A quick change to previous plus/minus ratings system: in addition to the offensive linemen ("line") I'll also be treating non-kicker special teamers ("ST") and the secondary in pass coverage ("cover") as collectives.
First quarter
1. Byrum's kickoff reaches the 6, where it gets bobbled and returned only to the 15. The 6 isn't great, but it's better than where Byrum's been landing them.
2. Ole Miss opens in an I and goes play-action. Snead fires towards Shay Hodge on a sideline route, but he's being run with step-for-step by D'Antoine Hood and Etheridge is lurking as well; perhaps a good thing for Ole Miss the pass is well out of reach. (Hood +, cover +)
3. 5-man front for Auburn, but there's not much chance for pressure when Snead can take a three-step drop and fire left to a wide-open Hodge, who's been given a massive cushion and only has to run eight yards, stop, and look up. Nice to see one of the schematic decisions that hurt us so badly against WVU has been resolved.
4. 3rd-2. Trips right, Dexter McCluster the middle receiver of the three. Auburn's playing a deep zone (yes, on 3rd-2) and when the other two WRs go deep no one's anywhere near McCluster. He's nine yards downfield before anyone makes contact with him. Auburn's current defensive alignments leave them with no chance at stopping short passes like these.
5. Marks (-) and Blanc (-) are shoved back, opening a crease right up the middle that Auburn is fortunate only yields 3 yards; Cordera Eason inexplicably runs smack into a blocker and falls over.
6. Coleman (+) slices through on a stunt and forces Snead to throw way the hell over the head of his intended receiver.
7. Auburn unnecessarily interferes on an errant Snead pass, but an illegal formation call bails them out. Offsetting.
8. Interesting call here from Rhoads--a three-man line backed by a blitz by Etheridge off the edge and another LB. The blitz fails and Snead has a pocket to step into, but he doesn't see Evans sitting on the curl route. Evans (+) deflects the ball away. (cover +)
9. Punt, Slaughter has no room in which to even attempt a return, which seems to have been standard operating procedure for Auburn the last several weeks. What happened to this unit?
10. Auburn opens--hooray--in the ace-shotgun formation they used for big chunks of the second half against WVU, chunks in which Auburn generally struggled to move the ball. This first play works, though--Burns maintains the underneath accuracy he showed vs. WVU, hitting Smith on a curl route for 6.
11. Ace, 3 WR, handoff to Lester over the strong side. I'm not sure if the backside DE is supposed to be unblocked or not, but he is, and he tackles Lester from behind for an easy loss of 1. If Trott gets a better push on his guy at the point of attack (rather than "none") and the DE keeps contain on the possibility of Burns running the waggle, yeah, this play doesn't have to block the DE ... but if those things don't happen, it's automatic toast. (Line -)
12. 3rd-5, spread. The line (+) cuts down any potential ball-batters and Burns (+) hits Smith on the slant for seven quick yards and a first. Just the way you draw it up.
13. I. Another off-tackle run to the strong side with Lester, another failed set of blocks--Pugh can't get across Jerry, who crashes into Berry, who wrecks Davis's effort to get a solid block in the hole--and it's another run that goes nowhere. (Line -)
14. Spread. Smith slants from the outside, Burns (+) hits him, seven more yards. Five plays in, the scouting report that Ole Miss would be hard to run against but easy to complete passes against has proven to be hella accurate.
15. 3rd-4, spread. The line (+) provides time, Burns is maybe a hair late but puts the ball right in Dunn's hands on the crossing route, and Dunn (-) flat drops it. He was maybe a yard short and running directly into the sideline, but it's my guess that if he makes the grab he'll have time to tun up just enough for the first. Auburn gives away a first down on a drop at least once every single game. And it makes me want to break things.
16. Durst (-) drops a perfectly good snap, forcing him to rush the punt, which only travels 31 yards. Ugh.
17. Goggans get sealed inside--or possibly held, it's hard to tell when Raycom returns from an exciting shot of Houston Nutt with the ball already well-snapped--on a sweep left, giving McCluster a crease for 5.
18. Rebels line up in the I and try the middle, but a cut block on Blanc fails, leaving him to engage the blocker meant for Marks (+), who's now free to first watch the fullback dash past him and then clobber McCluster as he reaches the LOS.
19. 3rd-5. Snead has time and an open receiver in Hodge, who's corner route has him between the corners and safeties. Snead takes advantage by throwing the ball 10 feet over everybody's head. Sweet.
