Third quarter
Dave Baker catches Tubby coming out of the tunnel. "We can't run the ball," Tubby says, with obvious frustration. "You can't run it, you can't win in this league.
"We're not a bad football team," he continues. "We're not ... we ... we gotta get some continuity." Man. I'm sure there's a better word for it, but the one I'm left with is "frazzled." He's a frazzled coach at the moment. I don't blame him.
1. Ole Miss kicks off, Davis fields along the right sideline and finds a tiny bit of room in the middle of the field before being dragged down at the 24. Eh.
2. Spread. Well, that's a good way to start the half: Burns (+) drops back, gets excellent protection (line +), and drops one right in the breadbasket of Slaughter (+), who's run a fly down the sideline and shrugs off a challenge from the corner to make the catch. 37 yards--it's taken Auburn one play to surpass their longest gain of the entire first half. (Or at least, it has after a lengthy review that determines Slaughter's heel merely hovered over the sideline rather than came down on it on his route.)
3. Ace, Trott as H-back. Waggle, Burns hits Trott underneath and he gets crushed by an onrushing safety for a loss of 3. Burns probably should have thrown it earlier, giving Trott enough time to try and maneuver around the guy, but it's more a good play by Ole Miss.
4. Spread. Burns tries to hit Billings on a quick out and the throw is low--but it's one it appears to me Billings (-) ought to come up with.
5. 3rd-13. Spread. Burns (+) takes off when the combination of a weird-looking stunt and man-to-man coverage leaves him a pasture to run up into. Trott (+) gets in a dude's way just enough to get Burns the first down.
6. 1st-10 on the Rebel 27. Offset I. Rebels bring two of their linebackers up to the LOS. This doesn't work out so well--Auburn leaves the backside DE unblocked to run the lead iso behind Ziemba and Green on the strong side, and neither he nor a guy Pugh only kinda blocks can get close to making the play. So with one and sometimes two blockers on everyone else, when Tate breaks through there's no one to keep him out of the secondary. Ziemba and Trott wall off the left side of the hole, Green and Berry take care of the right side, Bosley and Davis flatten the lone linebacker, and when the safeties both take the wrong angle--expecting Tate to bounce outside around the Bosley/Davis block--Tate has smooth sailing for the TOUCHDOWN! Nice, nice vision by Tate (+) here and a fabulous job by the line (++). 10-7. Hope springs eternal.
7. Byrum (+) gets the ball to the goalline. Iffy coverage and iffy, dance-around returning sticks the ball on the 22.
8. Rebels in the ace, and this isn't the statement you want your defense to make on their first play of the second half: all seven guys in the front seven get blocked, opening up a ton of room for Eason to cut back and gain 7 before Etheridge tackles him. Too easy.
9. Auburn lines up six on the LOS and bring them all, only for Snead to throw quickly and well before the rush has a chance to reach him, as he did in the first half. As he did in the first half, though, his downfield pass is out of bounds by 10 yards and nowhere near its target. Good coverage (+).
10. Not sure what Ole Miss is thinking on 3rd-3. They spread out in a two-back shotgun and run what appears to be a zone read, but block the backside DE. This leaves only five blockers (one of which is an RB) against six Auburn defenders in the box. Stevens (+) is the unblocked man and closes quickly to tackle for no gain. Sweet.
11. Dunn is again swarmed after a high 40-yard kick, fair catch.
12. 1st-10 on Auburn's 30. Offset I, play-action, nice pocket (line +) and Burns has an easy pitch-and-catch with Billings on the out route, who sort of wriggles backwards in his attempt to wriggle forwards and ends up only gaining 4.
13. Offset I, they try the left side again with Tate. This time Peria Jerry shoves Green straight backwards and Bosley doesn't have much better luck with his man (line -). Tate smothered, loss of 1.
14. 3rd-7. Spread. No gripes with the pass protection this half--the line (+) gives Burns all day and despite what looks like about the happiest case of happy feet I've ever seen (seriously, Burns looks like he's playing Track and Field on ye olde Nintendo Power Pad) he finds Hawthorne crossing over the middle for 21.
15. 1st-10, Rebel 46. Offset I, play-action. Burns again has time to set his feet and throws confidently to ... no one who's even in the picture. ??? Dave Archer theorizes that Davis was trying to run the wheel route and got cut off. Seems likely enough.
16. Ace-shotgun ... I think? Four of the five linemen and Trott are in a three-point stance with only Ziemba standing up at the snap. This suggests a pass, does it not, since the notably struggling-in-pass-protection Ziemba is the one who's in a two-point stance? Sure enough, Burns fires to Slaughter on the slant for 6.
