I'm guessing that Troopa will be promoted to OC........

Finebaum has been given the credit for the firing of Mike Shula........

Finebaum is a self serving pox on society. He'd take credit for Victory over the Japs if he could.

He's a bald walking penis.

Correct, but he sure dogged Shula and helped rile the Bama Nation....................

Don't lump ALL bald walking penises with that piece of crap!!!

What commitment? You mean their contract? Generally contracts are multi-year, not game by game. I don't fault anyone from attempting to further their career. Every man has to make their own decisions based on their own circumstances. If that means breaking a contract, so be it.

I wonder how Tony Franklin feels about that.

And so the Hate train starts rolling....

http://www.theplainsman.com/view/full_st...news_lead_story

Gus Malzahn: innovative mastermind or overpaid?
by Coleman McDowell / ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR
The Auburn Plainsman


Gus Malzahn is overrated. Someone had to say it. So far this season through 10 games, Auburn is ranked 84th in total offense. With the talent Malzahn has to work with, the production has been unacceptable.

Granted, Auburn is a youthful team. But with talent like running backs Michael Dyer and Onterio McCalebb, wide receiver Emory Blake and tight end Philip Lutzenkirchen, there is no way Auburn should be behind Bowling Green, Middle Tennessee State and Ball State in total offense.

Malzahn is not living up to his $1.3 million yearly salary. Is he a capable offensive coordinator? Yes. Is he the “genius” he has been labeled after only a few seasons at the collegiate level? No.

Malzahn came to Arkansas in 2006 after he had taken two different Arkansas high schools to new heights with his spread attack offense.

He had one of the most gifted athletes I have ever seen in Darren McFadden at running back, along with future NFL pros in Felix Jones and Peyton Hillis. He had success. But not with his offense. With David Lee’s offense.

David Lee was Arkansas’ quarterback coach in 2006, and the Wildcat offense that led Arkansas to the SEC West crown and SEC Championship game has been widely credited to him, not Malzahn.

Malzahn rode the publicity of the hot, new offensive attack to the offensive coordinator job at Tulsa. Yep, Tulsa. After the marriage between Malzahn and head coach Houston Nutt ended so bitterly, Malzahn left for Conference-USA powerhouse Tulsa.

There, Malzahn’s high school offense shined.

He finished in the top three in offense both years with the Hurricanes. He parlayed that into one of the most high-profile jobs in the SEC, offensive coordinator at Auburn.

His first year here, he took Chris Todd and made him into a capable quarterback, just not in his offense. The 2009 Tigers were so hindered by Todd’s lack of arm strength, that they relied on running back Ben Tate to be the focal point of the offense, which opened things up for Todd.

Auburn jumped from 110th to 17th in total scoring, and the offense was a drastic improvement over the failed Tony Franklin experiment of 2008.

In 2010, Auburn was dominating on offense because of Cameron Newton. Malzahn tailored his entire offense to this once-in-a-lifetime talent and rode Newton the entire season.

Auburn’s offense set many records in 2010, but it wasn’t running Gus Malzahn’s offense. It was letting the best player in the nation run the ball off tackle over and over again to beat the defense into submission.

So far in 2011, this has been Gus Malzahn’s offense only for the second time in the SEC without an all-world talent at his disposal. And it’s been pathetic.

What seemed like genius earlier has now turned dunce.

1st and 10, Dyer off tackle for 4 yards. 2nd and 6, McCalebb sweep for 4 yards. 3rd and 2, incomplete bubble screen and a punt.

Malzahn’s response to his third-down playcalling? “I try to be unpredictable.”

Well, you succeeded, Gus. But you didn’t get the first down.

Jay Wisner should never be blocking on the quick screen to the slot receiver. He can’t block. And that’s nothing Wisner can necessarily help; he’s just 160 pounds.

On top of that, the quick screen to the slot receiver has lost more yards than it’s gained this year.

But Malzahn doesn’t care, because throwing it 15 times a half will set the defense up for something in the second half- when the Tigers are down by 21.