20. Punt, same result as before with the gunners on top of Slaughter before he even makes the catch, even after a relatively low 40-yard punt. This time it's (ST -).
21. Ace-shotgun. Option left, Trott, Ziemba and even Slaughter all make fine blocks and Lester has a nice seam for nine yards. (Line +)
22. Ace-shotgun, zone read handoff left for Lester. Bosley basically just escorts his man down the line (line -) but Lester (+) makes a nifty cutback to escape a couple of tacklers and hops forward for the first.
23. Spread. Screen to Tate, and Berry (line -) and Hawthorne (-) both have a chance to block this onrushing dude from the secondary. Neither do. Loss of a yard.
24. Spread, ZR handoff to Tate going right, and this play looks like it's actually going to pick up real yards for the first time since, oh, the ULM game. Tate's got both Pugh and Bosley in front of him and only two potential tacklers--one an LB on the inside, the other a corner on the outside--on that side of the field. Unfortunately, both Bosley and Pugh decide to cut the linebacker, leaving the corner free to tackle unmolested. %&*@. (line -) Tate falls forward for 3.
25. Spread, Rebels blitz, Tate (-) looks way too passive in his pickup block and gets shoved far enough back into Burns that he can't step into the throw. The result is an overthrow towards the downfield Slaughter that's in danger of getting picked.
26. Wow, what a great punt! For starters, a rusher comes through and nearly gets the block. So Durst's punt only goes 28 yards. And then we find out there's been a 15-yard facemask on Etheridge (-)! It's a net of 13 yards! Whoopee!
27. Rebels in the I, handoff right, Clayton gets a solid push to string the play further outside, and when a closing Pybus (+) tears through his block the blocker holds him rather than give up the big loss.
28. 1st-20. Snead drops back and Marks (+) just abuses his man on the inside, forcing Snead to scramble right into Carter. Sack.
29. Mmmm, 2nd-28. Rebels call a "Well, now that we've seen what your offense can 'do', we'll just avoid handing you the ball on this side of the 50, thanks" sort of play, a draw that Evans smothers with relative quickness. Would you like something notable to happen on this play, though? Sure: Coleman can get banged in the head by his own teammate while falling on top of the pile and leave the game. Yay!
30. 3rd-23, Snead has time but doesn't like his downfield odds (cover +) and tries to check down, except that he throws the ball, like, into the turf five feet out in front of him. Not the best sequence for the Rebels, to say the least.
31. Punt. Still no return, although this one was at least only 36 yards.
32. Ace-shotgun, this time with 3 WRs and Trott and an H-back. QB keeper left, and Burns misreads Tate's (admittedly sloppy-looking) block, cutting it outside just as Tate starts pushing him in that direction. Burns pulls forward for 2.
33. Ace-shotgun, again the line (+) gets the necessary cuts and again Burns makes the easy throw, this time to Slaughter on a curl. Gain of five.
34. Spread. This is awful, awful stuff from the line (--): the Rebels rush four against six blockers and still get a guy in untouched to clobber Burns and force a fumble that could very, very easily be returned for a TD; Auburn dodges a massive bullet when the Rebels fail to pick it up and let Bosley steal the recovery away. How'd it happen? Bosley, Berry, and Pugh took on the two guys on the right and Ziemba blocked down on Green's guy, leaving Tate one-on-one with the end. That's a pretty tough assignment, but Tate (-) still managed to not slow the guy up at all. Hideous.
35. Punt. Durst sends it out-of-bounds 39 yards downfield. Could be worse.
36. Rebels in an ace set, Auburn moves McNeil up to play what's essentially a 4-4. Eason runs smack up the middle, and you would think a 4-4 would be a good set against this. You would be wrong: the Rebels' left guard blocks down on Blanc while Carter (-) lets the TE seal him outside, opening a huge hole and allowing Oher to move to the next level and wipe out Bynes. Johnson can't flow around this block, leaving only Stevens (-) between Eason and the secondary--too bad he seemed to think the play was headed towards the other side of the line and took two pointless steps in that direction, meaning all he can do is wave his arms as Eason flies past him. Etheridge (-) misses a tackle at the sticks and Eason is off for 28 yards. Blecch.
37. Rebels try a reverse, McFadden sniffs it out, and he's rewarded for it by having a lineman dive into the back of his left leg. Yes, it's 15 yards for the clip, but sweet merciful heavens at this point I'd much, much rather have a healthy McFadden--who stays down for a while--than the yardage.