17. Spread on 3rd-4. Burns (-) has enough time to find someone (if not a ton of it) and makes a truly bad read, following a triple-covered Trott the whole way and ignoring a check-down to Fannin that would have been 10 yards at least.
18. AAARRGGGHH. Durst (-) punts from the Ole Miss 40 and blasts it well into the end zone. Net of 20.
19. Simple off-tackle play from Ole Miss out of the I to start their drive, and it goes for an easy 5 yards--Clayton (-) got sealed off at DE, Stevens can't do anything with the pulling guard, and Bynes (-) is just too passive in trying to meet the ballcarrier. Ugh.
20. Wild Rebel. Clayton (-) lines up as the opposite DE this time, but with the same result--neither he nor a blitzing Stevens can get off their blocks at the point of attack and it's five more.
21. Much better from the DL this time as Doolittle and Goggans stand their guys up and Jake Ricks (+) bulls his backwards, creating a logjam at the hole. Eason slithers away from Ricks but Clayton and Stevens tackle.
22. Rebels spread it out and Snead takes his time this time; not a drop of pass rush. Coverage is good, though (+) so he checks down to Eason. Evans (-) meets him immediately and doesn't tackle cleanly, giving up an extra couple of yards before Bynes arrives.
23. 3rd-3. Well-executed tight coverage (+) from Auburn doesn't give Snead the quick throw he wants, and despite having a bit of a pocket he tucks and starts looking for running room. Clayton sacks from behind, but this one belongs to the secondary. Nice sequence all around from the D here.
24. Punt, fair catch, lather, rinse, repeat.
25. Still a three-point game and points on this drive would be huge. Spread on 1st-10, QB draw, another great job by Bosley with blocks both on the LOS and downfield (line +) and Burns picks up 6 without too much effort.
26. Ace-shotgun, handoff strongside to Fannin. Trott completely misses his block (line -) and Fannin has to stop in his tracks. Loss of 3, and for this offense losing 3rd-and-short for 3rd-and-7 or 8 is big step backwards.
27. NEVERMIND. Spread, there's time (line +), Burns (+) tosses a rope down the sideline to Billings (+), who does very well to get his foot down quickly and pick up 29.
28. 1st-10, Rebel 47. I, give to Fannin off-tackle right, and Green can't get out on the weakside 'backer quickly enough (line -). He and the safety converge and tackle after a minimal gain.
29. Spread, time once again for Burns (line +), but unfortunately Burns (--) only has eyes for Trott. He stares him down and fires over the middle into triple-coverage, with predictable--i.e. intercepted--results. Crud.
30. Stevens (-) is lined up over a wideout, and you would think Ole Miss would exploit this y going deep or something. Instead, they exploit it by having the wideout block Stevens clean out of the play as a swing pass to McCluster is reacted to waaaay too late by the other LBs and the secondary. 11 yards.
31. Rebels in the I, and man ... Auburn's been much, much better this game against the pass than the run, but they're still lining up an LB (Johnson, in this case) out over a WR while then bringing McNeil all the way to the LOS on the opposite side. Search me. Result: Goggans for some reason slants hard towards the strongside, McNeil is blocked easily behind him, Stevens and Bynes (-) are picked up by the fullback and pulling guard, respectively (though Bynes should do better), and there's a massive hole. If Hood doesn't tackle after a 10-yard gain it's a TD. Terrible.
32. Little play-action pass to the TE on 2nd-1 picks up 9 to the Auburn 32. Stevens (-) totally buys the fake and is well out of position.
33. Good, good play here by Bynes (+), who blitzes up the middle, gets just enough of a push to where his arm can bother Snead's passing lane, then perfectly times his jump to swat the ball down. Excellent.
34. Snead rolls left and again the Rebels take advantage of coverage (-) positioning itself in the next zip code. Easy catch for seven--McFadden, who I think is in coverage here, isn't even in the picture when the ball is caught--and a sloppy tackle attempt by the charging Pybus yields two more.
35. 3rd-1. Rebels in the I and run the little toss counter after the fake to the fullback. Stevens (-) is unblocked and readily gives up contain by biting hard on the fake anyway. McNeil (-) lets himself get driven back and a bad angle by Etheridge gets McCluster 18 yards to the Auburn 6. If you count the swing as a rushing play, the Rebels' three rushes on this drive have gone for 10, 9, and 18.
36. Stevens does make the play this time, snagging McCluster by the ankles on a Wild Rebel keeper. A hold brings the Rebels back, though. Teehee.
