West Virginia recap, 2nd & 3rd quarters

The plan was to finish the damn thing, but, you know, only so much of this I can take at a time, I'm afraid. We're picking up where we left off here.

It saddens me greatly, sir, to live with the knowledge that our paths must cross again.

Second quarter

1. Auburn opens the second quarter 1st-10 on the WVU 16 and in the ace set with Tommy Trott in his standard little H-back position. He goes in motion and Auburn runs Eric Smith behind him and the left side of the line (+) gets a solid push. Smith darts for 5. Nice to see Auburn pick up right where they left off in the first quarter.

2. Same formation, same play run to the weakside behind freshman Vance "Not a Blocking Tight End Quite Yet, Believe You Me" Smith (-) who gets shoved backwards two yards and slows E. Smith enough for the 'backers to converge and drop him for a loss.

3. 3rd-5, Spread, trips left ... delay of game. &%*@.

4. 3rd-10, spread, trips left ... screen to Lester. With the receivers vacating the left side of the field, WVU has four players who can stop the play. One is a lineman who reads it but gets walled off by Ziemba; two are linebackers, one of which gets slowed by Bosley peeling back and one of which is stopped by an athletic diving cut block by Berry; and one is a corner who Green absolutely pancakes. Lester walks in. TOUCHDOWN, AUBURN! 10-0, hells to the yeah. (Line ++)

5. Byrum's kickoff lands at the 11, is dropped, is frantically picked up, and is still returned to the 27. This unit has to get better.

6. This is the play chronicled Friday, where Johnson (who I'm giving the -) and McKenzie both cover White on the zone read option and leave Devine open for 36 yards' worth of free terrain. Bleccch.

7. Starting now I'm going to start abbreviating WVU's use of the zone read "ZR" and the zone read option--where White has an available handoff up the middle before running the option outsid, as on the previous play--"ZRO," because let me tell you, WVU uses these jokers a lot. This play is a ZR with Devine carrying to the same side, and this time 1. McKenzie (-) has taken a step inside and is easily sealed off 2. neither Bynes nor Johnson can get off their downfield blocks 3. Etheridge makes the tackle via horse-collar (albeit with the complication that Devine is stiff-arming him in the facemask, which ought to be a penalty every time and never has been in the history of the world). The result? WVU has moved from their own 27 to Auburn's 8 in two plays.

8. 8 in the box for Auburn and six blitz, prompting White to throw an inaccurate corner fade to the great big lanky WR covered one-on-one by McFadden. Probably the right read, lacking execution.

9. Auburn reverts to their usual 4-3 and Stevens (+) saves a touchdown on a straight option, playing heavily to an otherwise uncovered pitchman and then diving to snag White by the ankles. Still a four-yard gain because, as you will learn, Auburn is basically incapable of stopping White for less than that on the option.

10. 3rd-goal from the 4. Good call from Rhoads here as he blitzes six against a QB draw, a six that includes Johnson, who arrives squarely in the hole in the center of the line White had been planning to use. White tries to bounce it outside but Coleman (+) has contain and buries him for a loss of 2. WVU FG is good, 10-3 Auburn. I'll take it.

11. Fannin fields the kick in his own end zone, gets a great series of blocks from the three-man wedge (E. Smith, Adam Herring, and McKenzie), gets one more from Terrell Zachery, and he's off! WVU finally gang tackles him at their 31. (uh ... random special teamers collective +?)

12. I-formation, two WRs, and it's the patented Al Borges play-action wheel route to the fullback, in this case Davis. Burns (+) hits him perfectly in stride for 22 yards. I hope Davis dedicated that catch to Carl Stewart.

13. We have a John Douglas sighting, ladies and gents, as the redshirt freshman fullback is lined up at--you guessed it--fullback for Davis in the I. Auburn runs the waggle and this time WVU buys it hook, line, sinker, pole, etc., giving Burns the option of either hitting Trott for the TD or taking the honors himself. He chooses the latter (probably wisely) and thanks to a bit of a block from Carr glides into the end zone untouched. TOUCHDOWN! 17-3! Go go go new offense GO!

14. Byrum with the ONSIDES KICK! ONSIDES KICK! He's got it! Wow, Byrum (++) executed that as well as it could possibly be executed. Tap, 10 yards, fall on it. WVU didn't have anyone close. Great call by Tubby and crew.