38. 1st-25. Goggans (+) shoots his way into the backfield, forcing Eason to bounce it outside, where Stevens cleans up.
39. Snead drops back, can't find anyone (cover +), and takes off for 17 when Carter gets caught inside and loses contain. Not all his fault, though; when he sees what's happening he tries to pop back outside and gets held. No call. C'est la vie.
40. 3rd-8. Auburn drops eight and Snead's forced to check down to Eason, who gets tripped up by the turf monster after a yard. (Cover +) That trip was a nice break--even if Eason doesn't make the first, he could have easily gotten the Rebels into field-goal range.
Second quarter
41. Punt. Downed at the 5. Dammit.
42. Ace-shotgun. This sorta looks like a zone read but I wonder if Burns really has the option to keep here--he didn't seem to be looking at the DE in question. So it's handoff to Tate (+), who runs through an arm-tackle after Green lets a linebacker by him unblocked and finds room behind Bosley, Pugh, and Trott for 4.
43. Spread, QB lead draw, and Burns finds plenty of room over the right side; Bosley's block is especially good as he gets a good shove on the DT and then releases downfield to make another block Burns cuts behind for a few extra yards (line +). Honestly, I wonder if Burns couldn't have gotten more than seven here if he sticks closer to his blockers' butts instead of wandering in open space in the middle of the field.
44. 1st-10. Ace-shotgun, 3-WRs. There's all kinds of problems with the Revel DTs here: one knifes into the backfield to slow Tate, while Ziemba's cut on the other fails miserably and allows him to tackle after a gain of 2. (line -)
45. Holy crap is this play U-G-L-Y. Believe me, it ain't got no alibi. For starters, it's a two-TE ace-shotgun set, but the five down linemen are in a two-point stance--gee, you think that's a bit of a tip a pass is coming? Second, it's only a two-man route, so there's eight blockers, and somehow Tate still winds up blocking a blitzer one-on-one. (He does do a better job, at least.) And then to cap it off, Burns (-) tries to find Billings on a curl and throws it a mile over his head. Sorry, but this is not what a well-coached offense looks like. At all.
46. 3rd-8. Bosley gets shoved into Burns's face by Jerry (line -), Burns is a hair late in stepping through the line into open space, and in the end he has to make a bailout flip to Tate for 2.
47. Durst (+) finally gets a hold of one, booting it 48 yards and getting a fair catch on the other end.
48. ZR handoff, Marks (+) completely owns his man and forces McCluster to start improvising. Coleman comes in to clean up.
49. Ole Miss in the spread now, Snead has time and finds his man ... if his man is a guy standing on Auburn's sideline 20 yards downfield and 10 yards outside the field of play.
50. 3rd-10. Second verse, same as the first, although on the positive side this time Snead just gets it low enough that his receiver (running a well-covered out route at the sticks) can get his hands on it. On the negative side, it's not so low he can catch it and Snead catches a huge break when the deflection bounces off of McFadden's hands. I hate to give McFadden (-) a demerit when his leg is still probably bothering the hell out of him ... but he could see the ball the whole way and it hits him directly in the hands. He's got to make this play.
51. Punt, a line drive that it sure seems like Slaughter (-) could get his hands on if he's quick. Instead he lets it bounce and the next thing you know it's cost Auburn 20 yards of field position. Sigh. I know this is a long-deceased and thoroughly-flogged horse, but Auburn's offense is just not good enough to win games where the defense drops picks are and the special teams give up 20 yards for no reason.
52. 1st-10 Auburn on their own 11. Ace-shotgun, handoff over the right side. Trott loses his guy just as Lester approaches the hole, causing to him to try and hop-skip around them to the outside. It takes too long and he's swamped; loss of 4. (line -)
53. Ace-shotgun, 3 WRs. Option right, disaster. Burns (-) doesn't hold the pitch long enough, Pugh whiffs on a linebacker, Green gets discarded almost immediately. Lester (+) does very, very well to cut back and get to the LOS.
54. 3rd-13. Spread. Burns gets a solid pocket (line +), but there's no one open (I'm assuming) and he checks down to Trott for 6. Auburn will punt from inside their own goal line. This is fun!
55. Punt. Durst (+) is feeling it now; this one goes for 53.
56. I'm not exaggerating; Ole Miss's outside WR has a 12-yard cushion when the ball is snapped. Pitch, catch, no one touches him til he's got the first.