37. Ole Miss in a weird one-receiver I-plus-H-back set. The call's a play-action fake that fools no one, though a curiously hard slant from the line results in no pressure whatsoever. Everyone's well covered, though (coverage +) and Hood even has an outside chance of picking Snead's ball towards the corner. Not quite.
38. Draw play to Eason, and it picks up 6 before Pybus (+) disengages from a block and gets him by the ankles. Blanc is surprisingly downfield to help out, too, but it's not quite just "good effort"; he got the hell blocked out of him up front.
39. 3rd-goal from the 11. Snead again has all day, but again seems to pull the ball down awfully quickly when no one breaks open immediately (cover +). He bobs and weaves his way almost back to the line when Blanc crushes him. To top it off, Ole Miss draws a personal foul for something we never see (thanks, Raycom) and now instead of a TD Ole Miss is trying a 45-yard field goal. Hell yes.
40. He misses! Auburn escapes without giving up points despite basically sucking like the cold black vacuum of outer space for most of that drive.
41. Spread. Burns rolls right and after Trott (+) does a nice job of selling his block, hits his TE drifting back across the field. Well-drawn up, well-executed play all-around ... too bad Trott's not exactly scary in the open field and gets tackled after a gain of 6.
Fourth quarter
42. Ace-shotgun. Fake zone read (the line pulls right; Burns doesn't have the option to keep here) to Tate. The strongside DE shoots past Trott (line -), who tackles him. Hold. Again 2nd-and-short turns into something much more daunting.
43. Spread. Burns has time (seriously, the line [+] may be struggling to open up running lanes, but they're owning the Ole Miss in pass protection right now) and finds Slaughter on a crossing route for 8. Nice pickup to set up 3rd-and-makeable.
44. Spread. Incredible play by Burns (+), who gets tripped up by the legs of the rushing Jerry and puts a hand down to keep his knees just off the ground. He then regains his footing and fires to Slaughter (+), who makes the grab and turns immediately towards the sticks for the extra few yards and a first.
45. Spread. And boy, it doesn't get any prettier than this: Burns (+) pump-fakes and then lofts a perfectly arced ball to a wide-open Slaughter down the sideline. 42 yards, 1st-10 at the 17. (line +)
46. Spread. Whoops--Burns (-) gets a tiny bit more heat up the gut than the last several pass plays and fires his slant to Slaughter way high. Not going for much regardless.
47. Spread, QB draw, and the Rebels blitz a corner in untouched. Burns has to crazy-juke to avoid him and goes down for a loss of 3. Just a good (or fortunate) play-call by the Rebel DC.
48. 3rd-13. Spread. 3-man-rush and ... you know, those three men get just a smidgen more push than they should, and I think that does contribute to Burns (---) not setting his feet properly at all before he flings a killer interception that flies a mile and a half over Slaughter's head. But it's an easy fix here for Burns--if he steps up into the pocket he's got a ton of room in which to either throw or take off. Awful decision, an even worse throw. (Baker reports from the sideline a minute later that Burns expected Billings to run an out route. Doesn't change anything about Burns throwing without being able to step into it when one step forward gives him plenty of space in which to maneuver.)
49. 1st-10, Ole Miss on their own 34. Sweep left, Goggans (-) gets stood up and yields the corner. 5 quick yards.
50. Snead takes a shotgun snap and rolls right ... no one open (cover +). Bynes chases him out after a yard or two.
51. Rebels spread it out on 3rd-3, Shay Hodge sits down in the zone between Stevens and Bynes, and Snead finds him with a dart. Probably not a ton that could be done about that; just good execution.
52. Facing a handoff right out of the I, Auburn slants the DL hard to the opposite side and blitzes Stevens and Bynes around the other end. Goggans (-) once again has to do better as the DE at the point of attack--he gets shoved five yards straight downfield and when the blitzers get picked up, Bolden has a hole for nearly 10.
53. Hey now, that's how it's supposed to work! Ricks (+) shoves his guy aside and draws a second blocker, leaving just one pulling OL for both Bynes and Stevens. He picks Stevens and Bynes (+) is free to make a quick, solid tackle.
54. 3rd-and-inches, Snead sneaks for the first. Fine. What's not fine is Evans (-) finishing the play off by needlessly grabbing the facemask and tacking on a quick 15.
55. Blanc (+) bulls his way into the backfield and totally blows up a sweep right. Ricks is on hand to tackle for a loss of 4. (!)
56. %$&@! More specifically, %$&@ Raycom. Snead runs a waggle and Coleman's all over him, forcing him to throw a quick four-yard curl to Wallace with Hood in tight coverage. It's incomplete and ... flag. PI. We don't see said PI, though, since my broadcast isn't in HD and the camera doesn't whip around to the play until the ball is already there. No problem as long as there's replay, right? They don't give us a replay.
