.
Probably the best player is DE Corey Lemonier, who has 9.5 sacks and 15 QB hurries, as well as 13 TFL, better numbers in all cases than anyone on UVA can offer. He's also forced five fumbles. Lemonier is absolutely the real deal. But the rest of the defensive line is so-so at best; a lot of the playmaking is done by the linebackers. OLB Daren Bates is an excellent, rangy player who has 96 tackles, and MLB Eltoro Freeman is solid too.
At cornerback is where Auburn's biggest issues lie. T'Sharvan Bell was the best they had, with two picks and seven breakups, but he wrecked his knee in the Georgia game; that's partly why there are so many freshmen in the secondary. Out of Auburn's 10 picks this year, only one came from a non-Bell cornerback, so look for safeties Neiko Thorpe and Demetruce McNeal to be the secondary's biggest playmakers. They are the second- and third-leading tacklers on the team, respectively; probably not a great sign overall for the defense, but Thorpe in particular is a player worth watching. He's one of just two senior starters on this defense (Freeman is the other.)
Statistically speaking, there's not much that jumps out. This isn't really a good defense, but it's not a terrible one. Individually, Lemonier is the only one with eye-popping stats, although Thorpe and Bates make their mark pretty well, too. They've had some really good days; wins over South Carolina and Florida were defensively dominant. But Clemson, Mississippi State, and Georgia gashed the shit out of them. Those five teams cover a pretty wide range of talent; these performances are the kind of inconsistency that shouldn't come as any surprise with so many underclassman starters.
Overall though, the results weren't good. As mentioned, the Tigers were in the bottom half of the country in everything, and second-from-last in the SEC against both the pass and the run. Only 2-10 Mississippi was worse. And even the Somalia States of their schedule moved the ball pretty well. Samford and FAU each managed over 300 yards. (We should be hoping for more than that, but this is 1-11 Florida Atlantic we're talking about.)
UVA should be well able to pick up yardage. In terms of YPC-allowed, the most similar run defenses we've faced are GT and Maryland. (Auburn allows 4.66 per carry and is 88th in the country; GT and Md. allow 4.53 and 4.68, respectively.) In both those games, UVA picked up over 200 yards on the ground and controlled the tempo this way. It's possible Auburn could jump all over the Hoos and we could have just a terrible game on offense; their defense is a little bit like playing Russian roulette. You might get your face blown off like South Carolina, but chances are you'll spin the chamber and come out OK.
*****************************************************
A couple items to clean up the stuff I haven't addressed yet, before we go on break here:
-- In this case, stuff I've been sitting on for a long time and generally forgetting about, from lacrosse: the Nick O'Reilly suspension. Which is for the whole year. O'Reilly, you might remember, played a starring role in the NCAAs last year, especially in the championship against Maryland where he had four assists. He might well have been John Haldy's replacement on the first offensive midfield this year. So it's a little bit of a test of our depth; with Colin Briggs and Rob Emery more or less having two spots locked up on the first unit, Mark Cockerton is the next option. Coupled with the Connor English transfer, it leaves us with a very formidable top six on offense - maybe the best in the country - but not much that's proven after that. Matt Kugler is OK but no superstar, and most every other option on either attack or offensive mid has only ever seen garbage time (Pat Harbeson), redshirted (Owen Van Arsdale) or is an incoming freshman (Carl Walrath, etc.)
-- More spring sports: we're getting more baseball on TV! ESPNUVA is expanding its baseball coverage - finally, the SEC isn't the only regular season college ball on TV - and UVA is on three times this season, more than any other ACC team except FSU, which also has three dates. (In fact, only one of the baseball broadcasts doesn't feature either FSU or UVA.) The downside is that these games are all on Monday - meaning three of our weekend series are moved from Fri-Sun to Sat-Mon. It's weird, but it's a smallish price to pay for getting watch the UVA nine in action on national TV. Our Monday games against FSU, Wake, and Miami are gonna be on the tube. Excellent, excellent news. (This is one of the more palatable byproducts of the conference arms race - the games are part of the ACC's deal with ESPN.) The national exposure is huge, as is the obvious implication that Virginia is one of the marquee teams in one of the nation's marquee conferences.
-- Let us never schedule Seattle again in basketball. That is all.
-- Offensive tackle might have been a major depth issue with next year's football team. But Oday Aboushi has made it clear he's coming back, and Morgan Moses very likely will as well, so we should be in great shape. We'll have to replace most of the interior, but the pass protection ought to be excellent.
-- I know that every offseason, you hear of football players doing knuckleheaded-ass things, but the kicker is usually squeaky clean. But the home-invasion story out of Blacksburg that resulted in VT kicker Cody Journell's suspension is a pretty epic one, as these stories go. If you're gonna get charged with home invasion, "they stole our weed" is a way funnier motive than "they were calling us names." The fact that the home-invadees (one of which happens to be VT's star hoopster Dorenzo Hudson) chased down and beat hell out of Journell's chucklehead buddies is even better. I'm not even mad that Hudson didn't get charged with assault. Apparently the chucklehead buddies tried to get the police to do so, but the local constabulary usually has little interest in sympathy for people who wave pellet guns at people in order to break into their house.
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Christmastime appears to be nigh upon us. I can tell these things. It's a gift. The good news for you is that I'm not traveling anywhere for the first time in a while. Instead of a week off, which I typically end up taking, I'm rolling with four days. I return Tuesday. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Bah Humbug, and all the rest to you and yours.
Auburn's defensive scheme is not complicated. Gene Chizik's roots are on the defense - he was a DC at four prior stops (Auburn included) before taking the head job at Iowa State, and he'll play that role during the bowl game as well. Chizik and Roof run a very basic 4-3 defense that's not especially different from the one run here at UVA. They spend a lot of time in Cover 2 with two deep safeties and the corners playing close to the line of scrimmage. So there isn't much that an experienced offensive coordinator hasn't seen before; Auburn depends on being able to recruit faster, better players and letting them make plays.
One media report suggests Roof was let go because Auburn has had trouble against the pass even while being stout against the run; I don't know about past years but the truth in 2011 was that more opponents than not outgained their per-game average on the ground, and the reverse was true through the air.
This defense has a few playmakers, but nobody quite like Nick Fairley, who's off to the pros. It's a very young defense. There are no upperclass starters on the defensive line and only one in the secondary. Nickel corner Jermaine Whitehead and starting DT Gabe Wright are both true freshmen; starting cornerback Jonathan Mincy is a redshirt freshman. They start five sophomores, too. The only veteran unit is the linebackers.
Probably the best player is DE Corey Lemonier, who has 9.5 sacks and 15 QB hurries, as well as 13 TFL, better numbers in all cases than anyone on UVA can offer. He's also forced five fumbles. Lemonier is absolutely the real deal. But the rest of the defensive line is so-so at best; a lot of the playmaking is done by the linebackers. OLB Daren Bates is an excellent, rangy player who has 96 tackles, and MLB Eltoro Freeman is solid too.
At cornerback is where Auburn's biggest issues lie. T'Sharvan Bell was the best they had, with two picks and seven breakups, but he wrecked his knee in the Georgia game; that's partly why there are so many freshmen in the secondary. Out of Auburn's 10 picks this year, only one came from a non-Bell cornerback, so look for safeties Neiko Thorpe and Demetruce McNeal to be the secondary's biggest playmakers. They are the second- and third-leading tacklers on the team, respectively; probably not a great sign overall for the defense, but Thorpe in particular is a player worth watching. He's one of just two senior starters on this defense (Freeman is the other.)
Statistically speaking, there's not much that jumps out. This isn't really a good defense, but it's not a terrible one. Individually, Lemonier is the only one with eye-popping stats, although Thorpe and Bates make their mark pretty well, too. They've had some really good days; wins over South Carolina and Florida were defensively dominant. But Clemson, Mississippi State, and Georgia gashed the shit out of them. Those five teams cover a pretty wide range of talent; these performances are the kind of inconsistency that shouldn't come as any surprise with so many underclassman starters.
Overall though, the results weren't good. As mentioned, the Tigers were in the bottom half of the country in everything, and second-from-last in the SEC against both the pass and the run. Only 2-10 Mississippi was worse. And even the Somalia States of their schedule moved the ball pretty well. Samford and FAU each managed over 300 yards. (We should be hoping for more than that, but this is 1-11 Florida Atlantic we're talking about.)
UVA should be well able to pick up yardage. In terms of YPC-allowed, the most similar run defenses we've faced are GT and Maryland. (Auburn allows 4.66 per carry and is 88th in the country; GT and Md. allow 4.53 and 4.68, respectively.) In both those games, UVA picked up over 200 yards on the ground and controlled the tempo this way. It's possible Auburn could jump all over the Hoos and we could have just a terrible game on offense; their defense is a little bit like playing Russian roulette. You might get your face blown off like South Carolina, but chances are you'll spin the chamber and come out OK.
*****************************************************
A couple items to clean up the stuff I haven't addressed yet, before we go on break here:
-- In this case, stuff I've been sitting on for a long time and generally forgetting about, from lacrosse: the Nick O'Reilly suspension. Which is for the whole year. O'Reilly, you might remember, played a starring role in the NCAAs last year, especially in the championship against Maryland where he had four assists. He might well have been John Haldy's replacement on the first offensive midfield this year. So it's a little bit of a test of our depth; with Colin Briggs and Rob Emery more or less having two spots locked up on the first unit, Mark Cockerton is the next option. Coupled with the Connor English transfer, it leaves us with a very formidable top six on offense - maybe the best in the country - but not much that's proven after that. Matt Kugler is OK but no superstar, and most every other option on either attack or offensive mid has only ever seen garbage time (Pat Harbeson), redshirted (Owen Van Arsdale) or is an incoming freshman (Carl Walrath, etc.)
-- More spring sports: we're getting more baseball on TV! ESPNUVA is expanding its baseball coverage - finally, the SEC isn't the only regular season college ball on TV - and UVA is on three times this season, more than any other ACC team except FSU, which also has three dates. (In fact, only one of the baseball broadcasts doesn't feature either FSU or UVA.) The downside is that these games are all on Monday - meaning three of our weekend series are moved from Fri-Sun to Sat-Mon. It's weird, but it's a smallish price to pay for getting watch the UVA nine in action on national TV. Our Monday games against FSU, Wake, and Miami are gonna be on the tube. Excellent, excellent news. (This is one of the more palatable byproducts of the conference arms race - the games are part of the ACC's deal with ESPN.) The national exposure is huge, as is the obvious implication that Virginia is one of the marquee teams in one of the nation's marquee conferences.
-- Let us never schedule Seattle again in basketball. That is all.
-- Offensive tackle might have been a major depth issue with next year's football team. But Oday Aboushi has made it clear he's coming back, and Morgan Moses very likely will as well, so we should be in great shape. We'll have to replace most of the interior, but the pass protection ought to be excellent.
-- I know that every offseason, you hear of football players doing knuckleheaded-ass things, but the kicker is usually squeaky clean. But the home-invasion story out of Blacksburg that resulted in VT kicker Cody Journell's suspension is a pretty epic one, as these stories go. If you're gonna get charged with home invasion, "they stole our weed" is a way funnier motive than "they were calling us names." The fact that the home-invadees (one of which happens to be VT's star hoopster Dorenzo Hudson) chased down and beat hell out of Journell's chucklehead buddies is even better. I'm not even mad that Hudson didn't get charged with assault. Apparently the chucklehead buddies tried to get the police to do so, but the local constabulary usually has little interest in sympathy for people who wave pellet guns at people in order to break into their house.
*****************************************************
Christmastime appears to be nigh upon us. I can tell these things. It's a gift. The good news for you is that I'm not traveling anywhere for the first time in a while. Instead of a week off, which I typically end up taking, I'm rolling with four days. I return Tuesday. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Bah Humbug, and all the rest to you and yours.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
auburnscouting: the offense
So this, obviously, got a lot less scary when Auburn suspended its leading rusher. It also got a little bit more X-factor-ey, as we will see. What we do know: Gus Malzahn will stick around to coach Auburn in the bowl game. When it's only Arkansas State you're going to, you can do that. So we should expect to see all the Malzahney stuff that he's known for.
the basics
Auburn's offense under Malzahn is a no-huddle, hurry-up style. The formation is called, then the play, and the formations are many. The defense is given little to no time to substitute or set, and it's this principle that Auburn tries hardest to exploit, rather than running outlandish plays. That's especially true this year, as there was no Cam Newton behind center. Things got simplified some, with 80-90% of the plays being run by a pocket passer.
Still, that's not to say it won't be different. Auburn's base set is a three-receiver set with a tailback and an H-back. The starters:
QB: Clint Moseley (So.)