57. Auburn lines up in what's almost a 5-3, with one LB standing up over one DE and Etheridge walked up into the box on the weakside. It works; when the Rebels run to Etheridge's side the pulling guard ignores him to seal off the LB towards the inside and Etheridge (+) tackles securely for a gain of 2.
58. False start. Teehee.
59. More formation weirdness and this time it's not so good; McNeil lines up at the LOS with the LBS shifted left. The Rebels run Bolden on a draw to the opposite side, and when Coleman gets caught pass-rushing and Marks (-) gets stood up, there's no one else out there. Pybus (-) rushes up from what I guess was something like a safety position (honestly, he wasn't even in the screen on the snap ... why is McNeil on the line and Pybus playing centerfield?) only to miss a tackle, and then a tentative-looking Etheridge (-) misses another tackle to take on five more. Gain of 20.
60. Hey, its the Wild Rebel. All three of Auburn's LBs follow the motion of the fullback across the middle, meaning that when McCluster keeps and heads over the right side instead of behind the FB, it's only the extended big paw of Blanc (+) that trips McCluster up as he goes by that keeps this from being a huge gain. It's worth eight anyway.
61. 2nd-2, Auburn brings six guys up to the LOS. The DTs are both shoved well to the strongside as Eason cuts in behind them, but Evans (+) makes a textbook tackle to keep the gain at 2.
62. 3-step drop for Snead, quick throw on the out is off-target. Again.
63. Similar kind of play, this time with two guys going deep and McCluster running the out underneath. Snead throws quickly--the gameplan is clearly to not let Auburn have a chance to get pressure if they can help it--and again the coverage is too deep to even have a hope of stopping this (cover -). Gain of 8.
64. Play-action out of the I, and this time Stevens (+) is sitting on the quick middle curl route Snead clearly expects to be open. He pulls it down and then airmails one in the general direction of the RB just before the blitzing Bynes arrives (cover +). Well done, Auburn.
65. Field goal good, 3-0. It's no less than the Rebels deserve at this point--they have three drives longer than Auburn's longest.
66. Kickoff, Davis bobbles for a moment and returns to the 22.
67. Spread. Whoops--Burns (-) tries the short slant again and hits Billings in the feet with it.
68. Ace. This play looks awfully strange--Burns fakes the hand off to Fannin but instead of running the waggle in the opposite direction, turns around and drifts in the same direction Fannin just went in. The result is that the backside DE is in free and breathing down Burns's neck, though one of those patented Burns shimmies buys him just enough time to find Fannin eight yards downfield. Fannin (-) appears to make the catch and then fumble, but after a lengthy review it turns out he never got control of the ball and it's ruled incomplete. Either way: not a positive play.
69. Spread. A pretty pocket built by the line (+) and Burns (+) steps into it and nails Trott on a deep slant. 16 yards, a first down, and Auburn's longest play of the day. Que bueno.
70. Ace-shotgun, 3 WRs. It's a sweep right on which Pugh whiffs his block entirely; fortunately for him Fannin (+) breaks the tackle and the rest of the play is well-blocked. Somehow Auburn winds up with seven yards out of it.
71. Berry false starts (line -).
72. Spread, QB draw. Bosley's got the shove-and-get-to-the-next-level blocks on these plays down; he pulls off another good one and gives Burns a nice seam. Fannin's and Billings's downfield blocks are merely OK, though, and Burns--again, just not looking quite as aggressive as I'd like him to--gets edged out of bounds after just 5.
73. 3rd-3 on the Auburn 45. Big play here. Ace, 3 WRs: now, is this the formation you would choose to try a straight-ahead power run out of to pick up 3 yards? Knowing that Tommy Trott left the game earlier this drive and that your TE is currently the same true freshman (Vance Smith) who struggled repeatedly with his run-blocking assignments last week, would you choose to run behind him? No matter! Handoff to Fannin behind Smith, he and Berry get no push, the pulling Green just sort of stops in the alleged "hole" and Fannin is buried for a loss (line -).
74. 42-yarder by Durst (+), fair caught inside the 20. I'll take that. Surely after their half of sloppiness and error, the Rebels will not drive 86 yards in 2:02. Surely.
75. McNeil (+) is in his "fake linebacker" mode and bounces off an attempted block by the fullback into the intended hole, gumming up the Rebel works. Blanc tackles; he's been consistently active.