Malzahn’s offense is simply this: speed sweep to McCalebb, off tackle to Dyer, the bubble screen or a trick play.

This isn’t sandlot football—this is the SEC. The reverse statue of liberty worked once. The double reverse worked once. Defensive coordinators watch film. They know your playbook; they know your tendencies. And it’s showed.

Against Georgia, Auburn moved the ball on one drive. And that was a result of a trick play. Auburn scored on one drive. And that was on a reverse pass.

I hate to say it, but Alabama’s defense is more talented at every position than Georgia’s. It might get 2008 ugly.

Malzahn is meticulous with his planning, preparation and focus on the little things. But it seems like he forgets the big picture sometimes.

This 2011 Auburn offensive unit has potential to be as successful as the 2009 team, but it won’t because Gus is set on running his high school offense.

Sure, we don’t have a quarterback, but neither do LSU or Alabama. What do they do? They tailor their offense to their playmakers. Alabama has a mediocre, young quarterback, but two electric running backs. So they run the ball constantly and lead the league in rushing this year.

Why can’t we do the same with Dyer and McCalebb?

But we are slowly finding that Gus isn’t quite the genius he appears when he doesn’t have a Heisman trophy finalist in the backfield.


Read more: The Auburn Plainsman - Gus Malzahn innovative mastermind or overpaid

No hate....just failed expectations. This thread was about Auburn faithful supposedly protecting GM. I do not see protection in that article. He called it like it is.

One thing I have yet to understand about Gus this year is the Frazier deal when he comes in for a play, runs the ball and trots off the field only to come back a few mores times that game.

I fail to see the necessity of this and wonder how it's setting the kid up for later.

I noticed that too. Frazier is a better runner but if he only comes in on designed running plays....well, even Ted Roof could figure out what play was coming.

Melt down on the plains. Love it!!

Why hell, of course is it setting up a play action pass against the Sabanites.

In other words, a cigar smoking chimp named Gus could have called an offense based on Cam.

Some good points on here..even from some of you bammers. This is probably going to get long, but maybe some of you guys will see it as a fair and accurate assessment. Been wanting to post about this for awhile, but school's kept me busy and today is my first day off--here goes:

There are a few things that has crippled the offense this year and the first glaring reason is the offense having to support the defense. This offense is successful when it paces the defense at key points in the game and can spread the ball around. They want to hit you from every angle and constantly keep the defense guessing what's next. When things get predictable then they speed up the pace. It's all geared toward keeping the other team on their heels.

So why has this season been different? If you speed up the game when the offense isn't clicking, you are just sticking your defense back on the field. At times this year we've seen the offense try to speed things up, you've also saw lopsided time of possession and huge numbers against our defense.

At this point, many people will say "well if the offense was successful they could pace the other team and stay on the field". That's a great point and there are some glaring deficiencies within the offense aside from not being able to pick up the speed. The Oline play has been horrible. Call it youth, call it inexperience, call it lack of strength/talent. Doesn't matter-it's been bad. My take? I think it's all of the above, but I also think it's the personnel and their toughness/grit. Listen to these guys in interviews. I don't hear guys that want to beat their opponnent into the field. I think in addition to all the obvious reasons for the lack of success, they just don't have that drive/toughness/grit--wanna kick your face in factor *yet*.

WRs may have been the only unit more disapointing then the Oline, but it's close. The offense has to have blocking on the edges to be successful and the WRs are responsible for a lot of seal blocks. Injuries have certainly hindered us. Two best WRs have been hurt a decent portion of the year and our best freshman receiver got redshirted due to an injury. Blocking has been bad-there's a reason a white dude that walked on for this season is getting 80% of the snaps-he's the only one that trys to block and he misses half of his tries. The QBs haven't done a great job of getting the football in the right spot and some of that gets put back on the Oline play, but the receivers don't catch half the balls they should (except Blake, Lutzy, Omac). I watch other teams and those receivers are hungry-they attack the ball if it's not thrown perfect where our guys just aren't on that level I guess. This area will have to improve dramatically as well. I'm not great at analyzing route running so I'll leave that out of this post.