RB: Onterio McCalebb (Jr.)
HB: Philip Lutzenkirchen (Jr.)
WR: Emory Blake (Jr.)
WR: Quindarius Carr (Sr.)
WR: Travante Stallworth (Jr.)
LT: A.J. Greene (Sr.)
LG: Chad Slade (rFr.)
C: Reese Dismukes (Fr.)
RG: John Sullen (Jr.)
RT: Brandon Mosley (Sr.)
The H-back is a hybrid fullback and tight end, sometimes lining up on the line and sometimes in the backfield. Three wide receivers is par for the course and Auburn runs most of their plays that way, but even though tempo and not scheme is the mainest focus, they're not above coming out in crazy formations.
the scheme
Crazy formations....like this:
This is one of those space-age things that spread coordinators these days come up with. Because teams often play a very basic vanilla set against the hurry-up (lacking the time to send in anything fancier) this kind of formation opens up some wild possibilities. Auburn would throw downfield on this play with the receiver just failing to haul it in, but check the flat as Moseley releases:
Holy blown coverages, Batman. I think that's McCalebb out there, and trust me when I say whoever it is would have run for a touchdown if Moseley had looked in his direction. The whole Samford defense swung to the short side of the field as McCalebb took off on a delayed route, having nobody to block.
However now, this is a more conventional look that is much more common:
Here you have three wide receivers with four routes, as the H-back is on the line. (Bottom of the offensive line, just inside the 40.) He's not covered by a receiver, so he might either block or go out for a pass; in this play he will do the latter, but the throw will be to the slot receiver on an out route for the first down. This is what passes for vanilla in the spread. (It also receives the FOV seal of approval, because one of my biggest pet peeves in the entire galaxy is running plays like toss sweeps and out routes to the short side of the field. Here Auburn forces Samford to defend a much larger patch of grass.)
The H-back is a major key to this offense. Lutzenkirchen has 24 catches, which is second-most on the team (McCalebb and Blake are tied for the lead, meaning Lutzenkirchen has more catches than all but one of the receivers.) His presence forces linebackers to make a choice; play the slot receiver, or play the H-back? On the very next play after the crazy-formation one above, Lutzenkirchen would score on a 3rd and 10 when Samford's defense chose poorly.
There are two things you will see almost none of. Maybe none at all. The quarterback directly under center, and pre-snap motion. It's called a shotgun spread for a reason, OK, and pre-snap motion is largely eschewed because it defeats the purpose of going up-tempo. The shotgun is basically 100% of the time; pre-snap motion does occur, but it's never things like the lazy jog back and forth across the formation to allow the quarterback to read the defense. If you do see someone in motion before the snap it'll typically look like this:
A basic shotgun-spread run, where Tre Mason is moving toward the quarterback (he's the one above the wide-side receiver booking it toward the short side) in order to be at the quarterback just after the snap so as to speed up the handoff. Very standard.
This is not something that's especially unique in college football these days. However, the ACC doesn't have much of it. The main thing UVA will have to deal with is the up-tempo style, and finding ways to disguise and change up the defenses despite the lack of time to do it in. If the offense substitutes, they're required to allow the defense to as well, but it's still something that has to be done in a rhythm and on one's toes. Similar to playing Georgia Tech, it requires assignment football. Unless a blitz or something is dialed up, the defense can't allow itself to be bamboozled by formations. Auburn likes to go with a lot of different formations and a variety of plays - they'll throw deep and then run an old-school option the very next play - but the running back is still the running back.
the personnel
The first thing to note is the quarterbacks. Auburn runs essentially the quarterback platoon that UVA fans actually wanted to see; Clint Moseley is the starter, and freshman Kiehl Frazier will run in for a play, then run out.
Frazier isn't much of a thrower, and he's only attempted 12 passes and completed five of them, and two more to opposing defenses. He carries an unbelievable 32.1 passer rating. It's not like we shouldn't expect Auburn to do some different things, especially since Malzahn isn't exactly at risk of being fired for his performance here and is kind of playing with house money. But Frazier throwing the ball isn't really our concern.
What he'll come in the game to do is largely run the zone read. The zone read is becoming a staple of loads of offenses, even non-spread ones. The basic idea is that the QB reads the defensive end, hands off if the end crashes inside, and keeps if the DE hesitates outward to play the handoff. (There's, like, way more to it than that, as it's not like "the zone read" is even a single play any more. Defenses have ways of defending it besides just telling the DE to go one way or the other, and offenses are likewise adapting. But that is the main idea.) Anyway, Frazier comes in largely for that purpose. With Frazier in, UVA would be well-advised to stack the box and take our chances with our cornerbacks one-on-one on the Auburn receivers.
Moseley is less of a running threat than Frazier is a passing threat. You get the idea that the Malzahn offense would much prefer to have a running quarterback in there - you know, Cam Newton and all - but Moseley is their best best for moving the ball through the air. He's a little bit of a better passer than Barrett Trotter. Moseley has a good strong arm, but is still rather limited in his ability to move past the first read on the play. In this latter respect he's a typical college sophomore quarterback.
How Auburn will use their running backs is a bit of a mystery. McCalebb is a pass-catching back; Dyer never was, with only two receptions on the season. Dyer and McCalebb split the carries about 2.5-to-1, but it'd be oversimplification to suggest that McCalebb and Mason will do the same. They might, but it's tough to bank on it. McCalebb will no doubt get heavy use, but it may well be that the carries in the bowl game are split more evenly between them so that McCalebb is fresh; he's not only a pass-catching threat, but he returns kicks, too.
Auburn's receptions chart looks a lot like Al Groh's used to, with wide receivers on it only sparingly. Emory Blake is the biggest threat, and he's a solid, all-around player. Chase Minnifield will likely draw that assignment. After that....there isn't a lot. Blake has only 30 catches but 505 yards; the receiver with the next-most catches is Trovon Reed, who averages just 7.8 yards a catch. Auburn is unlikely to be able to stretch the field with its receivers; Blake and Lutzenkirchen are the folks that the UVA defense should keep its eye on the most. It might be said that the presence of all these receivers on the field is just to keep the defense spread out and force them to play the run honest. (You know, I wonder if that's why they call it a "spread" offense? Hmmm.)
UVA has had good fortune on the offensive line; we have been able to start the same five players at the same five positions all season. That can't be overstated as a factor in our success. Auburn hasn't had the same luck; the only player to start every game at the same position is center Reese Dismukes. Dismukes is a true freshman but a good one; one of the top freshmen in the SEC. But despite the quality of the run game, the line is shaky in pass-protection; they've allowed 2.5 sacks per game, and that's not just a function of playing against SEC-speeeeeeeeed at defensive end. Samford and Utah State each collected two, and Florida Atlantic got three.
the stats
To break it down to its simplest level, Auburn is a very good running team and a non-frightening passing one. Auburn's total and SEC-only rushing stats are almost exactly the same, which should give you a little ammo the next time someone tries to spring it on you that Auburn's SEC status gives them the benefit of always playing better competition than we did.
Passing-wise, though, Auburn managed just 126 yards a game in SEC play and 153 overall. This is largely a function of preferring to run. Only ten teams in the country attempted fewer passes than Auburn. Three of them are GT, Army, and Navy, the triple-option old-schoolers. One is Ohio State, which if you ever saw them try and pass the ball you'd know why they never pass. One is Michigan, which if you ever saw them run the ball you'd know why they never pass. Auburn is in the middle between those last two; not a passing incompetent, and not a running powerhouse, but good enough at the latter and bad enough at the former that they'd really rather keep it on the ground.
I have no idea how the absence of Dyer changes that dynamic, though. Do they pass more without their 1,200-yard beastback? My guess is no. Teams are what they are; I think it would simply be playing into UVA's hands to suddenly start heaving it all over the place. Moseley isn't so accurate that that would definitely be a winning proposition. What we might get is a little more of the pass-game-as-run-game sort of play that OC's will deploy; swing passes, bubble screens, and the like.
The other thing from a cursory review of the stats to see what jumps out is: third-down conversions. Auburn is bad at them; only a 35.6% success rate. Perhaps because they are not a good passing team? Perhaps.
*********************************************
So, what are the takeaways?
-- Up-tempo offense with multiple formations and a willingness to run a wide variety of plays.
-- But the space-age stuff comes before the snap, via tempo and formation; variety of plays, yes, but not ones that are new to the football world.
-- Kiehl Frazier is a runner, not a passer; Clint Moseley is a passer, not a runner.
-- No Michael Dyer, which will have an unpredictable effect on the playcalling, even as it takes away Auburn's biggest howitzer.
-- Moseley has a strong arm, but can be gotten to; he rarely progresses beyond his first or second read and does not move well.
-- Auburn wants to run. They do not want to pass. They will run sweeps, counters, draws, even reverses, zone reads when Frazier is in the game, and pass only to keep the run defense honest.
There's an element of Georgia Tech in this. UVA will have success if the cornerbacks can stick with their receivers one-on-one. The difference is that with all the extra receivers Auburn uses, it can't be just Chase Minnifield and Corey Mosley in pass coverage and nine guys playing the run, like how we defended GT. Auburn will have success if they can isolate the H-back Lutzenkirchen in a desirable matchup, as well as McCalebb who is used in a similar way to Perry Jones. But UVA will do well if they can be disciplined and play correct assignment football, and I think our veteran defensive line will also have an edge against Auburn's fluid O-line.
*******************************************************
There is one thing you might be interested in knowing, and that is that the lacrosse schedule is out. It is boring. It is literally last year's schedule with all the locations flipped. OK, a couple exceptions; we're probably not ever going to travel to VMI (cupcake) or Vermont (weather) and the Penn game is in Denver. I know that about half the schedule is spoken for with games we will never not play (Hopkins and Cornell and the like), and that some are sort of becoming semi-traditions of their own (like opening up against Drexel for the 11th year in a row) but maybe we could swap a few of these others out every now and again. Right now there's basically one game on the schedule - Ohio State - that looks likely to be different next year. Maybe Penn as well. It wouldn't really bother me, for example, not to see any Stony Brook on there for a while. Ulterior motive disclosed: now that there are two D-I teams in the state of Michigan I wanna see some action up here.
the basics
Auburn's offense under Malzahn is a no-huddle, hurry-up style. The formation is called, then the play, and the formations are many. The defense is given little to no time to substitute or set, and it's this principle that Auburn tries hardest to exploit, rather than running outlandish plays. That's especially true this year, as there was no Cam Newton behind center. Things got simplified some, with 80-90% of the plays being run by a pocket passer.
Still, that's not to say it won't be different. Auburn's base set is a three-receiver set with a tailback and an H-back. The starters:
QB: Clint Moseley (So.)
RB: Onterio McCalebb (Jr.)
HB: Philip Lutzenkirchen (Jr.)
WR: Emory Blake (Jr.)
WR: Quindarius Carr (Sr.)
WR: Travante Stallworth (Jr.)
LT: A.J. Greene (Sr.)
LG: Chad Slade (rFr.)
C: Reese Dismukes (Fr.)
RG: John Sullen (Jr.)
RT: Brandon Mosley (Sr.)
The H-back is a hybrid fullback and tight end, sometimes lining up on the line and sometimes in the backfield. Three wide receivers is par for the course and Auburn runs most of their plays that way, but even though tempo and not scheme is the mainest focus, they're not above coming out in crazy formations.
the scheme
Crazy formations....like this:
This is one of those space-age things that spread coordinators these days come up with. Because teams often play a very basic vanilla set against the hurry-up (lacking the time to send in anything fancier) this kind of formation opens up some wild possibilities. Auburn would throw downfield on this play with the receiver just failing to haul it in, but check the flat as Moseley releases:
Holy blown coverages, Batman. I think that's McCalebb out there, and trust me when I say whoever it is would have run for a touchdown if Moseley had looked in his direction. The whole Samford defense swung to the short side of the field as McCalebb took off on a delayed route, having nobody to block.
However now, this is a more conventional look that is much more common:
The H-back is a major key to this offense. Lutzenkirchen has 24 catches, which is second-most on the team (McCalebb and Blake are tied for the lead, meaning Lutzenkirchen has more catches than all but one of the receivers.) His presence forces linebackers to make a choice; play the slot receiver, or play the H-back? On the very next play after the crazy-formation one above, Lutzenkirchen would score on a 3rd and 10 when Samford's defense chose poorly.
There are two things you will see almost none of. Maybe none at all. The quarterback directly under center, and pre-snap motion. It's called a shotgun spread for a reason, OK, and pre-snap motion is largely eschewed because it defeats the purpose of going up-tempo. The shotgun is basically 100% of the time; pre-snap motion does occur, but it's never things like the lazy jog back and forth across the formation to allow the quarterback to read the defense. If you do see someone in motion before the snap it'll typically look like this:
A basic shotgun-spread run, where Tre Mason is moving toward the quarterback (he's the one above the wide-side receiver booking it toward the short side) in order to be at the quarterback just after the snap so as to speed up the handoff. Very standard.
