watched Auburn's Spring Game

Apr 10, 2016, 2:04 PM

This is a long post, by the way. Twitter's thataway for folks who have a problem with that.

Out of curiosity I watched the first halves of both the South Carolina and Auburn Spring games...they're up on ESPN3 for anybody who likes film. Carolina was...dismal. The highlight of the day was a 94-year-old being sort of carried into the end zone for a TD in their pregame old guy scrimmage...and the standard of play was sufficiently bad that it's probably too bad for the Gamecocks that the 94-year-old doesn't have any eligibility left. I'll say no more. Good God, I have seldom seen a team go from powerhouse to the outhouse so quickly...what happened? It'd take a coroner to determine, for sure. Muschamp has himself a job ahead of him, no lie.

Auburn's a different beast. I know they were 7-6 last year and it was a combination of poor QB play and poor defense that caused said mediocre season...though it's worth a mention that even in said mediocre season they did beat both Louisville and Memphis...which I will admit would be more impressive if it had been basketball. It was also a Louisville team in Week 1 that hadn't settled on a QB, and a Memphis team that had just lost Justin Fuente to VT...but still, Auburn was not terrible last year. Just...slightly above all right.

They still have QB issues, by the way. They have one utterly mediocre QB in Sean White, and a very talented but maddeningly uncomposed QB in Jeremy Johnson, who looks like another incarnation of Cam Newton...but isn't. He misses things. Reads, receivers, passes. He throws lasers to people who aren't there and kills bystanders on the sidelines - watch the Spring Game replay, you'll see he almost got one poor cheerleader right in the face - and then turns around and puts a slowball into triple coverage. Baffling decision-making. John Franklin III - despite Paul Finebaum's assurances - is not another Cam Newton. He's smaller, (though faster), and while he does throw an impressive ball - especially an impressive deep ball - he's still struggling with his reads and mesh points on the read-option and you can tell he is utterly clueless when it comes to the passing game...as you'd expect from a JUCO transfer who has never seen it before. If Auburn is counting on JF3 to beat us in Week 1 they have problems. They're also pretty mediocre at WR. I've heard they've got a boatload of talented youngsters coming in. Good for them. Unless one of them is the next Megatron it ain't going to help them much in Week 1.

Their defense still has holes. They've got some problems at outside backer and their corners and safeties, while they look all right, are not going to confuse anybody with Mackenzie Alexander or Cordrea Tankersley. Their two best defensive players are a couple of guys familiar to Clemson fans - Mont Adams at DT, and Carl Lawson at strongside end. Those two can play...but Clemson's got 9-10 guys on the DL just like them, whereas Auburn assuredly does not. Have they recruited anybody on the DL since they stole Adams and (Carl) Lawson from us four years back? Doesn't appear as such. You can tell they really miss Bobby Lowder and Colonial Bancgroup, who went belly-up when the housing market burst; War Eagle clearly had a higher recruiting budget back then. Shameful.

Where Auburn remains very dangerous is the run game. Their OL isn't as dominant as I've seen it in the past but the run game is their bread and butter and they can really hurt you with it. They seem to be lacking in a perimeter threat who can stretch the field horizontally as well as vertically - the really good Malzahn offenses have had some RB/WR hybrids who were really dangerous on toss sweeps and reverses and suchlike and I wasn't seeing them - but I did see the usual bevvy of short, compact, hard-to-find interior runners who like to slash between the tackles, and I also saw Malzahn using a bunch of formations to get other guys touches, like shifting a RB into the pattern, then bringing down a H-back...and then handing off to the H-back exactly like he was a fullback, and they were getting some yards off that kind of misdirection and eye candy even though their D sees it every day. They also went fast. Lot of tempo, could grind out 4-5 plays inside a minute when they were really humming. If they get you backing up, they can put you on roller skates.

Auburn has pretty much the same offensive scheme as Clemson...but Clemson's passing game is a lot more sophisticated. In contrast, Clemson's running scheme seems a little simplistic compared to all the stuff I was seeing from Auburn. The biggest difference is I'm still less than sold Auburn will be able to throw, whereas Clemson has no such issues. And Wayne Gallman would be by a mile the best RB on the Auburn team too.

They won't be an easy out and I seriously doubt Clemson will blow Auburn out of their own building...but Auburn still does have major problems with their passing game and some holes on their D that need addressing. And I don't see those issues going away week 1. So I'd say Clemson by 3 TD's on a neutral field...at the Barn, in Week 1, it'll likely be significantly tighter. We'll get our 40 or so...but the Barn might get 20+ because their running game is no joke and we're replacing so many defensive starters. If that 20+ becomes 30+, it could start looking like a game.....

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> Quozzel, I've been meaning to ask you why you are not
> that big on Feaster? I had high hopes he would be
> that all around, Todd Gurley type, RB for us. After
> all, he is the consensus number one recruit in SC and
> a top 5 RB nationally by just about every recruiting
> service. What do you base your opinion off of with
> him? TIA

People aren't going to like this but while I think he's physically quite similar to CJ Spiller, I also think he's...uhm, got some de-recruiting ahead of him. He was also playing with a separated shoulder the last part of high school, which does slow you some, but he did not exactly strike several observers I regard pretty well as a killer when it comes to physical toughness. He ain't going to make anybody confuse him with Wayne Gallman, if you get my drift. He's got a little more size than Spiller did but he still seems to like to do his work on the outside and in space, not between the tackles. Which is fine...but it does mean he's not a primary.

Talented, talented guy. His film's amazing. Can hit the homerun ball, for sure. But unless he develops more of a liking for the inside sledding, he's a 10-15-touches-per-game luxury back, not a feature guy.

watched Auburn's Spring Game

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