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Auburn game thoughts

This is not a great PSU team…they will lose 2 or 3 games.

BUT: They are a very good team. Sound in all phases. Franklin doing his best work to date for in-game coaching. Yurzich and Pry doing excellent jobs.

Cliff played his best game ever and having a very nice year. Secondary play has been superlative. Portal adds (especially 17) - terrific.

Very smart and hard-playing team…and darn fun to watch. If we can keep the talent pool flowing, the best is yet to come.
I don't see this team losing three games. Of the remaining games, they should be favored in every game except Iowa and OSU (and probably only because they are road games). If you view both of those as toss ups, they should lose one of those and even if they d*ck trip against MSU or someone that is still only two losses.
 
Interior OL needs to get better…at least more consistent. They’re playing good enough to win, but the 3rd & short cannot continue being such a crap shoot.
It's not going to happen. We are what we are. Frankly outside of Alabama, Wisconsin, and a few others, nobody else can do anything either.
 
I had no problem with going for it on 4th down, but clearly our strength on the line is the Ts and TEs not the C & Gs. QB sneaks rely on our weaker links to get push. I would've preferred something to the G T gaps or the even T TE gaps. The 2nd wildcat needed to be snapped 10 seconds earlier to not allow AU to reposition.

It seemed like JF was upset with the yard marker on the on play. He thought it was a yard or less because they had the down stake misaligned.

I also think that our 4th down failures may have caused Harsin to kick the FG. He knew that he had to get some points out of the possession
 
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I had no problem with going for it on 4th down, but clearly our strength on the line is the Ts and TEs not the C & Gs. QB sneaks rely on our weaker links to get push. I would've preferred something to the G T gaps or the even T TE gaps. The 2nd wildcat needed to be snapped 10 seconds earlier to not allow AU to reposition.
Going for it on fourth in the first quarter was pretty bad. When expecting a close game play it safe. Also, kick it away and let your home field White Out fans help you. We gave them an easy three which hurts momentum and takes some steam out of the fans.
 
Hindsight is 20-20 when going for it on fourth and 1. It is becoming evident that it is not our strength, but the what-if enticement is pretty alluring. It is all situational. Give the other guy some credit.

A lot of character building for both teams in that situation. Auburn gets the stops as needed but loses the war. State loses the battle but perceivers to win the war. Always have to remember the other team is trying to win as well.

Still say if you go back to all the 3rd-&-Short situations (i.e., > 3 yards), we did pretty good when running the deep single back (Herbie said we were 3-of-5 at one point in 1st Half... and even said, "much better than Wisconsin game"). It was the QB sneak and gadget plays that got stuffed - the deep single back converted several of these situations on scoring drives including Cain's TD.
 
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