TigerTime Burrito

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i think even some AURantards fail to realize what a colossal mistake Freezus was, he set the program back further than Harsin did IMHO

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I just can't get there. Of course they were both failures. I'm not sure what Harsin was even trying to do here. He somehow managed to win a few games (see LSU), but the trajectory of the program was straight down and it didn't seem to bother him at all. Man, the program had literally nothing at the end. No talent, no leadership, no plan. Freeze at least executed a plan (rebuild the roster). It's just that he didn't follow through after that. He didn't now how to cultivate a winning culture, develop a QB, or even coach the game of modern football for that matter.

We wasted 3 years with Freeze's BS, but Harsin was like an agent from an enemy school sent to destroy Auburn Football from the inside. I feel swindled by Freeze. I despise Harsin. And my 2 children were at Auburn for both of them, which makes me physically ill.

Hall just isn't a winning player and will end his career having never led a team to the NCAA tournament.

But I knew we were toast when we failed to score on the 3 on 1 fast break. We are the worst fast break team in the history of basketball. Do these kids not grow up playing AAU ball? Half the points in those games are in transition.

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Steven seems fine to me as an X's and O's guy,

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I am beginning to question this. I watched OK cut us to pieces on defense. In the first half they constantly had their scorers driving to the goal (1 vs 1) against a back side defender, taking advantage of our big out top pressure and top of key switching by our guards. This worked all 1st half leading to either scores or fouls at the rim or kick outs for good 3 looks. In the 2nd half, they were able to just enter the ball in the middle of the lane and kick back out to a shooter when the defense collapsed (similar to my 6th grade girls offense). It was painful watching OK methodically take apart our defense like that. 100% coaching. There is no mystery why players have career nights against us. We are easy to scheme.

It's easy to coach defense when you have great ball pressure and rim protection. We are seeing what happens when we don't have those things. So, I am left to wonder about Pearl. He doesn't coach offense, has not been able to make the pieces of this team fit together, and they now appear to be shutting down on him.

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but I do feel sorry for some of the smaller 5A schools who will now have to play in area/regions with schools twice their size.

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This and the additional travel (and the cost of the travel) many schools are now looking at, public and private. I haven't looked at all classes, but there are some rough 5A regions where (as your mention), schools are having to compete against much larger schools. At the extreme, the difference can be double the size. These smaller schools are going to take scheduled beatings against teams they really should not be playing.

Having a PG would help this team tremendously. But they could help themselves by running some damn offense. They rarely do anything on or off ball to get the defense moving, making them extremely easy to guard. I'm honestly not sure what their offense is other than to isolate Hall on someone, or maybe something simple off a screen.

This is obviously not last year's team. Last year's team ran offense. Weave action out top to get desired switches. Basic shite like feeding the post to find a shooter. Where are the classic Pearl pin down screens and flex cuts? We are depending too much on the pure athleticism of the players this year, which fails when shots aren't falling. It's both lazy and bad coaching. Teams like Duke with the best athletes in the country run offense.

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Deuce to Ole Miss probably

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I hope so at this point. I am not in favor of paying Deuce over 1Mil to be a backup, then just having him leave at the end of the season. Because, let's face it, that's exactly what's going to happen. All of his actions have showed he is just chasing the biggest number. Auburn would be getting played if they were the team offering it. We were in a position to choose Brown or Duece and the correct decision was made. No it's time to LET DUECE WALK! Unless he is willing to stick around for $500K or something like that, then maybe.

In this current environment, I am also not in favor of even recruiting higher-tier highschool QBs, with corresponding high NIL prices. It's wasted money that should go to more pressing needs.

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Freeze had a top ten roster. They had no heart. No pride. No motivation to perform. No discipline. No accountability.

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I continue to be baffled by the Freeze era of Auburn Football. His offense sucked in every possible way - play calling, scheme, game day execution, you name it.... He did not instill a winning culture when he knew there was no existing leadership returning. He failed miserably on QB evaluation and development. He does have some history at doing SOME things, so why was he so inept here with all the tools to succeed? Even the haters have to admit, this was a crazy result.

But to OP's point.. This offense can work and possibly thrive with 'system' pieces at all the skill positions. So maybe we can be successful with lower rated players there.

This team will never be good on defense. It has actually improved some over the season, but high level offense/oriented teams are going to make us look silly. Overton gives effort but routinely gets beat physically. Hall is seemingly out of position half the time. Note whenever there is a free run at the basket or swing pass to an open shooter, its usually Hall trying to recover to that spot.

After the NC State game, Pearl talked about the high ball pressure and our guard's inability to handle it. His take was that we actually want that pressure as we should be able to break it with a simple pass, playing 4 on 3 at the basket. Well, we struggled with it again against Arizona. Tonight's strategy was for Pet to dribble around it. We don't have the ball handlers this year to deal with ball pressure and the result is that we are not running ANY offense. The shot selection is terrible, taking mostly jacked up 3s and low % 2s. Even Murphy doesn't get many high % 2s as he doesn't take the ball to rim strong. Does he know how to dunk?

This team will win some SEC games with streaky shooting and hopefully some home court help, but I think it will be a struggle to get to .500 in the league and questionable to make the tournament without some heavy coaching and improvement at many levels.

A couple of random thoughts from watching the game live...

- I was expecting more from Murphy. They only ran a couple of plays for him, but he does not look comfortable with the ball. When he had other opportunities (flow of the game, or put backs, etc...), he did not go up strong except for the dunk at the end of the game. He's an adequate defender and rebounder and we badly need him on the floor because ->

- I'm not sure how much Jovic can contribute. He's a below average rebounder, extremely weak with the ball, and makes bad decisions (boneheaded turnovers, bad fouls, lane violation, etc..). It forced Hall into action playing the 5 on Defense late in the game (who looked lost a couple of times), resulting in some easy points for Houston

- Defense plays with intensity but just flat out blows many possessions. Houston had 5+/- undefended wide open 3 Point shots, and 5+ break away lay-ups/dunks either down the middle or from the baseline with no back side rotation. There were several times when the back side defender was guarding both the driving ball handler and a shooter sitting in the corner (impossible). We were not expecting this team to be great on D, but hopefully it can come around. Too many free uncontested points given up tonight.

Also many, many positives.. But would like to see Murphy be more assertive. I'm not holding my breath for any production out of Jovic, but maybe he can develop this year, as we badly need some minutes from him.

It may be nitpicking, but it always seemed strange that Riley left Oklahoma just prior to coming into the SEC. Like he didn't want the heat. Now he finds himself unexpectedly in the Big-10, and with a 7-2 record with somehow no big wins and a coming off of a 7-6 and 8-5 seasons. I don't know what to think.

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Jackson was pristine for 29 minutes against Georgia. He has the can-do.

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I would describe Arnold's history more of one not doing it, and his resume grows every week.

Every game counts, but there is 1 game on the schedule every year where you are throwing everything you have into it. Extra game planning, some special or different plays saved up for this game, etc. Bye week to prepare, huge recruiting weekend, coming back off the road, and night game at JH to boot (bonus). UGA was this year's game and that helped Arnold looked more competent than usual in the first half. Then UGA made some adjustments at half time (took the perimeter stuff away, etc...), and it all reverted to what we have seen all year. If he can't snap the ball and throw to 1 pre-determined spot, something bad is going to happen. Freeze isn't helping, but Arnold just doesn't have the capacity to help himself. He certainly isn't winning any SEC games for Auburn (would have been 0-5).