57. Etheridge (-) walks almost into the box and is in position to make the play on an I handoff over the weakside--he just doesn't react, though, as McCluster rushes past him for 5. Bynes (+) does a good job here of shedding a block from the tackle and holding the gain down--but why doesn't he do that more often?
58. Play-action, again Snead has nowhere to throw (coverage +). He scrambles back across the field and Evans (-) should find a way to stop him for a loss; instead he gives up the corner and Snead squeaks out two.
59. Ole Miss runs the same play that LSU scored their second touchdown on--the counter flip paired with a halfback pass. McCluster doesn't like what he sees downfield and keeps, torching Stevens (-) in the open field to gain 7.
60. Wild Rebel keeper on 1st-goal from the 7 is snuffed out nicely by Etheridge and Evans, but Clayton gets a hand up as the RB goes by and gets a little bit of his facemask. This is a five-yarder last year and is supposed to be ignored completely this year, but nope. Flag. Half the distance.
61. Nice play by Ole Miss, bringing the FB in motion right, then having him sneak back across the line into the left flat after a waggle. Snead flips it to him for a simple touchdown. Pybus (-) appears to be the linebacker with responsibility to that side.
62. 17-7, 6:45 to play, Auburn needs some very good things to happen in a big hurry. Davis (ST -) losing the kickoff in the sun and letting it bounce through the end zone is not a good start.
63. Spread, which I'm sure will be the formation of choice from this point forward and will only be noted if it's something else. First, a false start from Ziemba! (line -).
64. QB draw, Lester (-) fails miserably on his lead block and Burns is wrapped up almost immediately.
65. Burns and Billings hook up on the quick out route for 7. Nice calm execution there, though I kinda wish Billings has taken the sliver of opportunity for more yards-after-catch.
66. 3rd-9. The line (+) gives Burns (-) a nice pocket, but he just plain misses his throw to Billings on the sideline comeback route. Ugly.
67. Durst punts, but more importantly somebody in the Rebel line gets called for "hands to the face" and Auburn picks up a cheap first down. Wheeee!
68. Burns rolls left on 1st-10 and finds a wide open Slaughter (+) along the sideline. He plugs away past the first tackler for about three extra yards. More of that, please.
69. Ace-shotgun for 2nd-1 and the line opens up a crease over the left side for Burns to keep for the first ... though if Pugh and Tate can do a little more with their blocks, this maybe breaks open for a big gainer.
70. Pugh gets beaten badly in pass protection here (line -), causing Burns to throw a 50-yard bomb towards Billings off his back foot. It's not a bad effort as such, but pretty well out-of-bounds nonetheless.
71. Burns finds Swinton running the same route that Slaughter turned into nine yards a moment ago for ... nine yards. The fun part of this play is the blitzing linebacker who hurdles Tate a la that dude for Navy against Notre Dame last year. It would have had a similar result, too, had Burns not already released the ball.
72. Burns connects with Carr this time on the eight-yard out. I'm not giving him pluses for fairly routine throws like this, but Burns does deserve some credit for hitting them consistently. Hell, let's give him a collective (+) for the last three.
73. Ah, our sophomore quarterback giveth, our sophomore quarterback taketh away. It's a three-receiver route and Burns (--) never looks in the direction of two guys running shorter routes on the left side of the field, meaning it's an easy play for the deep safety to drift towards Carr running a fly down the opposite sideline. Burns also has some pressure and is on his back foot. Carr is also blanketed by his man. Away goes the pass anyway, and it's predictably picked.
74. There's 3:50 left in the game and Ole Miss is up 10; they're going to run the ball and Auburn has looked awful against the run for most of the day. So why only seven in the box here? Same ol' same ol', Carter (-) gets himself too far upfield, Johnson (-) takes a bad angle, huge hole, yadda yadda yadda. Johnson (+) does cause some excitement by tracking back and stripping Eason of the ball 12 yards downfield; Hood recovers and Auburn's in business ... until the replay official decides Eason's knee was down first. How he's seeing "definitive" evidence here is beyond me. The better team is without question the one that's in front, but the officiating breaks have by-and-large broken for the Rebels.
75. 1st-10. Exact same play, same result when Auburn stunts/slants itself out of the hole. Bynes at least avoids a block and tackles after a short gain.
76. Blecch. Johnson (-) lines up at the LOS and for whatever reason rushes towards the outside almost on an overlap with the DE; the Rebels seal Doolittle (-) inside and run right through the abandoned gap for another 10. Missed tackled from McNeil (-) makes it 17. It's all academic from here.
