When Auburn went up 24-7 in the 3rd quarter against Ole Miss yesterday on Walt McFadden's insane pick six, I texted my friend that the game was much more fun than any of the previous three. He accused me of potentially jinxing it (about the time Ben Tate ran half the field for a touchdown and a 24-point lead), but I knew that might be the case. I wasn't afraid of a jinx because even if we had blown the game and lost, it was still more enjoyable than the previous three weekends. The offense returned to ludicrous speed, Todd threw some deep balls, and the defense showed up in a big way. That seemed like a game from the 5-0 Auburn, for sure.
However, I feel (along with some of my Auburn brethren, I'm sure) a little frustrated by the game. Had we played like that during our three week swoon, we could be 7-2 or 8-1 right now with our sights firmly on a New Year's Day Bowl and possibly in control of our destiny in the SEC West. So what changed from the first five games to those three to the Ole Miss game? I am pinpointing it on one thing: offensive tempo.
During our statement 26-22 victory in Knoxville, I noticed that the offense was running at a slower pace than we had seen in the first four weeks, but I attributed that to the fact we were playing on the road for the first time, in a loud stadium. We needed to get more signals from the sideline presnap in order to get into a positive play. However, we continued to employ this strategy more and more in the next three games and it bit us.
What we saw yesterday was a return to Malzahn's preferred ludicrous speed. We actually got a delay of game penalty called because we snapped the ball too soon. I have never seen that in my 20 years of watching football games. Gustav was running the offense the way he originally envisioned, and it worked. We scored more points, gained more yards, and wore down Ole Miss' defense. It certainly was a 5-0 Auburn-esque performance. So that leads to the question, "Why did we slow it down so much?" And I think the answer is simple: lack of depth on defense.
Auburn's depth issues (especially on defense) have been well-chronicled this season. When you run an offense that tries to score in as little time as possible, that wears on a defense, and a defense whose depth chart probably has the team waterboy as 2nd string in a few positions is a scary thing to have wear down. I imagine that Chizik and company looked at the defense and injury reports and decided as a team to tone down the offense. Seeing the on-field results for the previous three weeks, however, Chizik decided to go back to what worked, knowing he would be risking giving up tons of points and yards on defense, and it was a gamble that paid off. I would wager that we see the offensive tempo we saw from 5-0 Auburn the rest of the season because it worked out well against Ole Miss, and we are at a point in the season where every team has guys banged up and worn down players.
What more did the Ole Miss win do for Auburn's program? Well, for one, we're bowl eligible, and in the running for an upper-tier bowl. In ESPN.com's most recent Bowl Projections, both Mark Schlabach and Bruce Feldman pick Auburn to represent the SEC in the Outback Bowl against Wisconsin (Another bowl game against the Badgers? Be still, my beating heart!). If we end up at 7-5 or 8-4 with a New Year's Day bowl game, the 2009 season can be labeled nothing less than an unequivocal success for Gene Chizik and his coaching staff. The three-game losing streak left some sour taste in Auburn fans' mouths (self included), but Mean Gene and company have done a fine job with our Tigers this season. War Eagle!
Showing posts with label gene chizik. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gene chizik. Show all posts
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
...and 19
If you're an Auburn fan reading this blog, I'd like to indulge you today. If you're not, you can probably skip this post, because it's not going to be interesting to you. Take a moment and think back on the moment you found out Auburn had hired Gene Chizik to replace Tommy Tuberville as head coach. Think about where you were, and what your initial reaction was. I can still remember thinking it was all a hoax; a mean prank played by some Alabama fan media type. Once several of the major media outlets started reporting the news as fact, however, most of Auburn nation went into meltdown mode.
While you probably weren't quite as vocal or as angry as this fellow, you probably were extremely disappointed by this hire at the time. I know personally I thought that Auburn would be entering a sort of dark ages that would take years to recover from. I've heard about the Barfield days, but wasn't alive at that point. I thought Auburn would be an awful program fighting it out for the cellar of the SEC West year-in and year-out, and this was a quite depressing prospect.
Then, something funny happened. Chizik hired the man who coordinated the nation's number one offense for the past two years.
He hired Curtis Luper and Trooper Taylor, two of the nation's finest recruiters, away from Oklahoma State. He hired former Auburn player and Outland Award winner Tracy Rocker away from Ole Miss. Things started looking better for the program, but the one overlying phrase that kept being thrown about was "5-19."
Gene Chizik went 5-19 at Iowa State, therefore, he couldn't possibly be a good head coach. Football is the one major American sport where coaching matters the most. Look at what's going on in major league baseball right now. Jim Tracy, largely thought of as a poor manager because of his stints in Los Angeles and Pittsburgh, has turned the Rockies around from 18-28 when he was hired, to an 86-66 record as of the time of this writing; the club has a record of 68-38 with him at the helm this season. If you put me in charge of the most talented teams in the four major professional sports leagues in America, I'd imagine the baseball team would perform the best and the football team would perform the worst. Why? Because baseball is a team sport filled with individual performances, while football is a team sport that completely relies on the team. That's why hiring someone with a 5-19 record was viewed as such a blunder.