This is not something that's especially unique in college football these days. However, the ACC doesn't have much of it. The main thing UVA will have to deal with is the up-tempo style, and finding ways to disguise and change up the defenses despite the lack of time to do it in. If the offense substitutes, they're required to allow the defense to as well, but it's still something that has to be done in a rhythm and on one's toes. Similar to playing Georgia Tech, it requires assignment football. Unless a blitz or something is dialed up, the defense can't allow itself to be bamboozled by formations. Auburn likes to go with a lot of different formations and a variety of plays - they'll throw deep and then run an old-school option the very next play - but the running back is still the running back.
the personnel
The first thing to note is the quarterbacks. Auburn runs essentially the quarterback platoon that UVA fans actually wanted to see; Clint Moseley is the starter, and freshman Kiehl Frazier will run in for a play, then run out.
Frazier isn't much of a thrower, and he's only attempted 12 passes and completed five of them, and two more to opposing defenses. He carries an unbelievable 32.1 passer rating. It's not like we shouldn't expect Auburn to do some different things, especially since Malzahn isn't exactly at risk of being fired for his performance here and is kind of playing with house money. But Frazier throwing the ball isn't really our concern.
What he'll come in the game to do is largely run the zone read. The zone read is becoming a staple of loads of offenses, even non-spread ones. The basic idea is that the QB reads the defensive end, hands off if the end crashes inside, and keeps if the DE hesitates outward to play the handoff. (There's, like, way more to it than that, as it's not like "the zone read" is even a single play any more. Defenses have ways of defending it besides just telling the DE to go one way or the other, and offenses are likewise adapting. But that is the main idea.) Anyway, Frazier comes in largely for that purpose. With Frazier in, UVA would be well-advised to stack the box and take our chances with our cornerbacks one-on-one on the Auburn receivers.
Moseley is less of a running threat than Frazier is a passing threat. You get the idea that the Malzahn offense would much prefer to have a running quarterback in there - you know, Cam Newton and all - but Moseley is their best best for moving the ball through the air. He's a little bit of a better passer than Barrett Trotter. Moseley has a good strong arm, but is still rather limited in his ability to move past the first read on the play. In this latter respect he's a typical college sophomore quarterback.
How Auburn will use their running backs is a bit of a mystery. McCalebb is a pass-catching back; Dyer never was, with only two receptions on the season. Dyer and McCalebb split the carries about 2.5-to-1, but it'd be oversimplification to suggest that McCalebb and Mason will do the same. They might, but it's tough to bank on it. McCalebb will no doubt get heavy use, but it may well be that the carries in the bowl game are split more evenly between them so that McCalebb is fresh; he's not only a pass-catching threat, but he returns kicks, too.
Auburn's receptions chart looks a lot like Al Groh's used to, with wide receivers on it only sparingly. Emory Blake is the biggest threat, and he's a solid, all-around player. Chase Minnifield will likely draw that assignment. After that....there isn't a lot. Blake has only 30 catches but 505 yards; the receiver with the next-most catches is Trovon Reed, who averages just 7.8 yards a catch. Auburn is unlikely to be able to stretch the field with its receivers; Blake and Lutzenkirchen are the folks that the UVA defense should keep its eye on the most. It might be said that the presence of all these receivers on the field is just to keep the defense spread out and force them to play the run honest. (You know, I wonder if that's why they call it a "spread" offense? Hmmm.)
UVA has had good fortune on the offensive line; we have been able to start the same five players at the same five positions all season. That can't be overstated as a factor in our success. Auburn hasn't had the same luck; the only player to start every game at the same position is center Reese Dismukes. Dismukes is a true freshman but a good one; one of the top freshmen in the SEC. But despite the quality of the run game, the line is shaky in pass-protection; they've allowed 2.5 sacks per game, and that's not just a function of playing against SEC-speeeeeeeeed at defensive end. Samford and Utah State each collected two, and Florida Atlantic got three.
the stats
To break it down to its simplest level, Auburn is a very good running team and a non-frightening passing one. Auburn's total and SEC-only rushing stats are almost exactly the same, which should give you a little ammo the next time someone tries to spring it on you that Auburn's SEC status gives them the benefit of always playing better competition than we did.
Passing-wise, though, Auburn managed just 126 yards a game in SEC play and 153 overall. This is largely a function of preferring to run. Only ten teams in the country attempted fewer passes than Auburn. Three of them are GT, Army, and Navy, the triple-option old-schoolers. One is Ohio State, which if you ever saw them try and pass the ball you'd know why they never pass. One is Michigan, which if you ever saw them run the ball you'd know why they never pass. Auburn is in the middle between those last two; not a passing incompetent, and not a running powerhouse, but good enough at the latter and bad enough at the former that they'd really rather keep it on the ground.
I have no idea how the absence of Dyer changes that dynamic, though. Do they pass more without their 1,200-yard beastback? My guess is no. Teams are what they are; I think it would simply be playing into UVA's hands to suddenly start heaving it all over the place. Moseley isn't so accurate that that would definitely be a winning proposition. What we might get is a little more of the pass-game-as-run-game sort of play that OC's will deploy; swing passes, bubble screens, and the like.
The other thing from a cursory review of the stats to see what jumps out is: third-down conversions. Auburn is bad at them; only a 35.6% success rate. Perhaps because they are not a good passing team? Perhaps.
*********************************************
So, what are the takeaways?
-- Up-tempo offense with multiple formations and a willingness to run a wide variety of plays.
-- But the space-age stuff comes before the snap, via tempo and formation; variety of plays, yes, but not ones that are new to the football world.
-- Kiehl Frazier is a runner, not a passer; Clint Moseley is a passer, not a runner.
-- No Michael Dyer, which will have an unpredictable effect on the playcalling, even as it takes away Auburn's biggest howitzer.
-- Moseley has a strong arm, but can be gotten to; he rarely progresses beyond his first or second read and does not move well.
-- Auburn wants to run. They do not want to pass. They will run sweeps, counters, draws, even reverses, zone reads when Frazier is in the game, and pass only to keep the run defense honest.
There's an element of Georgia Tech in this. UVA will have success if the cornerbacks can stick with their receivers one-on-one. The difference is that with all the extra receivers Auburn uses, it can't be just Chase Minnifield and Corey Mosley in pass coverage and nine guys playing the run, like how we defended GT. Auburn will have success if they can isolate the H-back Lutzenkirchen in a desirable matchup, as well as McCalebb who is used in a similar way to Perry Jones. But UVA will do well if they can be disciplined and play correct assignment football, and I think our veteran defensive line will also have an edge against Auburn's fluid O-line.
*******************************************************
There is one thing you might be interested in knowing, and that is that the lacrosse schedule is out. It is boring. It is literally last year's schedule with all the locations flipped. OK, a couple exceptions; we're probably not ever going to travel to VMI (cupcake) or Vermont (weather) and the Penn game is in Denver. I know that about half the schedule is spoken for with games we will never not play (Hopkins and Cornell and the like), and that some are sort of becoming semi-traditions of their own (like opening up against Drexel for the 11th year in a row) but maybe we could swap a few of these others out every now and again. Right now there's basically one game on the schedule - Ohio State - that looks likely to be different next year. Maybe Penn as well. It wouldn't really bother me, for example, not to see any Stony Brook on there for a while. Ulterior motive disclosed: now that there are two D-I teams in the state of Michigan I wanna see some action up here.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
season preview: Florida State
Florida State Seminoles
Media prediction: 3rd
Last season:
Record: 23-11 (11-5) - ACC 3rd seed
Postseason: NCAA Sweet 16
KenPom: 31st of 345
Returning scoring: 63.2%
Returning rebounding: 58.6%
Returning assists: 57.4%
2010-11 All-ACC:
1st team: none
2nd team: none
3rd team: F Chris Singleton
HM: none
Rookie: none
Defensive: F Chris Singleton
(italics indicate departed player)
Starting lineup:
PG: Luke Loucks (Sr.)
SG: Michael Snaer (Jr.)
SF: Okaro White (So.)
PF: Bernard James (Sr.)
C: Xavier Gibson (Sr.)
Bench:
G Deividas Dulkys (Sr.)
PG Jeff Peterson (Sr.)
F Terrence Shannon (Jr.)
C Jon Kreft (Sr.)
G Terry Whisnant (Fr.)
Coach: Leonard Hamilton (9th season)
ACC schedule:
Twice: Clemson, Duke, Miami, Virginia, Virginia Tech
Once: Boston College, Georgia Tech, Maryland, North Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest
We should really be liking the whole idea of Florida State right now. They're living proof that you can have a semi-adequate offense but if you pair it with a nasty, suffocating defense, you too can be a Sweet 16 team.
FSU has officially gained a nationwide reputation for lockdown defense, and that is not an overrated rep. Last year they were KenPom's #1 defensive team with an 86.2 rating; this year that rating is down to 83.7, which is, like, ridiculous. (It'll come up some during the ACC season, but still.)
FSU's thing is that they have a guy playing power forward who'd play center on every other team, and then an actual center as well. The former is Bernard James, who's done a heckuva job evolving his game from novelty (as a former NCO in the Air Force) to actual threat. It won't surprise you to learn that at 6'10", James blocks a ton of shots. Xavier Gibson gets the starts at center, and he's 6'11", and between them they're blocking 4.1 shots a game this season. James by himself has 2.5 BPG, which is....a lot.
Blocks and steals, the secret to success. Nearly every guard chips in at least 1 steal per game, and sixth man Deividas Dulkys is going strong at 2.2. FSU averages nine steals and seven blocks per game, which nobody in the conference can touch. All those blocks lead to an opponent's effective FG% (so far) of just 39%. The only strange thing is that you'd think a team that tall and that active would also be good rebounders, and they are on the offensive end, but not defensively. Good numbers for defensive rebounding are the ones above 70% - that is, you get 70% or better of available defensive rebounds - and right now FSU checks in at 65.5%, which is well below average.
(Oh by the way - do you know who the best defensive rebounding team in the country is right now? It's your own Virginia Cavaliers at 78.6%. This is a really sneaky thing to do to people. At some point this season, there will be an opponent blogger who looks at the big numbers on the ESPN profile that show UVA as the 264th-best rebounding team in the country and they will assume that we're an easy mark and ought to be easily outrebounded. Then we'll beat their team by 15 and they'll criticize their team's lack of effort on the glass. This is why your basketball stats should generally be tempo-free, especially rebounds. Obviously when there are so few possessions in a game, there will be fewer total rebounds.)
But I digress. Florida State. Now, they have that great defense, but the scoring - tthhbbbpppttt. They actually do miss Chris Singleton in this department. FSU's offensive efficiency has gotten quite a bit worse since last year. Point guards Luke Loucks and Jeff Peterson are strictly enablers who don't pose a major scoring threat; Peterson is a grad-student transfer from Arkansas (and Iowa earlier) and he's okay at taking care of the ball and all that but he's only shooting .378 from the field, which ain't good. Loucks may have found a shot this year, as he's hitting on .453, but for most of his career he's been a long way belong the .400 mark. Most of the scoring load falls on shooting guard Michael Snaer, and he's not very efficient, only shooting .402 himself. Truthfully, though FSU likes to play a little bit up-tempo, a lot of their offense comes from putbacks or from simply working the ball inside and letting their considerable size advantage go to work. Dulkys is the only legitimate threat from outside. And they'll never be a good offense until they take care of their turnover issue. It's something I brought up in last year's preview of this team - at which time they were turning the ball over on almost 25% of their possessions - and it's only gotten worse as this year they're up to an even 27%. (In this regard, no higher than about 19% qualifies as "pretty good" and 27% puts you in the nation's bottom ten. So it's definitely a thing.)
Still - that defense. There's a reason Tony Bennett preaches it. Because it makes you a good team and keeps you in every game, which is where FSU will be. This is a senior-laden, experienced bunch, too. They might be looking at a drop-off next year what with so many graduating, but they'll be tough to get to this year. FSU is 7-3 this year, but all three losses are to tournament teams and won't necessarily be held against them come seeding time. Not even the Harvard one. It'll hurt that they don't have a marquee nonconference win and won't get one unless they beat Florida, but they should do well against one of the tougher ACC schedules out there (Duke, UVA, VT twice, and BC, GT, Wake just once) and earn another tournament bid.