76. I dunno, maybe having the secondary set up their zone a mile off of the LOS is OK when there's this little time left in the half ... but you know, I still doubt it. Mike Wallace stops eight yards downfield, Snead hits him, he goes for 13, lather, rinse, repeat. After the play, Dave Archer informs the viewer that "the play-action froze the front seven." After listening to Dave Archer, my DVR informs me that there was no play-action, and that the tackle was made by "frozen" Craig Stevens 13 yards downfield.
77. Eh, this is one of those plays I don't know if there's anything to be done about. Snead throws the sideline route off a three-step drop to Hodge, who again has Hood step-for-step with him. Etheridge close by in support. The throw has to be high enough that Hood has no play and quick enough that Etheridge can't get there in time. Snead puts it where it needs to be and Hodge gets up just in time to make the play. Damn them.
78. Snead drops back, no one open, tries a check down McFadden's all over (cover +). I wish they'd completed that; the short gain would have kept the clock moving.
79. Again, good coverage and Snead wings one downfield that's well out of bounds (cover +).
80. 3rd-10, midfield. Auburn lines up in a rare 3-3-5 and ... oh boy. The Rebels run McCluster on a draw, and the cavernous hole over the right side allows not only McCluster free passage but passage for blockers who take out Evans and Bynes (-, for a rather sad attempt at resistance and general lack of impact). Hood and Mike Slade each have unblocked beads on him 10-12 yards downfield, but Slade (-) takes a bad angle, not only opening up a cutback into the middle of the field but cutting off Hood's ability to close. 28 yards.
81. Bynes and Stevens drop into zone coverage and Snead hits McCluster on a slant in the narrow window between them; 20 more yards, to the Auburn 2. Not sure if that's on them or just a good play by Snead; I'm going to lean towards the latter. Most of Snead's throws have been after short drops and released quickly, but still, Auburn's got to get more pressure from their four-man rush.
82. Touchdown. Snead connects with Hodge on the play where the receiver runs five yards into the end zone while the QB throws it intentionally behind him; when he turns, it's impossible for the CB to make a play without interfering. If it's executed properly, it's awful hard to stop and the Rebels execute it properly. That said, there are two officiating questions, the first being whether Hodge pushed off. It kind of looks like it on the replay and the Daves are convinced he did, but Hodge doesn't extending his arms much if at all and McFadden doesn't respond with the typical "He pushed off! He pushed off!" hand gestures at the refs. (He may have skipped them, however, out of the mistaken belief the flag he'd just received for his own grab of Hodge's jersey was for Hodge.) It's 50/50; if Auburn has been the receiving team I'd do some bitching if it had been called. The bigger question in my mind is that the left side of the Rebel line jumps a split-second before the rest of the line; I think the officials missed a false start.
83. Squib. Auburn starts on their own 38. Three timeouts. Will they try to accomplish something?
84. No, no they will not. Ace-shotgun, Fannin takes a handoff over the right side of the line for 7; for what it's worth the line (+) blocks this play well. Maybe now that they're at their own 45 they will call timeout and air it out a bit? They only need 20 yards to give Byrum a shot.
85. No, they will do the least explainable thing off all, which is to not call timeout and let the clock run all the way down before calling a pass play that does not appear to be a Hail Mary. What the hell is going on? I think that's probably the players' reaction, too, and in the resulting confusion a blitzer comes in unblocked and levels Burns. Either try to get into field goal position or don't.
In a stunner, Auburn has just finished turning in a terrible half of offensive football.
Halftime verdicts: This ace-shotgun thing as Auburn's primary offensive formation--which it was this half--just doesn't seem reasonable to me; it's like they decided they still sorta wanted to run the Spread Eagle, but do it with a TE on the line and the linemen in three-point stances. Nevermind that there's probably a reason that the Spread Eagle was designed for two-point stances and no TEs. Like everything else Auburn has done this year, it's half of one thing and half of another and substantially less than the sum of either part.
On defense, I dunno; these deep coverages kept Snead from completing a single pass longer than the 20-yard slant to McCluster at half's end. But they also gave the Rebels 10 yards whenever they wanted it. Other problems: the linebacking is still MIA (Bynes played the entire half and didn't receive a single +) and poor tackling repeatedly turned 10-yard gains on the ground into 20-yard gains on the ground. I feel bad complaining too much about a half in which a genuinely explosive offense punted five straight times to open the game and only scored 10 points ... but if Snead isn't off and Ole Miss stuck more consistently with the underneath stuff, I wonder if it would have been so successful.
Second half tomorrow.
*1,224 clips at Hulu and no rake sequence? Come on.
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