It brings a lot more balance to the offense. Now, let's just work on some play action to freeze the defense and get a little more separation, thus creating more explosive plays.
Nice deployment of the centers to create a Yurchich version of the old elephant package for short yardage. Since there are no fullbacks on the roster, it's a good way to get some size on the field. Bonus points for actually letting one of them plow into and over the line for a short score. Hey, maybe with the upcoming expanded scholarship numbers Franklin will decide to recruit a fullback or two, but barring that this isn't a bad workaround.
This team still needs to work on its running game, but it's definitely getting better and more physical.
Defense - I really like it. No giant liabilities anywhere, and the secondary looks like it has some playmakers. When they got run over on that one drive it was nice to see the offense run some time off the clock and give them some rest to regroup. It's also why I really want to see the offense run the ball more from formations that benefit the running game.
Back to the offense, I really liked their pacing in the game. They went up to the line quickly so the defense had little time to adjust to personnel and formation changes, but also didn't rush the snaps, allowing the defense to rest more between series. Clifford was calm, cool, and collected, and really showed some excellent leadership in a tough game.
I'm not sure if Stout is better than Pinegar on field goals, but he's not worse. Punting and kickoffs were solid to great. The DL got robbed on that punt fake. I'm still not a fan of all the 4th down attempts, but no real harm last night.
I thought the Auburn receivers really let them down last night. If they would have caught a few slightly tougher balls, it could have closer. That said, if the refs don't suck donkey balls it wouldn't have mattered. And earlier I had actually praised them for hustling and getting into position to make a tough call on a sideline incompleteness. I can't remember the last time I saw a big 10 ref that focused on his job. By the way, on that fubarred 3rd/4th down punt, did Franklin actually exhaust all his avenues to protest the 4th down? I applaud his cool for calming down and refocusing when he lost the argument, but why no timeout to call for a replay or something else to get the down fixed? Also, he remained much more calm in what I consider an even more inexplicable grounding call. He was very focused on the next play all night. Kudos to him in showing his team how to keep their cool in the face of obvious yet uncontrollable situations.
Nice deployment of the centers to create a Yurchich version of the old elephant package for short yardage. Since there are no fullbacks on the roster, it's a good way to get some size on the field. Bonus points for actually letting one of them plow into and over the line for a short score. Hey, maybe with the upcoming expanded scholarship numbers Franklin will decide to recruit a fullback or two, but barring that this isn't a bad workaround.
This team still needs to work on its running game, but it's definitely getting better and more physical.
Defense - I really like it. No giant liabilities anywhere, and the secondary looks like it has some playmakers. When they got run over on that one drive it was nice to see the offense run some time off the clock and give them some rest to regroup. It's also why I really want to see the offense run the ball more from formations that benefit the running game.
Back to the offense, I really liked their pacing in the game. They went up to the line quickly so the defense had little time to adjust to personnel and formation changes, but also didn't rush the snaps, allowing the defense to rest more between series. Clifford was calm, cool, and collected, and really showed some excellent leadership in a tough game.
I'm not sure if Stout is better than Pinegar on field goals, but he's not worse. Punting and kickoffs were solid to great. The DL got robbed on that punt fake. I'm still not a fan of all the 4th down attempts, but no real harm last night.
I thought the Auburn receivers really let them down last night. If they would have caught a few slightly tougher balls, it could have closer. That said, if the refs don't suck donkey balls it wouldn't have mattered. And earlier I had actually praised them for hustling and getting into position to make a tough call on a sideline incompleteness. I can't remember the last time I saw a big 10 ref that focused on his job. By the way, on that fubarred 3rd/4th down punt, did Franklin actually exhaust all his avenues to protest the 4th down? I applaud his cool for calming down and refocusing when he lost the argument, but why no timeout to call for a replay or something else to get the down fixed? Also, he remained much more calm in what I consider an even more inexplicable grounding call. He was very focused on the next play all night. Kudos to him in showing his team how to keep their cool in the face of obvious yet uncontrollable situations.