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So no post yesterday, and I'm vewy sowwy about that, but it's finals time you see. If the basketball team gets 12 days off between games, I'm allowed one night to take my last final of the semester too. A couple things from while I was out:
-- Auburn will be heading to Atlanta minus both coordinators now, with Ted Roof having been fired like last week, and now Gus Malzahn going to Arkansas State to replace Hugh Freeze, who left for Mississippi. (It makes you wonder why Ole Miss didn't just cut out the middleman and hire Malzahn.) So no coordinators and no Michael Dyer - the Tigers will be awfully shorthanded. Obviously it's not like the Auburn offense is just gonna shut down, but I think the #1 effect here is that there won't be a ton of crazy wrinkles in either offense or defense. Gene Chizik is taking over DC duties for the bowl, no doubt Auburn has a second-in-command to take care of the offense, but going in without their field marshals and one major piece of artillery can only spell good signs for the Hoos.
-- It was kind of a no-brainer, but now it's official: the ACC will go to an 18-game hoops schedule next year. Is this a way of unofficially announcing that Syracuse and Pittsburgh will be joining up that quickly? I doubt it - I think the most likely reason for making the move now, as opposed to waiting for the newcomers, is so that teams can nail down the scheduling logistics now and get comfortable with two fewer openings for OOC games. 18 is no great revolution; the Big Ten has been doing it for years and with only 11 teams at that. It should be fun next year with seven teams on the schedule twice, the closest we've been (and the closest we'll ever get) to the double-round-robin since it went away.
Anyway, with 14 teams in the conference this almost had to happen, otherwise we'd only get to play three teams twice and everyone else once. That would suck. If we add two more teams that'll happen anyway, but oh well.
-- There've been so many all-America nominations for our Hoos (and not just in football) that I haven't even mentioned them, so routine has it become. (That sounds horrible, in a way. I should be happier about this stuff.) Chase Minnifield, Demetrious Nicholson, and Austin Pasztor all have various nods from various sources; Minnifield has shown up everywhere. Pitcher Branden Kline (only a couple months til baseball season!) is a first-teamer in the preseason per the NCBWA. But maybe the coolest one is Morgan Brian of the ladies' euro-football team being named Freshman of the Year by Soccer America. I think we're quickly gathering up some strong contenders for this blog's Cavalier of the Year award next summer.
Monday, December 12, 2011
bowl rankings
Specifically, today it's all about the 17 bowls that UVA has gone to in the past. We have a rich tradition of going to bowls named for car parts stores and the now-defunct MPC Computers. UVA has been to 17 bowl games, and 11 distinct ones; four New Year's Day bowls; eight different states (Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Hawaii, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Idaho.) Three games have been played against future conference rivals. Three have been played against Georgia. From bottom to top, here are the seventeen bowl games UVA has partaken of. In this ranking, consideration has been given to opponent, bowl prestige, and of course, outcome. Oh, and I still don't use corporate names, except when it amuses me to do so. So there might be a little confusion, but as usual, you're smart people and I think you'll figure it out.
#17 - 1999 MicronPC.com Bowl - Illinois 63, Virginia 21
Sponsored by a now-dead computer company. Wait, no. Sponsored by the now-dead computer company's website. Even the technology company that exists almost entirely online and sponsors what used to be known as the Copper Bowl had the good sense to take ".com" off the bowl name, because everybody mocks the idea. MicronPC was owned by a company that still exists, spun off and sold (and went on to become MPC Computers and sponsored the bowl in Boise), and died in bankruptcy court a few years ago. So now we have two separate names of a defunct computer company sitting proudly on our stadium. Woo corporate assholery. For those trying to keep score, this game was played in Miami, and it was our third trip to this bowl, but it is now the one played in Orlando that isn't the Citrus Bowl.
Even worse, we got our asses kicked. By freaking Illinois. Coached at the time by Ron Turner, who sandwiched this season in between a 5-6 one and a 3-8 one, and would eventually be fired for having his last two seasons be 1-11 and 3-8. UVA was down 42-7 at halftime, so it wasn't fun. And at the time, I was in a holding pattern with UVA because I'd been turned down for early decision and was put in with the regular crowd, and would have to wait another three months to find out the good news. So I didn't hardly even know what to think about this. Bummer, yes, but you don't want to get too into it til you know for sure, you know?
#16 - 2000 Oahu Bowl - Georgia 37, Virginia 14
This wasn't competitive either. And it was a lousy way to send off both George Welsh, and poor injury-riddled Dan Ellis, who was just back from injury and got hurt again. Thus was born the really lame quarterback play-until-you-suck platoon that lasted all through 2001, as both Bryson Spinner and Matt Schaub played in relief of Ellis.
Plus, the Oahu Bowl (which at the time was essentially the little brother to the Aloha Bowl) was in its final incarnation, and would become the Seattle Bowl the following year and play its last game ever the year after that. It was pretty minor stuff.
#15 - 2004 Humanitarian Bowl - Fresno State 37, Virginia 34
This was just plain depressing. UVA started the season 5-0 and ranked #6 before finishing 3-3. Then, the school declined a CS Bowl bid because it took place during final exams. Georgia Tech would end up in Florida. That wound us up in snowy Boise on the blue turf, against feisty Fresno State, and the game was all ours and then it wasn't, with an OT loss on Fresno's first play. And for those of us watching on TV, we got to listen to the dulcet tones of Pam Ward.
Oh, and that CS Bowl that Georgia Tech got into because of our academic standards? They won it 51-14.
#14 - 1991 Gator Bowl - Oklahoma 48, Virginia 14
Great bowl game. (The Gator Bowl held quite a bit more cachet than it does today.) Great opponent. Miserable-assed outcome. Even with ACC Player of the Year Matt Blundin, UVA was down 34-0 before they knew what hit 'em. This was even less competitive than the Illinois game that would come eight years later - at least that one was tied at 7 at one point. And yet it's still better than losing to Fresno State in Boise with Pam Ward calling the game.
#13 - 1994 Car Parts Bowl ('93 season) - Boston College 31, Virginia 13
This was a pretty good game for two quarters. UVA was up 13-10 at one point - and then never scored again. Until the 2007 season, this was the last time UVA ever played on New Year's Day.
#12 - 1996 Car Parts Bowl - Miami 31, Virginia 21
Now we're getting to the part where losing doesn't suck 110%. UVA spent most of this game behind, but you couldn't fault the defense; Miami's offense only managed 17 points in this one. The rest was the Canes' Tremain Mack, who scored a pair of defensive touchdowns to propel Miami to the victory. The Hoos had to play catch-up all day, but at least gave themselves a shot to win.
#11 - 2008 Gator Bowl - Texas Tech 31, Virginia 28
A heartbreaker no matter how you slice it. UVA forced not one, but two safeties against the high-powered Texas Tech air assault, led by Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree, and held a 28-14 fourth-quarter lead. Mikell Simpson had a 96-yard touchdown run, which at the time was an NCAA bowl record and is still the 2nd-longest bowl-game run in history. But UVA found itself unable to escape being pinned deep in its own territory late in the fourth quarter, with starting QB Jameel Sewell out with injury and true freshman Peter Lalich running the show. Lalich fumbled to set up the tying touchdown, and TT would hit the game-winning field goal on their next drive.
#10 - 1990 Citrus Bowl ('89 season) - Illinois 31, Virginia 21
The kind of game you don't totally hate the world for losing. Someone had to. Two star quarterbacks - UVA's Shawn Moore and Illinois's Jeff George - clashed on New Year's Day in UVA's reward for sharing the ACC championship. UVA recovered three Illinois fumbles but had to try and dig out of a 24-7 third-quarter deficit and wasn't able to. George would later be the1st overall pick in that year's NFL Draft.
#9 - 1991 Sugar Bowl ('90 season) - Tennessee 23, Virginia 22
New Year's Day. Sugar Bowl. Tennessee, back when it was cool to be Tennessee. This was possibly UVA's most prime-timey of all prime-time matchups, and it followed a season in which UVA had earned, for three weeks, the #1 ranking in the country. UVA controlled the first three quarters, but didn't take full advantage and only led 16-3 going into the fourth, where the Volunteer offense came alive and rattled off three touchdowns. The Hoos got the ball back with 31 seconds needing only to get to field goal range, only about 38 yards away, but Matt Blundin was intercepted to seal the win for Tennessee.
#8 - 1998 Peach Bowl - Georgia 35, Virginia 33
Between this and the Sugar Bowl it was a very, very close one to earn the title of "best loss" in the bowl department. The Sugar is the Sugar, so there's that, but the history between these two teams, in the same stadium, tips it this direction. Georgia earned its revenge from two years prior when UVA beat the Bulldogs in Atlanta, storming back from a 21-0 halftime deficit to take a 35-27 lead late in the game. UVA scored what would have been the game-tying touchdown had the 2PC been successful, and recovered the ensuing onside kick, too. But a field goal attempt as time ran out sailed wide. Kicking woes essentially cost UVA the game, as the 2PC would've been unnecessary had another extra point not failed in the third quarter.
#7 - 1994 Independence Bowl - Virginia 20, TCU 10
The Weedeater Bowl! The Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl - the poster child for shitty corporate bowl names. The name so stupid it became legend. I didn't need an inner 12-year-old to giggle about this silliness because I was 12, and even then I knew this was record-setting stupidity. And UVA was one of the privileged few to win the Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl.
The worst win is better than the best loss, and this was the worst win. Played in a nasty rain, the game was a mud bowl with nothing especially distinguishing about the performance other than a nice defensive showing that held the Horny Frogs to 65 passing yards.
#6 - 1987 All-American Bowl - Virginia 22, Brigham Young 16
In UVA's second bowl appearance ever, it faced a formidable offense in the BYU Cougars. UVA turned the game into a run-fest in order to keep the high-powered BYU offense sidelined, and the game plan worked to perfection. A pair of fourth-down stands, one on fourth-and-goal from the two, cemented the win. A solid game, but the venue (Birmingham, Alabama) and a short-lived bowl game push it down the list a little.
#5 - 2005 Music City Bowl - Virginia 34, Minnesota 31
For just the second time in its history, UVA made its fourth consecutive bowl appearance, and it turned out to be one of the comebackier games in school history. UVA trailed 14-0 and 21-7 to start, but worked its way back and tied the game at 31 in the fourth. Then, pinned on the three-yard line after a Minnesota punt forced by a quality defensive stand, Marques Hagans drove the Hoos down the field for what would be the game-winning field goal.
#4 - 2003 Tire Bowl - Virginia 23, Pittsburgh 16
The main story going into the game was that Pitt's Larry Fitzgerald had scored at least one touchdown in every game he'd played that season, and the story going out of it was that he didn't. Virginia's defense came up with a great plan to stop Fitzgerald, forcing Pitt QB Rod Rutherford to throw elsewhere all day. But what gives this game the tiebreak over the two somewhat similar games previously listed was the goal-line stand. With the game still scoreless, UVA's defense came up with four consecutive stops on its own one-yard line, and four plays later, Matt Schaub found (fittingly) Heath Miller for a 52-yard touchdown that broke the school passing record for TDs. That gave UVA a 7-0 lead, and the Hoos would never trail in a game that never seemed as close as the seven-point final margin.
#3 - 1984 Peach Bowl - Virginia 27, Purdue 24
We have to give UVA's first-ever bowl game some love, so here it is in the top three. One, did I mention it was the Hoos' first bowl game ever? Second, it gives me braggin' rights to this very day because my brother is a Purdue grad and the Hoos have not played the Boilers since. Even though I was two when this game was played and he was a tiny newborn. And I didn't actually become a UVA fan until sixteen years later. Don't care. Woot woot. Third, it was a pretty darn good game.
UVA was down 24-14 at the half, but George Welsh must have said something fiery at halftime because the Hoos owned the rest of the game. Purdue didn't score, and UVA racked up almost 200 rushing yards in the second half alone. It was a pretty good quarterback battle, too, with two future NFL starters going at it in the Hoos' Majic Man, Don Majkowski, and Purdue's Jim Everett, futurely of the Rams and Saints.
#2 - 2002 Tire Bowl - Virginia 48, West Virginia 22
It was the Era of Good Feelings for Al Groh. Optimism was high.... and UVA was snubbed. Hoo fans were somewhat miffed that UVA slid down the bowl pecking order despite finishing with a 6-2 conference record, good for second place (and cackling with glee that 4-4 Clemson, one of the teams picked over UVA, was cornholed by 40 points.) Partly because of this season, the ACC would later institute the rule that forbids bowls from selecting a team with two fewer conference wins than a still-available one.
But we still had to go to Charlotte to play in a brand-new bowl, in front of a sold-out and highly partisan crowd cheering its mountainous lungs out for West Virginia. So naturally, it was a slaughter. Freshman running back Wali Lundy ripped off four touchdowns, the Pep Band was forever banned from the bowl for tellin' it like it is about West Virginia, and UVA left with a 26-point win. Good times.