15. Spread. Burns hands to Tate, who takes it right and flips to Billings on the reverse. Burns makes a block and there's a ton of space on that side of the field if Ziemba can just see the hard-charging safety. Ziemba, who is looking to seal someone inside as the safety goes by him outside, unfortunately does not see the hard-charging safety. (Line -) Loss of 7, and that, sadly, was Auburn's high-water mark for this game. (Will called this playcall "idiotic" and it certainly didn't fit in with the buttoned-down philosophy that had worked so well for Auburn to this point ... but I gotta say I've seen worse. If Ziemba makes that block, it's 10-15 yards minimum.)

16. I. Burns takes a five-step drop and has excellent protection (line +), but no one's open. He checks down to Tate for a yard.

17. Spread, 3rd-16. A ZR for Auburn and Burns keeps going right. Believe it or not he's into the secondary with a good chance of picking up the first if Trott (-) holds his block. Trott knows it, too; he does the single-angry-clap-of-anger after the play.

18. I'm hoping Durst (-) was told not to let the returner touch it, because a punt that goes out-of-bounds at the WVU 22 for a 34-yarder is otherwise an out-and-out shank. We discover here that WVU's punt returner (Ellis Lankster) is from Whistler, Alabama, and I'm disappointed in myself because I cannot for the life of me remember where the heck "Whistler" is. (As it's not even incorporated yet, I've since forgiven myself.)

19. Devine carries on the ZR right on WVU's 1st-10, and Auburn has it pretty well snuffed out. But Bynes has overpursued by just a tad and Devine's able to cut back nicely for 6.

20. Sanders goes in motion for WVU left to right and takes the speedy end-around handoff. With Auburn's LB's shifted to the opposite side of the field, it's up to Zach Clayton--seeing time at DE and clearly a tad hesitant for reasons I suspect are OMHGWhitesofast related--to turn and tackle Sanders as he races by. It's a gain of 8, but given Auburn's alignment I think it could be worse.

21. ZRO handoff goes to Devine up the middle, where Doolittle (-) has been blasted out of the hole with the kind of ease that lets the tackle move to the next level and smother Bynes. 20 more easy yards.

22. WVU takes a timeout, giving ESPN's overlords an opportunity to force May and Holtz to go into an interminably long and detailed breakdown of the next NASCAR race (exclusively on ESPN!). The devil now has Lou Holtz discussing Jimmy Johnthon's engine for 45 solid seconds on permanent loop in the bowels of hell, I promise you. The play, when it mercifully arrives, really, really, sucks: White drops back after a waggle of his own and even though Carter (-) isn't fooled, he is successfully single-blocked by WVU's scrawny TE. It gives White enough time to fire a bomb downfield to a wide open receiver at the goal line, touchdown, 17-10. Why so wide open? Because Mike McNeil (--) did not appear to see said receiver and when White cocked to throw, he bolted at the well-covered receiver in front of him. *grits teeth*

23. KO, TB.

24. I, twins to the strong side. Lester carries behind Ziemba for a ho-hum three yards.

25. Same formation, this time they run further outside on the weakside, and for the first time on the evening Davis (-) kind of misses on his block and Lester has to run through an arm tackle to pick up a tough two yards. I also have no idea what Trott is doing on this play; he starts to pull from his TE position and then just runs aimlessly forward behind the center of the line like one of those magnetic football players that hasn't been programmed quite properly.

26. Spread on 3rd-5. Burns (+) keeps on the QB draw, with Lester as the lead blocker, but almost gets hit at the line by a WVU lineman who's stunted into the hole. Ziemba pushes him inside as Burns skips outside, though, and Lester and Green hold their blocks just long enough for Burns to pick up the first. (As he will do a couple of times this game, Burns slides down awfully quickly whereas staying upright might get him another 2-3 yards. I wouldn't think this offense would be in the position to give up free yardage when it can get it, but then again it's definitely not in the position to recover from an injury to Burns, so maybe it's OK.)

27. Ace. Tate (-) takes the handoff right, and though the right side of the line (+) has opened up a hole for him a) he's just not fast enough hitting it b) he gets completely stood up and driven backwards by the WVU safety. Gain of 1.

28. I, no TE/3 WRs. Play-action and Burns hits an open Derek Winter on the out. Winter tries to juke his way back into the middle of the field and doesn't look especially fluid at it, getting cut down immediately for a gain of 4.

29. Spread, 3rd-5. The MO by this point is pretty firmly established: I or ace on first and second down, spread on third. WVU sends the house, once again leaving Trott free to just release a few yards downfield and Burns (+) once again makes the right read and finds him for the first. Auburn has been stunningly good on third downs to this point.

30. I. Tate tries the left side and though it's not blocked badly, the safety has stormed forward as soon as Burns even looked in Tate's direction and he tackles at the line-of-scrimmage. Auburn pretty clearly needs to test the deep middle of the field on play action to give these guys something to think about. Will Ensminger make the necessary adjustment? (Feel free to make a guess about this based on your knowledge of how the rest of this game progresses.)

