re: Auburn ranked 13th in pre-season Coaches Poll

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there was like a 5-6 game stretch where I guarantee you nobody wanted to see us. Wake up

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Let's be real. Those D's we played against in that stretch were unbelievably bad. The O was running the football, pre KP injury in a manner that they hadn't shown an ability to run against a decent DL. Even against Vandy...we struggled a bit. That 6 game stretch was text book on how "paper tigers" are created. Look at the rushing stats prior to KP's injury against any legit D or Dline from last season and you'll see our O was pretty pedestrian. The D also fell off late season, which could be a mild concern. Though I chalk that up to being put in such bad spots late in the year.

To me the issues with the O, which meant we weren't a great team last year...just a good team. It all came down to the QB and to a lesser extent the OL. We didn't have a QB who could stretch the field or be a real threat in the run game.

*both can help an OL running the football when playing a superior DL

The second was the OL was average run blocking and worse at pass pro. I believe we average 134 yards rushing against the teams we played with a decent DL. We also had trouble picking up crucial short yardage in those games.

*Pass pro is because we don't have a legit LT who has shown himself capable of playing at this level (YET)...see previous star for running the football in Gus' scheme.