#1 - 1995 Peach Bowl - Virginia 34, Georgia 27
Is this game #1 because of how we're going back to the Peach Bowl? No. Maybe? No. UVA never trailed, but did blow a 24-7 lead, to the delight of the hometown crowd, and UGA seemingly had the Hoos on the ropes after tying it up 27-27. The Hoos never had an answer for Georgia's Hines Ward at quarterback (yes, the Steelers' wide receiver), who threw for 413 yards. Timely interceptions and timely stops prevented Ward's incredible playmaking from becoming a killer.
The game ended on a thrilling note, with Georgia scooping and scoring a UVA fumble following a completed pass; UGA earned an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, kicked off from their 20-yard line, and Demetrius Allen returned it to the house to stake UVA to its eventual winning margin. Highlights here because you love it.
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-- And speaking of the Peach Bowl, it just got a little easier; no doubt you know by now that Auburn suspended Michael Dyer, and he'll miss the game. Dyer is a Kevin Parks-type - smallish but powerfully built, with the ability to wear down a defense. 1,200 yards won't be made up for easily. Auburn will turn to Onterio McCalebb, who is basically good-not-great and can occasionally break one but usually won't, and Tre Mason, who I don't know anything about.
-- The Mountain West is going to formally request a BCS autobid. This opens up some amusing possibilities. If they get it, do they tell C-USA to go pound sand, the merger is off? If they get it, and furthermore the Big Eastish gets the boot as a result, do Boise State and San Diego State feel stupid, really stupid, or galactically stupid? And would that be funny or uproariously funny? So many questions. Bet you the Big Eastish lobbies their asses off against the MWC - if the MWC gets that sweet sweet delicious autobid, it wouldn't surprise if that causes the latest Big Eastish expansion to collapse like the TCU attempt did. Nor would it surprise if it causes Connecticut to start calling John Swofford three times daily.
#17 - 1999 MicronPC.com Bowl - Illinois 63, Virginia 21
Sponsored by a now-dead computer company. Wait, no. Sponsored by the now-dead computer company's website. Even the technology company that exists almost entirely online and sponsors what used to be known as the Copper Bowl had the good sense to take ".com" off the bowl name, because everybody mocks the idea. MicronPC was owned by a company that still exists, spun off and sold (and went on to become MPC Computers and sponsored the bowl in Boise), and died in bankruptcy court a few years ago. So now we have two separate names of a defunct computer company sitting proudly on our stadium. Woo corporate assholery. For those trying to keep score, this game was played in Miami, and it was our third trip to this bowl, but it is now the one played in Orlando that isn't the Citrus Bowl.
Even worse, we got our asses kicked. By freaking Illinois. Coached at the time by Ron Turner, who sandwiched this season in between a 5-6 one and a 3-8 one, and would eventually be fired for having his last two seasons be 1-11 and 3-8. UVA was down 42-7 at halftime, so it wasn't fun. And at the time, I was in a holding pattern with UVA because I'd been turned down for early decision and was put in with the regular crowd, and would have to wait another three months to find out the good news. So I didn't hardly even know what to think about this. Bummer, yes, but you don't want to get too into it til you know for sure, you know?
#16 - 2000 Oahu Bowl - Georgia 37, Virginia 14
This wasn't competitive either. And it was a lousy way to send off both George Welsh, and poor injury-riddled Dan Ellis, who was just back from injury and got hurt again. Thus was born the really lame quarterback play-until-you-suck platoon that lasted all through 2001, as both Bryson Spinner and Matt Schaub played in relief of Ellis.
Plus, the Oahu Bowl (which at the time was essentially the little brother to the Aloha Bowl) was in its final incarnation, and would become the Seattle Bowl the following year and play its last game ever the year after that. It was pretty minor stuff.
#15 - 2004 Humanitarian Bowl - Fresno State 37, Virginia 34
This was just plain depressing. UVA started the season 5-0 and ranked #6 before finishing 3-3. Then, the school declined a CS Bowl bid because it took place during final exams. Georgia Tech would end up in Florida. That wound us up in snowy Boise on the blue turf, against feisty Fresno State, and the game was all ours and then it wasn't, with an OT loss on Fresno's first play. And for those of us watching on TV, we got to listen to the dulcet tones of Pam Ward.
Oh, and that CS Bowl that Georgia Tech got into because of our academic standards? They won it 51-14.
#14 - 1991 Gator Bowl - Oklahoma 48, Virginia 14
Great bowl game. (The Gator Bowl held quite a bit more cachet than it does today.) Great opponent. Miserable-assed outcome. Even with ACC Player of the Year Matt Blundin, UVA was down 34-0 before they knew what hit 'em. This was even less competitive than the Illinois game that would come eight years later - at least that one was tied at 7 at one point. And yet it's still better than losing to Fresno State in Boise with Pam Ward calling the game.
#13 - 1994 Car Parts Bowl ('93 season) - Boston College 31, Virginia 13
This was a pretty good game for two quarters. UVA was up 13-10 at one point - and then never scored again. Until the 2007 season, this was the last time UVA ever played on New Year's Day.
#12 - 1996 Car Parts Bowl - Miami 31, Virginia 21
Now we're getting to the part where losing doesn't suck 110%. UVA spent most of this game behind, but you couldn't fault the defense; Miami's offense only managed 17 points in this one. The rest was the Canes' Tremain Mack, who scored a pair of defensive touchdowns to propel Miami to the victory. The Hoos had to play catch-up all day, but at least gave themselves a shot to win.
#11 - 2008 Gator Bowl - Texas Tech 31, Virginia 28
A heartbreaker no matter how you slice it. UVA forced not one, but two safeties against the high-powered Texas Tech air assault, led by Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree, and held a 28-14 fourth-quarter lead. Mikell Simpson had a 96-yard touchdown run, which at the time was an NCAA bowl record and is still the 2nd-longest bowl-game run in history. But UVA found itself unable to escape being pinned deep in its own territory late in the fourth quarter, with starting QB Jameel Sewell out with injury and true freshman Peter Lalich running the show. Lalich fumbled to set up the tying touchdown, and TT would hit the game-winning field goal on their next drive.
#10 - 1990 Citrus Bowl ('89 season) - Illinois 31, Virginia 21
The kind of game you don't totally hate the world for losing. Someone had to. Two star quarterbacks - UVA's Shawn Moore and Illinois's Jeff George - clashed on New Year's Day in UVA's reward for sharing the ACC championship. UVA recovered three Illinois fumbles but had to try and dig out of a 24-7 third-quarter deficit and wasn't able to. George would later be the1st overall pick in that year's NFL Draft.
#9 - 1991 Sugar Bowl ('90 season) - Tennessee 23, Virginia 22
New Year's Day. Sugar Bowl. Tennessee, back when it was cool to be Tennessee. This was possibly UVA's most prime-timey of all prime-time matchups, and it followed a season in which UVA had earned, for three weeks, the #1 ranking in the country. UVA controlled the first three quarters, but didn't take full advantage and only led 16-3 going into the fourth, where the Volunteer offense came alive and rattled off three touchdowns. The Hoos got the ball back with 31 seconds needing only to get to field goal range, only about 38 yards away, but Matt Blundin was intercepted to seal the win for Tennessee.
#8 - 1998 Peach Bowl - Georgia 35, Virginia 33
Between this and the Sugar Bowl it was a very, very close one to earn the title of "best loss" in the bowl department. The Sugar is the Sugar, so there's that, but the history between these two teams, in the same stadium, tips it this direction. Georgia earned its revenge from two years prior when UVA beat the Bulldogs in Atlanta, storming back from a 21-0 halftime deficit to take a 35-27 lead late in the game. UVA scored what would have been the game-tying touchdown had the 2PC been successful, and recovered the ensuing onside kick, too. But a field goal attempt as time ran out sailed wide. Kicking woes essentially cost UVA the game, as the 2PC would've been unnecessary had another extra point not failed in the third quarter.
#7 - 1994 Independence Bowl - Virginia 20, TCU 10
The Weedeater Bowl! The Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl - the poster child for shitty corporate bowl names. The name so stupid it became legend. I didn't need an inner 12-year-old to giggle about this silliness because I was 12, and even then I knew this was record-setting stupidity. And UVA was one of the privileged few to win the Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl.
The worst win is better than the best loss, and this was the worst win. Played in a nasty rain, the game was a mud bowl with nothing especially distinguishing about the performance other than a nice defensive showing that held the Horny Frogs to 65 passing yards.
#6 - 1987 All-American Bowl - Virginia 22, Brigham Young 16
In UVA's second bowl appearance ever, it faced a formidable offense in the BYU Cougars. UVA turned the game into a run-fest in order to keep the high-powered BYU offense sidelined, and the game plan worked to perfection. A pair of fourth-down stands, one on fourth-and-goal from the two, cemented the win. A solid game, but the venue (Birmingham, Alabama) and a short-lived bowl game push it down the list a little.
#5 - 2005 Music City Bowl - Virginia 34, Minnesota 31
For just the second time in its history, UVA made its fourth consecutive bowl appearance, and it turned out to be one of the comebackier games in school history. UVA trailed 14-0 and 21-7 to start, but worked its way back and tied the game at 31 in the fourth. Then, pinned on the three-yard line after a Minnesota punt forced by a quality defensive stand, Marques Hagans drove the Hoos down the field for what would be the game-winning field goal.
#4 - 2003 Tire Bowl - Virginia 23, Pittsburgh 16
The main story going into the game was that Pitt's Larry Fitzgerald had scored at least one touchdown in every game he'd played that season, and the story going out of it was that he didn't. Virginia's defense came up with a great plan to stop Fitzgerald, forcing Pitt QB Rod Rutherford to throw elsewhere all day. But what gives this game the tiebreak over the two somewhat similar games previously listed was the goal-line stand. With the game still scoreless, UVA's defense came up with four consecutive stops on its own one-yard line, and four plays later, Matt Schaub found (fittingly) Heath Miller for a 52-yard touchdown that broke the school passing record for TDs. That gave UVA a 7-0 lead, and the Hoos would never trail in a game that never seemed as close as the seven-point final margin.
#3 - 1984 Peach Bowl - Virginia 27, Purdue 24
We have to give UVA's first-ever bowl game some love, so here it is in the top three. One, did I mention it was the Hoos' first bowl game ever? Second, it gives me braggin' rights to this very day because my brother is a Purdue grad and the Hoos have not played the Boilers since. Even though I was two when this game was played and he was a tiny newborn. And I didn't actually become a UVA fan until sixteen years later. Don't care. Woot woot. Third, it was a pretty darn good game.
UVA was down 24-14 at the half, but George Welsh must have said something fiery at halftime because the Hoos owned the rest of the game. Purdue didn't score, and UVA racked up almost 200 rushing yards in the second half alone. It was a pretty good quarterback battle, too, with two future NFL starters going at it in the Hoos' Majic Man, Don Majkowski, and Purdue's Jim Everett, futurely of the Rams and Saints.
#2 - 2002 Tire Bowl - Virginia 48, West Virginia 22
It was the Era of Good Feelings for Al Groh. Optimism was high.... and UVA was snubbed. Hoo fans were somewhat miffed that UVA slid down the bowl pecking order despite finishing with a 6-2 conference record, good for second place (and cackling with glee that 4-4 Clemson, one of the teams picked over UVA, was cornholed by 40 points.) Partly because of this season, the ACC would later institute the rule that forbids bowls from selecting a team with two fewer conference wins than a still-available one.
But we still had to go to Charlotte to play in a brand-new bowl, in front of a sold-out and highly partisan crowd cheering its mountainous lungs out for West Virginia. So naturally, it was a slaughter. Freshman running back Wali Lundy ripped off four touchdowns, the Pep Band was forever banned from the bowl for tellin' it like it is about West Virginia, and UVA left with a 26-point win. Good times.
#1 - 1995 Peach Bowl - Virginia 34, Georgia 27
Is this game #1 because of how we're going back to the Peach Bowl? No. Maybe? No. UVA never trailed, but did blow a 24-7 lead, to the delight of the hometown crowd, and UGA seemingly had the Hoos on the ropes after tying it up 27-27. The Hoos never had an answer for Georgia's Hines Ward at quarterback (yes, the Steelers' wide receiver), who threw for 413 yards. Timely interceptions and timely stops prevented Ward's incredible playmaking from becoming a killer.
The game ended on a thrilling note, with Georgia scooping and scoring a UVA fumble following a completed pass; UGA earned an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, kicked off from their 20-yard line, and Demetrius Allen returned it to the house to stake UVA to its eventual winning margin. Highlights here because you love it.