31. Spread, a down early. Burns rolls right and gets good protection (line +), then finds Carr on a comeback route along the sideline. Throw is just a hair low, forcing Carr to his knees to make the catch, but it's a solid eight yards and brings up 3rd-2.

32. Spread. QB draw again, and this time WVU's more ready for it--four-man front instead of three, LBs closer to the LOS. Tate doesn't whiff his lead block but doesn't exactly plow his guy backwards, either, and Burns decides he likes his chances better cutting back to the opposite side of the line. I don't think this is the right decision, as the play's not being blocked that way and he's surrounded and dropped a yard short. Hard to second-guess too much when this play has had success tonight, but so--obviously--have the heavy sets with Lester or Fannin behind them.

33. After the previous play WVU had two timeouts and there was 1:20 left on the lock. Bill Stewart, in all his infinite wisdom, elects not to use either of said timeouts and instead just merrily watches the clock tick down to the 38-second mark. This "decision" looks all the wiser when Durst (-) launches his punt straight up the chimney, so vertical that when it lands and bounces upfield, he ends up downing his own punt. That's a 15-yarder, folks, and Saturn V is officially not having a good night.

34. White rolls to his left and hits an open receiver on a downfield comeback route just in front of McFadden. Not sure what--other than pressure, maybe--can be done about this if White's going to be accurate on the throw.

35. Great coverage from the secondary this time and White is forced to throw it away.

36. Did I say something about pressure? Clayton (+) comes in free after a stunt and gets down quickly to trip White up a bit. White keeps his feet, but Clayton regains his footing as well and makes the sack, ending the half.

Halftime interview break: Tubby tells Erin Andrews that "neither defense is playing real good," meaning you can cover your "misuse of adjective 'good' vs. adverb 'well'" square, and when he adds that Auburn's offense will have to open things up and "do a better job in the second half" that should probably give you Tubby Interview BINGO!, right?

Stats at the half show that Burns is 8-9 for 76 yards, a TD, and a rushing TD. Keep your redshirt, Barrett.

Third quarter

37. WVU kicks off, and it's a touchback. Remember when we had a kicker who could pull that off consistently? Man, those were the days.

38. Ace, twins to one side. Lester takes the handoff over the strong side and a pulling Berry (line -) completely misses his block, ruining what otherwise looked like a well-blocked play.

39. I, no TE, 2nd-10. Lester tries the other side this time, and while neither lead blockers Davis or Ziemba make good contact, basically no one makes a block on this play. Lester's swarmed under after a gain of a yard.

40. Spread on 3rd-9. Hawthorne has come all the way across the field, L to R, on a deep crossing route towards the WVU sideline. He's blanketed, but Burns lays a nice arced pass in there and Hawthorne nearly picks up the first anyway--he makes the grab only for his toes to hit the sideline as he does it. Incomplete, fourth down, but it's hard to fault anyone on this play. Sometimes even good execution doesn't quite work out.

41. Better punt from Durst this time, and Robert Shiver of all people is the first to arrive in coverage and rakes the ball out of Lankster's hands. E. Smith is next on the scene and pops Lankster as he attempts to recover, spinning the ball free. If anyone else from Auburn is around this is Tiger ball, but the first man there is from WVU and he recovers easily. Dammit.

42. ZR handoff to Sanders and again it looks like Bynes (-) doesn't quite have his pursuit angles down, giving Sanders a cutback lane for 5.

43. ZRO handoff to Devine up the middle, and this time Marks (+) has fought off his block and slows Devine down enough for Goggans and Bynes to arrive and tackle. Still 3 yards, though.

44. 3rd-2. Auburn blitzes six into ZRO and Evans appears to have a bead on White, one-on-one. Unfortunately, as White is an outstanding football player, he makes a nifty hop-step to Evans's left and falls forwards for the first. Not much Auburn could have done about that.

45. Once again, the secondary is playing way off the LOS and when White flips the ball to Sanders on the long handoff, Stevens is the closest guy to him. Stevens is not fast enough to catch Jock Sanders from behind while being blocked, unfortunately, and Sanders is seven yards downfield before anyone touches him. At least that someone is McFadden, who tackles.

