Mullen's timid play calling doesn't help things and neither does being ineffective in the red zone. We move it pretty damn good between the 20's.
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Yeah, the idea of "big game" is kind of ambiguous. There's only 14 of them. They're all pretty big in perspective. Using this "top 3 in the West" criteria, we've played 8 games in the last 3 years vs top 3 West teams (we were one of them in '14). A league average offense would've been 5.1 points/game better in those contests, a league average defense would've been 10.6 points better in those games. The defense has been MORE of a problem in these "big games" than the offense. The only two games where both offense and defense were close to average at the same time were '14 Bama and '16 LSU.
Here's a rundown of those games:
14 Bama: Equally average
14 OM: Equally bad on both sides
15 Bama: Offense was much worse
15 OM: Defense was much worse
15 Ark: We won, but defense was awful, offense saved us (and ST)
16 Bama: Equally awful
16 Auburn: Equally awful
16 LSU: Equally average