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-- And speaking of the Peach Bowl, it just got a little easier; no doubt you know by now that Auburn suspended Michael Dyer, and he'll miss the game. Dyer is a Kevin Parks-type - smallish but powerfully built, with the ability to wear down a defense. 1,200 yards won't be made up for easily. Auburn will turn to Onterio McCalebb, who is basically good-not-great and can occasionally break one but usually won't, and Tre Mason, who I don't know anything about.
-- The Mountain West is going to formally request a BCS autobid. This opens up some amusing possibilities. If they get it, do they tell C-USA to go pound sand, the merger is off? If they get it, and furthermore the Big Eastish gets the boot as a result, do Boise State and San Diego State feel stupid, really stupid, or galactically stupid? And would that be funny or uproariously funny? So many questions. Bet you the Big Eastish lobbies their asses off against the MWC - if the MWC gets that sweet sweet delicious autobid, it wouldn't surprise if that causes the latest Big Eastish expansion to collapse like the TCU attempt did. Nor would it surprise if it causes Connecticut to start calling John Swofford three times daily.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
auburnscouting: the season
It was kind of fun trying to decide how to set up the run-up to the Peach Bowl. Never got to cover UVA in a bowl before so I got all tingly. I settled on a three-part series, and this is the first; on Fridays this month we will go over some aspect of the Auburn Tigers. Today, the season; the following weeks, the offense and defense. The game is on a Saturday, so that's perfect: the fourth week, I can do the game preview on Thursday like usual and then get drunk over New Year's.
Link in advance: all blog reactions are taken from the Auburn SB Nation blog, Track 'Em Tigers. There's another Auburn blog out there, but I checked it out and the second-to-latest post is a sneer at our supposed inability to sell tickets. So no linky. Let us see how the football season went down from the Auburn perspective:
(P.S. before we start, because this is an interesting tidbit: UVA will be in orange jerseys for the Peach Bowl. If it seems weird that that would be news, it's the SEC's turn to be the home team, so Auburn will be in blue. No white for anyone. I like it, as long as we're not also in orange pants. Now back to the show.)
-- Game 1: #23 Auburn 42, Utah State 38 (1-0)
The story: It took one half of football to realize that this was gonna be a very different team than last year's national championship version, and a second half of football was necessary to avert disaster. Utah State led Auburn 21-14 at halftime and 38-28 with three and a half minutes left, after a clock-chewing 65-yard touchdown drive that saw the Aggies convert a 4th-and-8 from the Auburn 10, and punch in the touchdown two plays later. But Auburn scored quickly and recovered an onside kick, leading to a game-winning drive to rescue themselves from what would've been a nasty upset. Utah State outgained Auburn 448-364 and 227-78 on the ground, and converted three of three fourth-down attempts.
Gene Chizik said: "Offensively and defensively we're a long way off of being able to win very many games right now."
Blog reaction: "By mid-afternoon Saturday, Auburn people knew what coaches surely have known for weeks: The party is over. All good times must come to an end; but this hangover is likely to require more than a few Tylenols and a long nap. ... On Saturday, Gene Chizik and company came face-to-face with a near death experience."
-- Game 2: Auburn 41, #16 Mississippi State 34 (2-0)
The story: Auburn rediscovered their rushing game, with Mike Dyer tearing the Bulldogs up to the tune of 150 yards and two touchdowns, but for the second week in a row it came right down to the wire. To the very last play, in fact; Mississippi State's Chris Relf looked like he was headed for the end zone and a potential game-winning TD (the Bulldogs would've gone for two) but was upended less than a foot from pay dirt. It was a back-and-forth game with each team recording a pick-six. Quarterback Barrett Trotter, Cam Newton's replacement, had a second straight efficient day throwing the ball.
Gene Chizik said: "Are we a great football team right now? No. Not even close. But the identity of the team is starting to form week by week because they will fight. They will not look at the scoreboard, and that's been one of the trademarks that we've really tried to instill in these guys that we are not looking for the scoreboard until it says 0:00 because everything else in-between does not matter."
Blog reaction: "What fans witnessed on this hot, humid afternoon epitomizes everything there is to love about the game and Auburn football. On a day when Miss State and its fans arrived in swarms for its coronation into the SEC elite, Auburn and its band of no-names picked up its 17th straight win."
-- Game 3: Clemson 38, #21 Auburn 24 (2-1)
Game story: Tigers vs. Tigers. Early on it looked like Auburn would notch another point for SEC superiority, holding a 14-0 lead at the end of the 1st quarter and 21-7 midway through the 2nd. But it was all Clemson after that; the ACC's Tigers tied it up by halftime, and dominated the second half to strike a blow for the Atlantic Coast. This was the Sammy Watkins debutante party - Auburn had no answer for him whatsoever, and he had his season high in catches and yards with 10 and 155 respectively, on national TV no less.
It was a second terrific game for Mike Dyer, but Barrett Trotter was only 12-for-25 against the Clemson defense. Travante Stallworth led the team in receiving for the second time in three games, but he would disappear after this game, catching just three more passes all season. And on defense, Auburn gave up 624 yards.
Gene Chizik said: "The first quarter is probably the best that we've played. After the end of the second quarter, I felt like we were a very below average football team."
Blog reaction: "It's time for some Auburn people to face reality. This team is not winning nine games. It's not defying the odds on the way to Atlanta.** Intelligent Auburn people know it. For our less intelligent brethren, we need to do a little education. Roof is not stupid and Malzahn is still among the best offensive coordinators in the country. Nothing has changed."
**note - meaning the SECCG, not the bowl game.
-- Game 4: Auburn 30, Florida Atlantic 14 (3-1)
Game story: A lackluster game against a really shitty team (FAU finished 1-11) saw a mildly disgruntled crowd at a not-full Jordan-Hare stadium. Auburn led just 10-6 at the half, could never get its running game on track, and finished with 315 yards of offense - eight more than FAU. Auburn's defense bent (a lot) but didn't break; the score of 14 was achieved with two field goals plus a late touchdown against Auburn's bench. The defense gathered a pick-six in the opening minutes of the second half to gain a little breathing room, and by the beginning of the fourth quarter, the game was mercifully in hand. Receiver Trovon Reed would miss the next month or so with a shoulder injury suffered in this game.
Gene Chizik said: "Gentlemen, what the fuck was that?"
Gene Chizik didn't say that. At least, not to the media. Chizik actually said: "We didn't play like we wanted to play the whole night, but we certainly showed a lot of improvement in my opinion."
Blog reaction: "An Auburn bowl bid seems highly unlikely at this point. On record as a defender of the Auburn coaching staff this season, Saturday was a step backwards. Who cares that the defensive stats were vastly improved. Against arguably the worst offense in college football, the Auburn defense continued to surrender way too many yards and miss easy tackles."
-- Game 5: Auburn 16, #10 South Carolina 13 (4-1)
Game story: Much-maligned thanks to the previous couple weeks, the Auburn defense stepped up to the task and helped Auburn to its best win all season. Barrett Trotter only threw for 112 yards, and Michael Dyer needed a whopping 41 carries to grind out his 141 yards, but the offense came up with a game-winning drive in the fourth-quarter, and South Carolina's two-minute offense fell short. Auburn picked off Stephen Garcia twice and held him to 9-of-23 passing, and also blocked a PAT. Trotter was also intercepted twice, and South Carolina actually came up with four interceptions overall, two of them coming when the Tigers tried to get fancypants with the play-calling. Probably the biggest thing Auburn did, though, was hold the Gamecocks' all-world running back Marcus Lattimore to 66 yards.
Gene Chizik said: "At the end of the day, you're looking at one of the Heisman Trophy leaders and we said we had to stop him; and that happened tonight."
Blog reaction**: "A little bit of swagger returned Saturday night. It's something that should serve Auburn well going forward. Suddenly a team that was hoping for a bowl bid is now playing for much more."
**At first I clicked on the headline, "A Day To Remember." That seemed like the logical place to find a narrative about a big win. Nope: amusing colonoscopy story. I think I like this blog. Seriously.
-- Game 6: #10 Arkansas 38, #15 Auburn 14 (4-2)
Game story: For the second week in a row, Auburn went on the road to face a #10 team. It didn't go so good this time. Auburn led 14-7 after one quarter and spent the rest of the time getting smoked. Barrett Trotter was a miserable 6-of-19 for 81 yards, and this game was the beginning of the end of his time as a starter. Clint Moseley and freshman Kiehl Frazier were inserted at various points.
The run game was more than effective; Frazier, Dyer, and Onterio McCalebb combined for 47 carries and 257 yards, and Auburn racked up 291 total. But the passing game was horrible, and the defense was bad; the backbreaker was a 92-yard TD run by the Hogs' Joe Adams in the third quarter to put Arkansas up by two touchdowns.
Gene Chizik said: "We did all the things tonight, all the classic things, that lead to losing. We turned the ball over on the road, dropped balls, guys who were wide open and we can't hit them, the ball going through guys' hands."
Blog reaction: "Now Auburn coaches face the inevitable fork in the road. We suspected the time was coming. The question is simple to ask, yet hard to answer. What does Auburn do about its quarterback situation? ... Things are not going to magically change in the coming weeks. Auburn caught a break in beating Miss State and South Carolina - teams that were far less than advertised in the preseason. The same may hold true when Florida comes visiting Saturday night."
-- Game 7: #24 Auburn 17, Florida 6 (5-2)
Game story: Trotter threw a touchdown pass in the first half and Auburn took a 7-6 lead to halftime, but that was one of only two Trotter completions in the entire half. When the Tigers took the field in the second half, the reins had been handed to Clint Moseley. Permanently. Moseley was not exactly awesome, but the offense moved better than it had.
Which isn't saying much, at least as far as this game was concerned. Defenses ruled the day; Auburn held the Gators to 194 total yards, and only got 278 of their own. Half of that came on six plays; Auburn averaged 2.3 yards on the others. The Tigers converted just one of 13 third-down attempts, but the defense played maybe its best game of the year, so it mattered little.
Gene Chizik said: "Dominant. I think that is the only word you could use. Probably 40 or 50 yards of their offense came on the last drive when we knew they had two scores. I couldn't be more proud."
Blog reaction: "There's been nothing pretty about the season except for the results."
-- Game 8: #1 LSU 45, #20 Auburn 10 (5-3)
Game story: Except for a few pass attempts by Kiehl Frazier, the job under center belonged to Clint Moseley; Barrett Trotter was relegated to clipboard duty and in fact has not thrown a pass since the Florida game. It didn't matter here. LSU registered about forty sacks (actually six) in a game that wasn't even as close as the final score - and the final score showed a five-TD loss for the Tigers. The Auburn ones. Man, I'm glad we have a nickname - two, actually - that nobody else has.
Gene Chizik said: "It's really difficult to really assess how [Moseley] did. Six sacks are unacceptable. You don't win any football games by allowing six sacks. That was an anemic job of protecting the quarterback. We have a lot of work to do and a lot of research to do to figure out how to stop the bleeding in that regard."
Blog reaction: "From the start, it was clear that LSU had the better team. Auburn's offensive line looked like a New Orleans levy trying to hold off Katrina. It's hard to imagine a better team in college football this season..."
-- Game 9: #23 Auburn 41, Mississippi 23 (6-3)
Game story: Moseley finally had a chance to get his feet under him, and the results were very positive: four touchdown passes. He was helped by a 177-yard performance from Dyer, too. This was a tie game at halftime, 17-17, and the Auburn defense probably needed a kick in the pants; whatever they got, it worked, because Ole Miss only racked up 38 yards in the third quarter and then threw 20 of them away on sack/IG penalty. Auburn scored 24 straight points in the second half before Ole Miss tacked on a meaningless touchdown as time expired.
Gene Chizik said: "At halftime, we made a lot of great adjustments, adjusting defensively to some of the run game that we needed to get under control that in the first half got away from us a little bit. Coach (Ted) Roof and the defensive staff did a really nice job with that. ... The great thing about our team up to this point is that we haven't lost twice in a row. We have not let one loss beat us twice in a row and for a young football team, I think that speaks highly of them."
Blog reaction: "I remember it like it was yesterday. Sitting in a hotel in Atlanta on a cold December day, the news hit me like a case of malaria. Auburn had settled on Iowa State's Gene Chizik as its new coach. It was official: Auburn was circling the drain of college football. On December 13, 2008, I wrote, 'To say this move (hiring Chizik) is shocking is an understatement. For many Auburn fans, this is a worst case scenario. There appears to be little logic in the choice.' I've never been more wrong about anything in my life. ... Gene Chizik continues to be the gift that keeps on giving."