However, everything Chizik has done at Auburn so far has worked. He brought in a top 20 recruiting class after giving the field several months' head start. He (and his staff) continue to impress recruits nationally. While Lane Kiffin grabbed all the headlines up in Knoxville for running his mouth and committing secondary violations, Chizik quietly went about his business and got work done.
Probably the thing that has most endeared Chizik to the Auburn faithful thus far is his desire to completely embrace the Auburn essence. He "believes in work, hard work," and he distills the notion in his team that they "can only count on what they earn." In many of his interviews, he has referred to his players as "Auburn men." He understands Auburn. He embraces Auburn. He loves Auburn.
And that is why Gene Chizik, despite all of the naysayers (self included) in the immediate aftermath of his hire, has turned out to be the right man at the right time for the job. He's made shrewd hires, he's put a major emphasis on recruiting not just locally, but also nationally, he's embraced the university and community, while getting them excited about their football team again after the boredom found at the end of the Tuberville era, and put in hours upon hours of hard work while letting his actions and his team speak for themselves. So here's to you coach, and here's to your team keeping the "and 19" at the end of your record there as long as possible. War Eagle.
While you probably weren't quite as vocal or as angry as this fellow, you probably were extremely disappointed by this hire at the time. I know personally I thought that Auburn would be entering a sort of dark ages that would take years to recover from. I've heard about the Barfield days, but wasn't alive at that point. I thought Auburn would be an awful program fighting it out for the cellar of the SEC West year-in and year-out, and this was a quite depressing prospect.
Then, something funny happened. Chizik hired the man who coordinated the nation's number one offense for the past two years.
He hired Curtis Luper and Trooper Taylor, two of the nation's finest recruiters, away from Oklahoma State. He hired former Auburn player and Outland Award winner Tracy Rocker away from Ole Miss. Things started looking better for the program, but the one overlying phrase that kept being thrown about was "5-19."
Gene Chizik went 5-19 at Iowa State, therefore, he couldn't possibly be a good head coach. Football is the one major American sport where coaching matters the most. Look at what's going on in major league baseball right now. Jim Tracy, largely thought of as a poor manager because of his stints in Los Angeles and Pittsburgh, has turned the Rockies around from 18-28 when he was hired, to an 86-66 record as of the time of this writing; the club has a record of 68-38 with him at the helm this season. If you put me in charge of the most talented teams in the four major professional sports leagues in America, I'd imagine the baseball team would perform the best and the football team would perform the worst. Why? Because baseball is a team sport filled with individual performances, while football is a team sport that completely relies on the team. That's why hiring someone with a 5-19 record was viewed as such a blunder.
However, everything Chizik has done at Auburn so far has worked. He brought in a top 20 recruiting class after giving the field several months' head start. He (and his staff) continue to impress recruits nationally. While Lane Kiffin grabbed all the headlines up in Knoxville for running his mouth and committing secondary violations, Chizik quietly went about his business and got work done.
Probably the thing that has most endeared Chizik to the Auburn faithful thus far is his desire to completely embrace the Auburn essence. He "believes in work, hard work," and he distills the notion in his team that they "can only count on what they earn." In many of his interviews, he has referred to his players as "Auburn men." He understands Auburn. He embraces Auburn. He loves Auburn.
And that is why Gene Chizik, despite all of the naysayers (self included) in the immediate aftermath of his hire, has turned out to be the right man at the right time for the job. He's made shrewd hires, he's put a major emphasis on recruiting not just locally, but also nationally, he's embraced the university and community, while getting them excited about their football team again after the boredom found at the end of the Tuberville era, and put in hours upon hours of hard work while letting his actions and his team speak for themselves. So here's to you coach, and here's to your team keeping the "and 19" at the end of your record there as long as possible. War Eagle.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Gene Chizik is no good at golf
Check out this video from al.com:
Even though the results are there, his putting stroke is just horrible. Once upon a time, I was pretty good at golf, so I know when someone has no idea what he's doing when I see it. Chizik's putting stroke isn't as bad as Chuck Barkley's full swing, but it's not any good. He has too much movement in his body and wrists; he doesn't have the pendulum stroke like Tiger Woods.
Anyways, the best thing to take from this, as Goldberg notes in the blog post I'm taking this stuff from, is that Bo Jackson is taking a more prominent role with Auburn than he had. He spoke at graduation last week, and he's appearing with Chizik, having fun. This can only be a good thing for our rebuilding program.
I kinda wish they had shown Bo's stroke, though.
| Gene Chizik, Bo Jackson putt around |
Even though the results are there, his putting stroke is just horrible. Once upon a time, I was pretty good at golf, so I know when someone has no idea what he's doing when I see it. Chizik's putting stroke isn't as bad as Chuck Barkley's full swing, but it's not any good. He has too much movement in his body and wrists; he doesn't have the pendulum stroke like Tiger Woods.
Anyways, the best thing to take from this, as Goldberg notes in the blog post I'm taking this stuff from, is that Bo Jackson is taking a more prominent role with Auburn than he had. He spoke at graduation last week, and he's appearing with Chizik, having fun. This can only be a good thing for our rebuilding program.
I kinda wish they had shown Bo's stroke, though.
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