So play-by-play stops here as well. It's worth noting that Burns does check down to Fannin twice on Auburn's final drive; maybe he can be encouraged to do so more often?
Plus/minus
Three notes first: I lumped the tight-end blocking in with the line this time, so Trott's numbers are solely about his receiving duties; the individual secondary numbers are mostly from run support (or lack thereof) and should be taken with the understanding that downfield coverage was excellent; and two individually assigned minuses on special teams play (to Etheridge and Slaughter, specifically) were included under "ST."
Offense: Slaughter +3, Trott +2, Lester +1, Line +1, Fannin 0, Billings 0, Dunn -1, Hawthorne -1, Tate -1, Burns -4.
Defense: Cover +13 (uh ... this may need some tweaking next time), Ricks +2, Hood +1, Blanc +1, Coleman +1, Bynes 0, Pybus 0, Doolittle -1, Johnson -1, Slade -1, Evans -1, Goggans -1, McFadden -1, Clayton -2, McNeil -2, Etheridge -2 Carter -2, Stevens -3.
Special teams: Byrum +1, Durst +1, other ST -4.
Verdicts
Give Ensminger some modicum of credit here: after the power running game and the ace-shotgun proved so utterly futile in the first half, they pretty well disappeared in the second. Auburn went virtually all spread all the time, it more or less worked. After finishing -4 in the first half, the stout pass-protecting of the line took them to +5 in the second. (The irony of said line griping nonstop about Franklin not letting them line up in a three-point stance and fire off when apparently they're better at sitting back and pass-blocking is beyond rich.) Auburn punted six times in the first half and only once in the second, and that was from the Rebel 40. All six second-half drives finished in Ole Miss territory. For maybe the first time all season, Auburn took on a defense with a pulse and could be fairly called "successful" ...
... if not for the occasional wayward decision-making of Burns. Of those six drives, one was the TD and one ended the game--the other four ended with 1. Burns making a bad read on 3rd-4 2. Pick 3. Pick 4. Pick. Burns should certainly get a a lot of credit for Auburn's ability to move the ball in the second half. But the reason that movement didn't result in points lies squarely on his shoulders. With the run game kaput, it's his offense, 100 percent, for better, for worse. When you finish the game with only seven points, it's only fair to say that as much potential as Burns showed, it was for worse. What's sad is that this half was probably as close as we'll come this year to seeing what Franklin imagined in action. If he'd trusted Burns enough to work through these bad decisions, where would Franklin and this offense be now?
Defensively, the plus/minus for the defensive line and linebackers are just too generous. Take the play that started the half--Ole Miss lines up seven blockers against seven Auburn defenders and makes a successful block on every single damn one of them. I don't know where to stick a minus--do they all get one?--but this nonetheless a comprehensive failure. I do think it's fair to assume the DTs are a notch ahead of the DEs (particularly in run support) and LBs (Stevens was -4 for the second half FWIW), but when you've given up 5.7 yards a carry, it's safe to say no one in the front seven covered themselves in glory.
As for the secondary, that +13 is probably exaggerating things, but maybe not by too much; Ole Miss never completed a pass longer than 20 yards and didn't complete a single one longer than 11 yards in the second half. This is somewhat by design, of course, since Auburn elected to give up anything underneath unless it was a short-yardage situation. But still, for a group this young and banged-up (remember, Hood played basically the entire game) to do this well covering the deep ball is a hell of a performance. Holding a bomber like Snead to 4.7 yards-per-attempt is VICTORY no matter how you slice it. If only the front seven had been able to do a little more to help them out.
What's it mean for Georgia?
Our defensive line has to not just be good; they have to dominate. Our secondary is perhaps more up to the task of covering Green and Massaquoi deep than we might initially think, but they're still going to have to play mostly in the same deep coverage we saw here to do it. The way Auburn's linebackers are playing, any halfway-decent hole up front is going to mean Moreno loose in the secondary. Basically, those holes can't develop. Marks and Doolittle have to play at their very best' Ricks and Blanc can't allow for any letdowns when they rotate in; and Carter, Goggans, and Clayton all have to do a much better job of holding up against the rush. Thank goodness Gerogi'a so beat up along the o-line, because it means there's a shot they'll do just this; otherwise, Moreno is going to have a field day.
Offensively, it might be worth trying the power stuff early on to see if it goes anywhere. If not? Screw it--spread 'em out and pray Kodi keeps his head. If he does, and those drives we saw in the second half against the Rebels turn into points ... who knows? But if Auburn continues banging its head against the ace-shotgun, straight-ahead wall, then we most certainly do know. We know it won't be pretty.
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