-- Game 10: #15 Georgia 45, #20 Auburn 7 (6-4)
Game story: Coming off a win and a bye week, Auburn had some hopes for this game; the result was their worst of the season. The Bulldogs dominated every facet of the game, racking up 528 yards to Auburn's 195. After Auburn tied it at 7 in the first quarter, Georgia rolled up five touchdowns and a field goal for 38 unanswered points. Not much to say, because the game was just hideous for Auburn fans.
Gene Chizik said: "It was pretty evident what we couldn't do, and that was a lot. ... We didn't cover many people all night, couldn't stop the run and turned the ball over. That's why we got beat 45-7."
Blog reaction: "While basking in the glow of seven wins in nine years over Alabama, the Georgia rivalry has become a horror show for the Auburn football program. With Saturday's humiliating beat down in Athens, Auburn has now lost five of its last six games to its second biggest rival."
-- Game 11: #24 Auburn 35, Samford 16 (7-4)
Game story: It was another bad day for the Auburn defense. Some I-AA teams have the capacity to upset even quality I-A teams; Samford should not be one of them, but there they were in the third quarter, trailing the defending national champions by just 14-13. Perhaps they were simply tired of facing teams named the Bulldogs.
Fortunately for the Tigers, Auburn pulled away late, and disaster was averted. After Samford made it 21-16 with a field goal, a short kickoff and a long runback gave Auburn excellent field position in Samford territory, and they capitalized with a 22-yard TD run by the normally not-mobile Moseley; the game was essentially salted away after that. They were aided by yet another 150+ yard day from Michael Dyer.
Gene Chizik said: " I can make all kinds of excuses about how at times we didn't play well. I can pull them out of the kitchen sink now, but the reality of it is there were times where they played really well and there were times where we didn't."
Blog reaction: (whatever it's Alabama week)
-- Game 12: #2 Alabama 42, #24 Auburn 14
Game story: Last year, Auburn's title hopes looked shot at halftime of the Alabama game; they fixed that problem with a comeback that no doubt will live in semi-immortality in Auburn lore. This year, the Tigers again found themselves down 24-7 at halftime of the Iron Bowl, and an 83-yard kick return for a TD by Onterio McCalebb to start the second half got people wondering if we were in for a sequel.
It wasn't to be. Alabama responded with a field goal, and then two touchdowns in the fourth, to put away the henceforth scoreless Tigers. Auburn couldn't do anything about Heisman candidate running back Trent Richardson, who piled up 203 yards. And Clint Moseley only tallied 62 yards through the air. For the second straight year, the Iron Bowl winner went on to play for the national title, but the script got flipped on Auburn in 2011.
Gene Chizik said: "It's been a lot of ups and downs this season for 12 games, and we've had some really good things occur in our 12 game season, and we've had some disappointments. This is certainly one of the huge disappointments."
Blog reaction: "From the start things never felt right. Not since the lowly days of the Doug Barfield era has a lead up to the Iron Bowl felt so hopeless. As ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit noted on air Saturday morning, there were few believers among the Auburn faithful. Of course, it didn't take Danny Sheridan to tell Auburn fans what was ahead. The reality had set in weeks ago. Alabama's manhandling of Auburn was the most complete beating Auburn has taken at home in a generation."
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So, what lessons have we learned?
Well, Auburn fans, and probably the pundits as well, will point out that Auburn has generally faced a much better level of competition than UVA has. True; there was nothing like LSU or Alabama on our schedule, and the closest we came to a Georgia or an Arkansas was Virginia Tech. Florida State has talent approximating what UGA and Arkansas bring, but probably is not coached as well.
The counter to that is that in the games where Auburn was playing really bad competition, they mostly stunk. They won, but they stunk. Florida Atlantic racked up 20 first downs after getting one the previous week. Ole Miss was tied at halftime. Samford was behind by one in the third quarter. Utah State was up by ten with 3:38 to go. Auburn pulled out wins in all of these, but none can be said to have been inspiring. They also generally got blown out of the water by all that great competition.
In general, they appeared to have all the hallmarks of a very young team. Like duh. They graduated Cam Newton and Nick Fairley and pretty much everyone else that was any good, and started a bunch of young dudes in their places. It showed. Horrible performances at times; and then again, holding the electric Marcus Lattimore (pre-injury) to 66 yards. And a dominant performance against Florida. (Florida's offense sucks this year, but still.)
Auburn spent most of the year ranked, but largely, I think, due to a predisposition by the media to rank SEC teams. (They were never really punished for the parade of ass-beatings they received.) I don't think they deserved to be ranked, and my Blogpoll ballots showed as much. Today, neither Virginia nor Auburn is in the AP top 25, though Virginia has five votes from somewhere.
It was kind of a tumultuous season. Quarterback controversies, the firing of the defensive coordinator, and a general feeling that the offensive coordinator eventually will move on to a head coaching position. (Gus Malzahn did supposedly interview for the UNC job before they hired Larry Fedora.) Auburn never lost consecutive games all year, and after the Arkansas loss in early October, didn't win consecutive games either. Starting with that game, they alternated results. It resulted in a lot of up and down feelings.
To compare with UVA's season, the best win between the two teams is the South Carolina one for Auburn, followed by UVA's win over FSU. Both were on the road. Besides that, Auburn's only wins over winning teams were those over 6-5 Samford and 7-5 Utah State. Auburn beat four bowl-eligible teams and three with winning records; UVA beat three and two, respectively. The Tigers didn't lose any games they shouldn't have. Came close, but didn't. It's sort of an unimpressive 7-5, but you might say the same about UVA's 8-4 if you didn't take the change in QB philosophy into account. By contrast, it's much harder to say if Auburn's QB switch improved matters.
Next week, we'll tackle the Auburn offense. (Geddit? Tackle?) Gus Malzahn is a hurry-up, no-huddle, spread kinda guy, making things interesting for the UVA defense.
Link in advance: all blog reactions are taken from the Auburn SB Nation blog, Track 'Em Tigers. There's another Auburn blog out there, but I checked it out and the second-to-latest post is a sneer at our supposed inability to sell tickets. So no linky. Let us see how the football season went down from the Auburn perspective:
(P.S. before we start, because this is an interesting tidbit: UVA will be in orange jerseys for the Peach Bowl. If it seems weird that that would be news, it's the SEC's turn to be the home team, so Auburn will be in blue. No white for anyone. I like it, as long as we're not also in orange pants. Now back to the show.)
-- Game 1: #23 Auburn 42, Utah State 38 (1-0)
The story: It took one half of football to realize that this was gonna be a very different team than last year's national championship version, and a second half of football was necessary to avert disaster. Utah State led Auburn 21-14 at halftime and 38-28 with three and a half minutes left, after a clock-chewing 65-yard touchdown drive that saw the Aggies convert a 4th-and-8 from the Auburn 10, and punch in the touchdown two plays later. But Auburn scored quickly and recovered an onside kick, leading to a game-winning drive to rescue themselves from what would've been a nasty upset. Utah State outgained Auburn 448-364 and 227-78 on the ground, and converted three of three fourth-down attempts.
Gene Chizik said: "Offensively and defensively we're a long way off of being able to win very many games right now."
Blog reaction: "By mid-afternoon Saturday, Auburn people knew what coaches surely have known for weeks: The party is over. All good times must come to an end; but this hangover is likely to require more than a few Tylenols and a long nap. ... On Saturday, Gene Chizik and company came face-to-face with a near death experience."
-- Game 2: Auburn 41, #16 Mississippi State 34 (2-0)
The story: Auburn rediscovered their rushing game, with Mike Dyer tearing the Bulldogs up to the tune of 150 yards and two touchdowns, but for the second week in a row it came right down to the wire. To the very last play, in fact; Mississippi State's Chris Relf looked like he was headed for the end zone and a potential game-winning TD (the Bulldogs would've gone for two) but was upended less than a foot from pay dirt. It was a back-and-forth game with each team recording a pick-six. Quarterback Barrett Trotter, Cam Newton's replacement, had a second straight efficient day throwing the ball.
Gene Chizik said: "Are we a great football team right now? No. Not even close. But the identity of the team is starting to form week by week because they will fight. They will not look at the scoreboard, and that's been one of the trademarks that we've really tried to instill in these guys that we are not looking for the scoreboard until it says 0:00 because everything else in-between does not matter."
Blog reaction: "What fans witnessed on this hot, humid afternoon epitomizes everything there is to love about the game and Auburn football. On a day when Miss State and its fans arrived in swarms for its coronation into the SEC elite, Auburn and its band of no-names picked up its 17th straight win."
-- Game 3: Clemson 38, #21 Auburn 24 (2-1)
Game story: Tigers vs. Tigers. Early on it looked like Auburn would notch another point for SEC superiority, holding a 14-0 lead at the end of the 1st quarter and 21-7 midway through the 2nd. But it was all Clemson after that; the ACC's Tigers tied it up by halftime, and dominated the second half to strike a blow for the Atlantic Coast. This was the Sammy Watkins debutante party - Auburn had no answer for him whatsoever, and he had his season high in catches and yards with 10 and 155 respectively, on national TV no less.
It was a second terrific game for Mike Dyer, but Barrett Trotter was only 12-for-25 against the Clemson defense. Travante Stallworth led the team in receiving for the second time in three games, but he would disappear after this game, catching just three more passes all season. And on defense, Auburn gave up 624 yards.
Gene Chizik said: "The first quarter is probably the best that we've played. After the end of the second quarter, I felt like we were a very below average football team."
Blog reaction: "It's time for some Auburn people to face reality. This team is not winning nine games. It's not defying the odds on the way to Atlanta.** Intelligent Auburn people know it. For our less intelligent brethren, we need to do a little education. Roof is not stupid and Malzahn is still among the best offensive coordinators in the country. Nothing has changed."
**note - meaning the SECCG, not the bowl game.
-- Game 4: Auburn 30, Florida Atlantic 14 (3-1)
Game story: A lackluster game against a really shitty team (FAU finished 1-11) saw a mildly disgruntled crowd at a not-full Jordan-Hare stadium. Auburn led just 10-6 at the half, could never get its running game on track, and finished with 315 yards of offense - eight more than FAU. Auburn's defense bent (a lot) but didn't break; the score of 14 was achieved with two field goals plus a late touchdown against Auburn's bench. The defense gathered a pick-six in the opening minutes of the second half to gain a little breathing room, and by the beginning of the fourth quarter, the game was mercifully in hand. Receiver Trovon Reed would miss the next month or so with a shoulder injury suffered in this game.
Gene Chizik said: "Gentlemen, what the fuck was that?"
Gene Chizik didn't say that. At least, not to the media. Chizik actually said: "We didn't play like we wanted to play the whole night, but we certainly showed a lot of improvement in my opinion."
Blog reaction: "An Auburn bowl bid seems highly unlikely at this point. On record as a defender of the Auburn coaching staff this season, Saturday was a step backwards. Who cares that the defensive stats were vastly improved. Against arguably the worst offense in college football, the Auburn defense continued to surrender way too many yards and miss easy tackles."
-- Game 5: Auburn 16, #10 South Carolina 13 (4-1)
Game story: Much-maligned thanks to the previous couple weeks, the Auburn defense stepped up to the task and helped Auburn to its best win all season. Barrett Trotter only threw for 112 yards, and Michael Dyer needed a whopping 41 carries to grind out his 141 yards, but the offense came up with a game-winning drive in the fourth-quarter, and South Carolina's two-minute offense fell short. Auburn picked off Stephen Garcia twice and held him to 9-of-23 passing, and also blocked a PAT. Trotter was also intercepted twice, and South Carolina actually came up with four interceptions overall, two of them coming when the Tigers tried to get fancypants with the play-calling. Probably the biggest thing Auburn did, though, was hold the Gamecocks' all-world running back Marcus Lattimore to 66 yards.
Gene Chizik said: "At the end of the day, you're looking at one of the Heisman Trophy leaders and we said we had to stop him; and that happened tonight."
Blog reaction**: "A little bit of swagger returned Saturday night. It's something that should serve Auburn well going forward. Suddenly a team that was hoping for a bowl bid is now playing for much more."
**At first I clicked on the headline, "A Day To Remember." That seemed like the logical place to find a narrative about a big win. Nope: amusing colonoscopy story. I think I like this blog. Seriously.
-- Game 6: #10 Arkansas 38, #15 Auburn 14 (4-2)
Game story: For the second week in a row, Auburn went on the road to face a #10 team. It didn't go so good this time. Auburn led 14-7 after one quarter and spent the rest of the time getting smoked. Barrett Trotter was a miserable 6-of-19 for 81 yards, and this game was the beginning of the end of his time as a starter. Clint Moseley and freshman Kiehl Frazier were inserted at various points.
