What Mullen can learn from Auburn's win yesterday

[ShotgunDawg]

Was thinking about how Auburn won yesterday, and there are a few things we can learn from it.

To beat great teams you must:

1. You must win special teams. Auburn dominated Bama on special teams yesterday. They made no mistakes, blocked a field goal, and returned a field goal for a touchdown. I couldn't help but wonder if Mullen would have payed enough attention to the details to even have a man lined up in the endzone in case of a kick that fell short. This must be fixed.

2. Screw offensive balance: In big games you have to stick with what works and what you do best and allow that to set-up your big plays. It should very evident that, on Auburn's final drive, they set up that touchdown by relentlessly pounding the ball and then faking it. With Dak at QB, Mullen has the personnel to do many of the same things on offense that Auburn does. Would love to Mullen fiddle with this triple option package as something to go to when our base offense isn't working in big games.

3. Develop an offensive identity: Our problem in this area has a lot to do with our injuries at QB and both QBs being different styles, but the point remains, to beat top of the line teams, your offense must have an identity and your offense must have rhythm.

Jimbo Fisher has a great quote yesterday about offense. He stated,"In all sports, being successful on offense is about having good rhythm."

Fisher is right, good hitters in baseball have rhythm at the plate, good basketball teams have rhythm in the way they pass, good golfers have rhythm in their swing, and last but not least, good offensive football teams have an identity and rhythm in their play calling an overall attack.

Having one style of QB will help greatly in this area, but this where Mullen has to improve, and, with Dak, there is really no excuse not to.

Improve in these areas and MSU can be next year's Auburn. Our defense is plenty good enough.

[Dawgface]

Yes, get the ST on par with AU's and we could be pretty darn good. With our D and a healthy Dak, we should be in good shape next year.

[FlabLoser]

crootin

[Dawgfan77]

crootin

All IN!
Seriously we have a lot of talent coming back next year and I could see us being just as good as Auburn if we shore up ST and get some breaks

[MarketingBully01]

You need a hell of a lot of luck and officials to miss calls and give you the benefit of the doubt. 9/10 times Alabama wins that game. The officials called a phantom false start on the made field goal that would have put Bama up by 10, they missed the Ineligible lineman downfield on the tieing TD by Auburn and could have called Marshall passed the LOS on that pass and it would not have been over turned on review (was extremely close and would not have been irrefutable evidence).

But what this tells me overall is we have got to pay Collins $500K. To me, he knows how to defend and shut down these gimmicky offenses. He held Auburn's running game in check and forced Auburn to pass it. If we played them now I have no doubts we beat them. We will beat them in Starkville next year and might beat them by 14+ because Collins knows that with these offenses you don't immediately show your fronts since they get their plays from the sidelines. Coach Collins will be a big reason for our success next year. We need to pay the man.

[MarketingBully01]

If we can add Shepard and Humphrey to the secondary, it will be the best in the SEC.

[MarketingBully01]

Also Dak is 100x better then Nick Marshall.

[MarketingBully01]

We held Alabama to 20 points. If we have Dak for that game or Tyler doesn't go down when he did, we have a great chance to win that game. Nick showed he was human yesterday and made calls that looked like Mullen's earlier in the year. I have never seen Nick call a game like that since he has been at Alabama. I think what we as fans can learn from the game yesterday is that even a coach who has won 4 national championships can have a bad day calling a game.

Of course in my opinion if Saban puts that game in McCarron's hands, they win that game by 10+ points. They should have taken Yeldon out and gone with Drake the whole way along with using more play action and put the game in McCarron's hands. You take that and going for a field goal on 4th and 1 to go up by 10 so Foster is no longer the goat and you are still alive for three national championships.

[Maroonthirteen]

I don't think that last TD pass for Auburn was planned that way. Looked more like to me, Marshal decided to run it, Bama DBS got through the block of the WR but marshal was quick thinking enough to toss the ball. It was just a good athlete improvising. No way to plan or teach that. It was just instinctive.

[MarketingBully01]

Which is why the play was illegal. It was a designed run. The OL was already down field. I was looking at the Bama boards and several of Auburn's OL were 3+ yards downfield.' He did that same kind of shit against us too where the linemen were downfield and he teetered around releasing the ball at the LOS or just over it. Usually when in doubt, refs will call that call. I know had that been MSU they would not only have called linemen downfield but also illegal forward pass.

[QuadrupleOption]

Was thinking about how Auburn won yesterday, and there are a few things we can learn from it.

To beat great teams you must:

1. You must win special teams. Auburn dominated Bama on special teams yesterday. They made no mistakes, blocked a field goal, and returned a field goal for a touchdown. I couldn't help but wonder if Mullen would have payed enough attention to the details to even have a man lined up in the endzone in case of a kick that fell short. This must be fixed.

2. Screw offensive balance: In big games you have to stick with what works and what you do best and allow that to set-up your big plays. It should very evident that, on Auburn's final drive, they set up that touchdown by relentlessly pounding the ball and then faking it. With Dak at QB, Mullen has the personnel to do many of the same things on offense that Auburn does. Would love to Mullen fiddle with this triple option package as something to go to when our base offense isn't working in big games.

3. Develop an offensive identity: Our problem in this area has a lot to do with our injuries at QB and both QBs being different styles, but the point remains, to beat top of the line teams, your offense must have an identity and your offense must have rhythm.

Jimbo Fisher has a great quote yesterday about offense. He stated,"In all sports, being successful on offense is about having good rhythm."

Fisher is right, good hitters in baseball have rhythm at the plate, good basketball teams have rhythm in the way they pass, good golfers have rhythm in their swing, and last but not least, good offensive football teams have an identity and rhythm in their play calling an overall attack.

Having one style of QB will help greatly in this area, but this where Mullen has to improve, and, with Dak, there is really no excuse not to.

Improve in these areas and MSU can be next year's Auburn. Our defense is plenty good enough.

I agree with all these points as they are good ones. I'd like to add that having all our QB's on the roster next season be the same style (good arms, good mobility) means that we should be able to plug in three guys and have them all execute the same packages.

Any difference between them SHOULD be a matter of reps, and not style - like Russell. Having said that, TR played pretty well for us the last two times he was 'the guy' so I think it's just a matter of picking a QB and preparing the offense around him all week. If you aren't going to do that (and we aren't), then at least having Prescott and Williams (and our new players) be in the same mold should help that flow quite a bit.

Also, if our WRs could quit dropping easy catches that'd be great.

[dawgs]

I'd have little to no faith in Mullen having the wherewithal to put a returner back there in that situation. Flame away, that's just how I feel. He wouldn't want to risk the returner fumbling the ball and the opponent recovering it and returning it for a TD. Gotta play it conservative.

[Majors42]

I don't think that last TD pass for Auburn was planned that way. Looked more like to me, Marshal decided to run it, Bama DBS got through the block of the WR but marshal was quick thinking enough to toss the ball. It was just a good athlete improvising. No way to plan or teach that. It was just instinctive.

It was absolutely planned. That's the beauty of the option, you have options. Gus is a hell of a coach and he simplifies the game so that it can be understood and mastered. That play is part of it. It's the third part of the zone read. It's like the zone read play action off of a qb keepers. Got to give him credit on that part

[SheltonChoked]

And you couldn't blame Mullen for not thinking of it. There have been less than 5 FG's returned like that in the last 30 years. The unblocked FG returned for a TD was in 1964 according to ESPN. It was the ultimate fluke play.