re: Spinoff Thread: AU’s last 12 Composite 5 Star commits

quote:

---

The question that keeps being dodged is, as bad as Gus is at times, how does he compete with Saban when nobody else in the league has ?

---

A few things to maybe help you move on.

First - there is no doubt that Gus has run an offensive system that gives Saban's preferred defensive system some issues. EVERY defensive system has holes and Gus (and Hugh Freeze and Kevin Sumlin for that matter) have run offensive systems at times that do a good job at exploiting those holes. As more teams have run similar offensive systems against his defense, Saban has adjusted. This makes the defense vulnerable in other ways to other systems, but Saban is trying to have a defense good enough to win championships, not just beat one particular team or style of offense. In the end football is very much about match ups and there are some teams/styles of offense/defense that match up better than others. Winning championships requires you to run your best system and sometimes just survive the couple of bad matchups you might have along the way.

Second - there is also no doubt that Auburn gets way up for the Bama game, particularly at Jordan Hare. My wife's family has had season tickets to Auburn games and I've been to a bunch of games against many teams there and every Iron Bowl there since 2003. It is by far the hardest road environment for Alabama every year. When Auburn has a good team for the Iron Bowl in Auburn the atmosphere is as hostile as it gets and that certainly has helped Auburn pull a couple of upsets. Alabama does not play particularly well in Auburn and that is a credit to Auburn fans.

Third - you are way overstating Auburn's supposed lack of talent. Auburn consistently has top 10 talent in college football. While that talent might not translate has much to the NFL game (partly because of the Gus's system by the way), for the college game Auburn consistently is one of the most talented teams in the country. There is no need for you to denigrate your own team's players' talent to try and prop up Gus or disparage Saban.