The run game was more than effective; Frazier, Dyer, and Onterio McCalebb combined for 47 carries and 257 yards, and Auburn racked up 291 total. But the passing game was horrible, and the defense was bad; the backbreaker was a 92-yard TD run by the Hogs' Joe Adams in the third quarter to put Arkansas up by two touchdowns.
Gene Chizik said: "We did all the things tonight, all the classic things, that lead to losing. We turned the ball over on the road, dropped balls, guys who were wide open and we can't hit them, the ball going through guys' hands."
Blog reaction: "Now Auburn coaches face the inevitable fork in the road. We suspected the time was coming. The question is simple to ask, yet hard to answer. What does Auburn do about its quarterback situation? ... Things are not going to magically change in the coming weeks. Auburn caught a break in beating Miss State and South Carolina - teams that were far less than advertised in the preseason. The same may hold true when Florida comes visiting Saturday night."
-- Game 7: #24 Auburn 17, Florida 6 (5-2)
Game story: Trotter threw a touchdown pass in the first half and Auburn took a 7-6 lead to halftime, but that was one of only two Trotter completions in the entire half. When the Tigers took the field in the second half, the reins had been handed to Clint Moseley. Permanently. Moseley was not exactly awesome, but the offense moved better than it had.
Which isn't saying much, at least as far as this game was concerned. Defenses ruled the day; Auburn held the Gators to 194 total yards, and only got 278 of their own. Half of that came on six plays; Auburn averaged 2.3 yards on the others. The Tigers converted just one of 13 third-down attempts, but the defense played maybe its best game of the year, so it mattered little.
Gene Chizik said: "Dominant. I think that is the only word you could use. Probably 40 or 50 yards of their offense came on the last drive when we knew they had two scores. I couldn't be more proud."
Blog reaction: "There's been nothing pretty about the season except for the results."
-- Game 8: #1 LSU 45, #20 Auburn 10 (5-3)
Game story: Except for a few pass attempts by Kiehl Frazier, the job under center belonged to Clint Moseley; Barrett Trotter was relegated to clipboard duty and in fact has not thrown a pass since the Florida game. It didn't matter here. LSU registered about forty sacks (actually six) in a game that wasn't even as close as the final score - and the final score showed a five-TD loss for the Tigers. The Auburn ones. Man, I'm glad we have a nickname - two, actually - that nobody else has.
Gene Chizik said: "It's really difficult to really assess how [Moseley] did. Six sacks are unacceptable. You don't win any football games by allowing six sacks. That was an anemic job of protecting the quarterback. We have a lot of work to do and a lot of research to do to figure out how to stop the bleeding in that regard."
Blog reaction: "From the start, it was clear that LSU had the better team. Auburn's offensive line looked like a New Orleans levy trying to hold off Katrina. It's hard to imagine a better team in college football this season..."
-- Game 9: #23 Auburn 41, Mississippi 23 (6-3)
Game story: Moseley finally had a chance to get his feet under him, and the results were very positive: four touchdown passes. He was helped by a 177-yard performance from Dyer, too. This was a tie game at halftime, 17-17, and the Auburn defense probably needed a kick in the pants; whatever they got, it worked, because Ole Miss only racked up 38 yards in the third quarter and then threw 20 of them away on sack/IG penalty. Auburn scored 24 straight points in the second half before Ole Miss tacked on a meaningless touchdown as time expired.
Gene Chizik said: "At halftime, we made a lot of great adjustments, adjusting defensively to some of the run game that we needed to get under control that in the first half got away from us a little bit. Coach (Ted) Roof and the defensive staff did a really nice job with that. ... The great thing about our team up to this point is that we haven't lost twice in a row. We have not let one loss beat us twice in a row and for a young football team, I think that speaks highly of them."
Blog reaction: "I remember it like it was yesterday. Sitting in a hotel in Atlanta on a cold December day, the news hit me like a case of malaria. Auburn had settled on Iowa State's Gene Chizik as its new coach. It was official: Auburn was circling the drain of college football. On December 13, 2008, I wrote, 'To say this move (hiring Chizik) is shocking is an understatement. For many Auburn fans, this is a worst case scenario. There appears to be little logic in the choice.' I've never been more wrong about anything in my life. ... Gene Chizik continues to be the gift that keeps on giving."
-- Game 10: #15 Georgia 45, #20 Auburn 7 (6-4)
Game story: Coming off a win and a bye week, Auburn had some hopes for this game; the result was their worst of the season. The Bulldogs dominated every facet of the game, racking up 528 yards to Auburn's 195. After Auburn tied it at 7 in the first quarter, Georgia rolled up five touchdowns and a field goal for 38 unanswered points. Not much to say, because the game was just hideous for Auburn fans.
Gene Chizik said: "It was pretty evident what we couldn't do, and that was a lot. ... We didn't cover many people all night, couldn't stop the run and turned the ball over. That's why we got beat 45-7."
Blog reaction: "While basking in the glow of seven wins in nine years over Alabama, the Georgia rivalry has become a horror show for the Auburn football program. With Saturday's humiliating beat down in Athens, Auburn has now lost five of its last six games to its second biggest rival."
-- Game 11: #24 Auburn 35, Samford 16 (7-4)
Game story: It was another bad day for the Auburn defense. Some I-AA teams have the capacity to upset even quality I-A teams; Samford should not be one of them, but there they were in the third quarter, trailing the defending national champions by just 14-13. Perhaps they were simply tired of facing teams named the Bulldogs.
Fortunately for the Tigers, Auburn pulled away late, and disaster was averted. After Samford made it 21-16 with a field goal, a short kickoff and a long runback gave Auburn excellent field position in Samford territory, and they capitalized with a 22-yard TD run by the normally not-mobile Moseley; the game was essentially salted away after that. They were aided by yet another 150+ yard day from Michael Dyer.
Gene Chizik said: " I can make all kinds of excuses about how at times we didn't play well. I can pull them out of the kitchen sink now, but the reality of it is there were times where they played really well and there were times where we didn't."
Blog reaction: (whatever it's Alabama week)
-- Game 12: #2 Alabama 42, #24 Auburn 14
Game story: Last year, Auburn's title hopes looked shot at halftime of the Alabama game; they fixed that problem with a comeback that no doubt will live in semi-immortality in Auburn lore. This year, the Tigers again found themselves down 24-7 at halftime of the Iron Bowl, and an 83-yard kick return for a TD by Onterio McCalebb to start the second half got people wondering if we were in for a sequel.
It wasn't to be. Alabama responded with a field goal, and then two touchdowns in the fourth, to put away the henceforth scoreless Tigers. Auburn couldn't do anything about Heisman candidate running back Trent Richardson, who piled up 203 yards. And Clint Moseley only tallied 62 yards through the air. For the second straight year, the Iron Bowl winner went on to play for the national title, but the script got flipped on Auburn in 2011.
Gene Chizik said: "It's been a lot of ups and downs this season for 12 games, and we've had some really good things occur in our 12 game season, and we've had some disappointments. This is certainly one of the huge disappointments."
Blog reaction: "From the start things never felt right. Not since the lowly days of the Doug Barfield era has a lead up to the Iron Bowl felt so hopeless. As ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit noted on air Saturday morning, there were few believers among the Auburn faithful. Of course, it didn't take Danny Sheridan to tell Auburn fans what was ahead. The reality had set in weeks ago. Alabama's manhandling of Auburn was the most complete beating Auburn has taken at home in a generation."
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So, what lessons have we learned?
Well, Auburn fans, and probably the pundits as well, will point out that Auburn has generally faced a much better level of competition than UVA has. True; there was nothing like LSU or Alabama on our schedule, and the closest we came to a Georgia or an Arkansas was Virginia Tech. Florida State has talent approximating what UGA and Arkansas bring, but probably is not coached as well.
The counter to that is that in the games where Auburn was playing really bad competition, they mostly stunk. They won, but they stunk. Florida Atlantic racked up 20 first downs after getting one the previous week. Ole Miss was tied at halftime. Samford was behind by one in the third quarter. Utah State was up by ten with 3:38 to go. Auburn pulled out wins in all of these, but none can be said to have been inspiring. They also generally got blown out of the water by all that great competition.
In general, they appeared to have all the hallmarks of a very young team. Like duh. They graduated Cam Newton and Nick Fairley and pretty much everyone else that was any good, and started a bunch of young dudes in their places. It showed. Horrible performances at times; and then again, holding the electric Marcus Lattimore (pre-injury) to 66 yards. And a dominant performance against Florida. (Florida's offense sucks this year, but still.)
Auburn spent most of the year ranked, but largely, I think, due to a predisposition by the media to rank SEC teams. (They were never really punished for the parade of ass-beatings they received.) I don't think they deserved to be ranked, and my Blogpoll ballots showed as much. Today, neither Virginia nor Auburn is in the AP top 25, though Virginia has five votes from somewhere.
It was kind of a tumultuous season. Quarterback controversies, the firing of the defensive coordinator, and a general feeling that the offensive coordinator eventually will move on to a head coaching position. (Gus Malzahn did supposedly interview for the UNC job before they hired Larry Fedora.) Auburn never lost consecutive games all year, and after the Arkansas loss in early October, didn't win consecutive games either. Starting with that game, they alternated results. It resulted in a lot of up and down feelings.
To compare with UVA's season, the best win between the two teams is the South Carolina one for Auburn, followed by UVA's win over FSU. Both were on the road. Besides that, Auburn's only wins over winning teams were those over 6-5 Samford and 7-5 Utah State. Auburn beat four bowl-eligible teams and three with winning records; UVA beat three and two, respectively. The Tigers didn't lose any games they shouldn't have. Came close, but didn't. It's sort of an unimpressive 7-5, but you might say the same about UVA's 8-4 if you didn't take the change in QB philosophy into account. By contrast, it's much harder to say if Auburn's QB switch improved matters.
Next week, we'll tackle the Auburn offense. (Geddit? Tackle?) Gus Malzahn is a hurry-up, no-huddle, spread kinda guy, making things interesting for the UVA defense.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
that's a Peach, hon
In what I'd call the surprise of the bowl season, UVA is not going to the Music City Bowl. Nor is UVA going to Charlotte. Nor even the Sun Bowl in El Paso. Get ready for prime time in Atlanta - Virginia will match up against former uni-pants sister team Auburn, one year removed from a national title game appearance.
I'll get straight to brass tacks: this is the best thing that has happened to UVA football since I don't know when. New Year's Eve. Prime time. Auburn. The Peach Bowl. UVA has a great history playing in this game. This was the first bowl Virginia ever played in. It's the site of perhaps our biggest bowl win ever. If you bought my theory that UVA needed at least a 6-6 season so that they could go to a bowl and keep the recruiting momentum going, then you have to figure this is a recruiting bonanza. Especially if we win.
If you're looking for someone to thank for this, look at two teams: Clemson, and our old amigos, Southern Miss. Clemson winning yesterday kept Virginia Tech out of the Orange Bowl. There's no chance a four-loss Clemson team would've been selected for the BCS, so UVA wouldn't have been as likely to jump this high in the pecking order. (We might still have - but the chances would be much less.) But even more so, thank our old thorn Austin Davis and the Southern Miss Golden Eagles. If they don't upset Houston, Houston gets an autobid, ends up in the Sugar Bowl, and there's no room for VT there. And just like that, VT would've been in Atlanta.
Atlanta is an SEC hotbed - it's something of a mixing bowl of SEC teams, really. You got UGA, USCe, Alabama, Auburn, UF, UT....all heavily represented. So it's a road game. Virginia also has a following in Atlanta, but we'll be outnumbered, all by people who'll likely be dismissing their opponent as a weakling from a basketball conference. The mighty Ess-Eee-Cee shall prevail.
Fortunately, Auburn is a beatable opponent. Not a cupcake by any stretch, but still a tiny shadow of last year's version. They have good wins (South Carolina) and really bad ones (Utah State.) A cursory glance at the statistics reveals a solid running game and a midseason quarterback switch that appeared to be reasonably effective. (Sound familiar?) Later on this month, I'll get into the Auburn nitty-gritty to get you up to speed.
Here's one bit to get you started; you may know already that Auburn owes its very colors to the University of Virginia, and in return, it's likely we owe some of the knowledge to the history of those orange and blue colors to Auburn research.
I would bet that some crazy behind-the-scenes horse-trading has been going on since yesterday afternoon. However it happened, it's nice that maybe, just maybe, a little luck finally shines down on the Hoos. Instead of playing below slot with other teams leapfrogging us, a la 2002, we get the tables turned and get to play above slot. Actually, scratch that - this is our slot. If you tiebreak things out so as to rank the ACC from top to bottom, we're #3, edging Wake Forest. It's just that we've been so long used to dropping down a notch or two in favor of the marquee teams with supposedly better traveling parties. Not this year. Now it's time to take advantage.
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