46. Auburn still playing off, for reasons I don't fathom. White says thankyouverymuch and throws a wide-slap-open bubble screen that's going to go for 10 yards at least ... if he doesn't throw it three yards in front of his target, incomplete. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

47. 3rd-4, and curiously, White sees man-to-man and lofts the fly route towards Tall Wideout again. McFadden's in good coverage, the ball is borderline uncatchable, and they flag him for PI anyway. My initial reaction is to curse the official into oblivion, but on replay McFadden makes his initial bump, then backs off for a half-second, then clearly re-bumps a good 10-15 yards downfield without making an effort to look for the ball until afterwards. The flags still a little on the soft side, but McFadden (-) makes obvious, intentional contact with the receiver while the ball's in the air. No complaints here.

48. WVU's in the I for the first time in the game, and Auburn winds up suitably confused--Etheridge (-) has let Sanders get behind him and an accurate lofted ball by White is a sure touchdown ... right up until the moment Sanders drops it. Auburn very, very fortunate again here.

49. ZRO, and with Evans covering the pitchman White keeps and gets wrapped up on a cat-quick play by Coleman (+) as he crosses the LOS. Again, though: Auburn played that just about as well as they could have and White gets three yards anyway. This is all Rodriguez's stuff--why in the name of God's green earth did WVU ever make any noise about changing this offense?

50. 3rd-7 and White goes back to the one-on-one well vs. McFadden, but the pass has no chance. Holtz is arguing that WVU has no business passing when they're running the ball as well as they have (at least, that's if I'm interpreting "lisp lisp lisp lisp LISP LISP!" correctly), but geez, the first pass on that set of downs should have gone for a TD and the one before that drew a PI flag for 15 easy yards. FG's good, 17-13. Lead has been cut by 10 and this already feels all too depressingly familiar.

51. Davis field the kickoff and THERE HE GOES! 62 yards! Oh man, it's so, so so good to have you back, Tristan (+). Great blocks here by E. Smith and Herring in the return, among others.

52. C'mon Auburn. 1st-10 on their 38. Do something with it. They open in the spread and roll Burns right. It's good protection (line +), but Burns doesn't see anyone open and tries to cut back into what appears to be loads of open field on the left. Unfortunately he doesn't see the two WVU linemen half-arsing it around behind the Auburn line; because they're not being blocked (as the Auburn sensibly line waits for them to rush) they have little problem tackling Burns as soon as he crosses the LOS.

53. Ace, twins. Tate carries around right end and WVU has blitzed the corner on that side directly into him, stopping him for a loss of a yard. Good defensive call, good execution (the blitzer didn't show until just before the snap), not sure Auburn could do anything different here.

54. Spread, 3rd-9. Good pocket once again (line +), but Burns (-) can't find anyone and throws his checkdown to Trott at his feet. Incomplete. I didn't see anyone open, but it looks like Tubby did--he reads Burns the riot act as he comes off the field. To boot, that missed completion to Trott was more important than it looked--it wouldn't have given Auburn a first down, but it would have set up a makeable 4th-3 on the 33. Now? Puntin' time.

55. Durst finally gets one inside the 20, downed at the 13. No minus, but no plus, either--at this distance it's not too far-fetched to get it inside the 10. Which Auburn sort of does by getting handed a stupid block-in-the-back penalty. WVU will start at the 7.

56. WVU lines up two backs alongside White and run what's essentially a ZR with a lead blocker. Coleman gets sealed, Johnson (-) is driven completely out of the play by the mighty-mite Sanders, and Devine picks up a quick 13.

57. With the corners still playing off WVU goes right back to the open bubble screen that White screwed up earlier. This time he completes it, and sure enough, 10 simple yards with 15 tacked on when Powers--though, again, getting his own facemask grabbed--gets a hold of Sanders's facemask. (Holt, to his credit, questions why the offensive player is never flagged for facemasking. Lisp Lisp LISP ("Thank you"), Lou.)

58. Same lead-blocker ZR that started the drive, this time to the opposite side of the field and handed to some new guy named Rodgers ... who breaks a Coleman tackle behind the line and scoots for 14 more. May gives it to Coleman for the missed tackle, but Rodgers got badly slowed up ... where the hell are our linebackers? Turns out Bynes and Evans are busy getting blocked and Stevens (-) is just plain too slow to react. It's taken WVU three plays to go from their 7 to Auburn's 41. Ugh.

59. Well-timed six-man blitz gets Bynes in unblocked and Coleman cleans up. We needed that.

60. WVU hurries to the line and Auburn's not settled. Evans (- for general ineffectiveness), Blanc, and Coleman all get blown up, opening up the right side for Sanders to take the ZR for 15 yards. 2nd-17 now 3rd-2. We have now answers. We are going to lose.

61. Auburn stands Johnson up at right end to create a 5-2 look which, hey, better try something. And it sort of works, as Bynes blitzes around to cover the pitchman on a straight option play and Johnson tackles White as he cuts inside, holding WVU to a gain of three. Then again, it's still a first down and White still has 2-3 yards anytime he wants them.