RB has been a bright spot for otherwise disappointing offense. Dyer with a good Oline this year would be in Heisman talk. We are short at the RB position as far as depth goes, but that will be fixed come next year so I can't complain. I would like to see Mason get some of OMacs running plays. I think he is as fast and runs tougher, but this is just a personal opinion

I think Moseley, Frazier, or Trotter could be successful. I'm not convinced by Trotter's arm strength, Moseley's ability to run (at all), or Frazier's accuracy but I think they could all be successful with the other deficiencies fixed.

Coaching. I think Malzahn is the best there is. I have concerns about his offense, but they don't begin with his abilities, play calling, or if it will work in the SEC. My concerns begin with it's inability to be effective if the defense isn't functional, if the QB play is subpar, if the WRs and Oline block like a bunch of 90 year old grandmas. My other concern, which is a double edged sword, the ability to get great athletes in the system but the inability to draw the top talent that may be looking for a prostyle offense that may get them to the NFL. I'm not sure how much weight this holds but it probably evens out in the wash as they say.

Bottomline: It's not Malzahn. It's the defense not allowing the offense to do their thing. It's a weak Oline and poor WR play. Its playing a schedule that ranks in the top 5 in the NCAA with a team that's in the bottom 5 as far as experience. It's losing 3 juniors and 23 seniors off a championship team and 5 more guys due to stupidity. It's being 13 scholly's short of the 85 limit. It's playing Arky, USC, LSU, Clemson, Georgia all on the road and all ranked. Even with Cam, we would have lost 3 of those games, if not 4 (would have still beat USC and probably added a win at Clemson).

Since it is agreed that Malzhan is a phenomenal offensive coordinator, where does he end up?
AU
UM
UNC

I heard Ole Miss yesterday for the first time. Frankly, if it were me I'd get out of the SEC. How much more difficult could it be for a new Head Coach, than that?

I'm guessing he goes to the ACC to coach UNC.

We'll see.

Pretty solid overall Justin, but consider....



Would it surprise Auburn fans to hear that through the first 7 SEC games last year vs this year, that this year's defense has given up ONLY 7 more points than last year's through the first 7 SEC games? The facts are that last year's Auburn defense was pretty terrible, too...just the offense with Cam had the firepower to outscore the other teams every time out.



I agree that Oline play this year has been pretty bad, but as I've said before, was it really that much better last year? Most of Cam's rushing yards last year came not on designed rushing plays, but on plays where the protection broke down and he made it happen on his own with his feet. I will agree that Auburn's oline isn't quite as good as last year's was, but I'm not really sure that's not a "tallest midget" contest.

Dyer's production is very similar to last year with approximately the same number of yards on approximately the same number of carries, but he has more td's this year. He is a much bigger target this year than last year. McCalleb's numbers are down, but a lot of that could be attributed to the lack of any threat of the qb keeping the ball on the jet sweep...making it much easier to key on OM.

I believe he wil stay at Auburn but who knows? He is making great money, he is close to home, He is getting great exposure, His daughters are enrolled in Auburn.

Jdr, its agreed malzhan is a very good coordinator? Did you not see your bama brethren basically say he was a monkey?

Hb, you just proved how foolish you are. AU had the best o line in the country last year and blew holes big enough to drive a mack truck through.

The defense was poor last year as well, BUT they made key stops in the 2nd half. They were stronger in the redzone and was much better in the run defense. These are two different defenses we are talking about even if statistically they are similiar. Most importantly, you are reiterating my point. Imagine how much worse our numbers could be if we started running plays at the pace we did at times last year? It would be 24-7 in the first quarter.



Talent wise, last years line wasn't much better. Experience wise, they are giants compared to this Oline. Additionally Ziemba, Pugh, Barry, Isom all had a little mean streak to them. May just come with experience and confindence, but these guys need to grow a pair and want to bury their opponnent 6 ft deep. When you have that mentality and the talent to go with it, you start dominating the line.