62. Same 5-2 look. ZR give to Devine, Coleman disengages and tackles. Good play by Auburn, still four yards. The beat goes on.

63. 5-2, six-man blitz and eventually seven when Stevens comes on the delay. None of them get anywhere near White and he's got an easy pitch-and-catch for four yards with Etheridge a step behind in man-to-man. Nice tackle keeps the gain down.

64. Big 3rd-2 and WVU comes out in the I. Blanc and Coleman (-) get pushed back as the right side collapses and Sanders gets the first without too much trouble.

65. 1st-10 on the Auburn 18. Auburn's in 4-3 and blitz seven again, giving White yet another simple throw to the slant route for 16 painless yards. Powers is on the coverage and after the play looks gimpy as all get out. The linebacker to this slant's side is Stevens, who might have had a play on it if he'd dropped back but instead comes on the delayed blitz (the one, I believe, where he's spying one of the RBs and comes if they're in pass protection) that doesn't even get him to the line of scrimmage before the ball is gone. I know we need pressure, but this seems to be asking a hell of a lot out of Powers in his current state.

66. 1st-goal, 2. Same blitz, receiver completely uncovered in end zone, touchdown. Replay shows Auburn in man and Etheridge (--) let his guy go for reasons unknown. 20-17.

67. KO, Davis stopped at the 22 this time.

68. Ace. Burns (+) steps back and fires a nice throw to R. Smith along the left sideline, gain of 11.

69. This looks like the spread, but it's not: Burns is lined up in the shotgun alongside the RB, but Trott is in his ace-set H-back position, the line are all in three-point stances, and the two receivers are in a twins set to the right. This is the ace, just with Burns in the gun. They sue it to run our own ZR and Burns keeps, picking up five and possibly more if R. Smith doesn't miss a block.

70. Ace-shotgun. ZR again and this time Burns hands to Lester, who plugs up into the line for 3. Not a bad play, but Burns should keep this--the LBS were aligned away from him and the DE on his side had been well-blocked by Trott.

71. 3rd-2, ace-shotgun. QB draw, and Pugh (line -) gets shucked aside and tackles Burns as he gets to the line. Little bit of a push from Burns and, frankly, a generous spot give Auburn the first.

72. This is the actual spread. Burns is looking for Smith running an out-and-up but he's bracketed by two WVU defenders and it's probably a good thing the pass sails well out-of-bounds. Not a good read by Burns (-), who had time.

73. Ace-shotgun, this time with Trott on the line. Fannin carries on the sweep right, and the line (+) and a good block from Billings open up a nice seam for 7 yards.

74. Spread, 3rd-3. Burns drops back. Berry whiffs on his block, but Fannin is there to help--too bad he whiffs, too. In maybe his best-looking play of the season, Burns (++) calmly leans to one side and lets the guy fly by him, then throws a dart to Trott (+), open underneath, for 10 yards and a first-down on WVU's 40. Sharp.

75. Regular ace set. Waggle. The DE to that side isn't fooled, but it doesn't matter--Burns (+) eludes him nicely and dashes for 13.

76. Ace-shotgun. Hideous play: it's a pull sweep to the left with E. Smith, but a) Green flubs his block at the point of attack b) Smith hasn't waited for the pulling Berry to follow him c) when he pauses to deal with the guy Green missed, Berry runs him over. Two-yard loss.

End third quarter

Verdicts: The notion that Auburn started failing on offense because they moved away from the heavy sets into the spread is--to this point, at least--bunk. Of the four successive stalls entering the fourth, one was due to the cock-up on the reverse and the next three all followed a give to the tailback out of the ace or I that went for minimal yardage. And plays out of the ace-shotgun like the one above--in which Burns is in the shotgun, yes, but also in which two TEs help pulling the linemen who start the play in three-point stances--are not being run out of the spread. The problem, to this point, is simply that Auburn's execution has slipped a bit and that West Virginia has adjusted; they've largely abandoned their usual three-man front for a 4-3 and have safeties playing run-first-run-second with impunity, since Auburn has completed precisely one pass downfield--the wheel to Davis in the first half--all game. The spread is not the villain here.

Defensively, Auburn's a shambles. The blitzes miss more often than they hit and leave the likes of Powers on an island. Then again, straight defense results in Devine gashing us for 20 yards a pop. WVU has a good matchup here: their ZRs and ZROs effectively take Auburn's DTs completely out of the game and put all the onus on the linebackers and DEs. Coleman has held up OK; no one else has.

Fourth quarter coming ... oh, hopefully early this evening.