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AUBURN ANALYSIS

Auburn football analysis, with some basketball sprinkled in

 * Home




 * MERCER BEARS SCOUTING REPORT
   
   Now that we’ve taken a look at Auburn’s offensive and defensive situations
   going into the season, it’s time to turn our attention to the first opponent
   of the season, the Mercer Bears. Of course, most people are looking at this
   as a typical body bag game, but Auburn’s surreal experience with Mercer in
   2017 ought to dissuade people from that opinion.
   
   PREVIOUS MEETINGS
   
   Auburn 12-0-0
   
   Mercer and Auburn have played one another a surprising number of times
   considering that the two teams are in different divisions, with 12 all-time
   meetings between the schools. Of course, the vast majority of those previous
   meetings took place over a century ago; Auburn and Mercer met 11 times
   between 1896 and 1922, with Auburn winning all 11 meetings by at least 22
   points, including a gruesome 92-0 bludgeoning administered by Iron Mike
   Donahue’s Tigers in 1916. Auburn and Mercer have only met once since Mercer
   restarted its football program in 2013, the aforementioned debacle in which
   Auburn lost an incredible five fumbles on its way to an uncomfortable 24-10
   win, by far the closest margin in the series’ history; Mercer’s 10 points in
   that game were more than it had scored in its previous 11 matchups against
   Auburn combined.
   
   MERCER TEAM PROFILE
   
   While I don’t expect that type of truly ludicrous outcome on Saturday, this
   Mercer team is certainly quite capable. They’re currently ranked #23 in
   Division I-AA FCS and thrashed Morehead State 63-13 in Macon last weekend.
   Obviously it’s impossible to know who’s good and who isn’t at this time of
   year, but Morehead State had a winning record last season (7-4, 6-2 Pioneer),
   so they’re probably not totally inept.
   
   Third-year head coach Drew Cronic, a former wide receiver at Georgia, has
   built a solid program that’s one of the better teams in the Southern
   Conference. They went 7-3 last year (6-2 in conference, 2nd place) with two
   of their three losses being to Alabama and a narrow 38-35 road loss to
   eventual SoCon champion East Tennessee State. Their third loss was pretty
   bizarre, as they got smoked at home (45-7) by a mediocre VMI team that
   finished 6-5 and well out of contention in the SoCon. Not sure what happened
   there but props to the Keydets.
   
   STATISTICAL PROFILE
   
   It’s hard to put together a statistical profile of an opponent in week 1,
   even when they played in week 0, so this section will rely partially on last
   year’s data. The Bears averaged 31.7 PPG on offense, while allowing 22.7 PPG
   on defense last year, respectable numbers for a team whose schedule included
   a body bag game against Alabama.
   
   Last week, Mercer put up 625 yards on just 58 plays against Morehead State,
   averaging and impressive 10.8 YPP. They were 13/20 through the air for 266
   yards (13.3 YPA) and 5 TDs, and ran the ball 38 times for 359 yards (9.4 YPC)
   and 3 TDs. The only real negative in their performance were the three
   fumbles, two of which they lost.
   
   The Bears also put up a strong showing on defense, allowing 278 yards on 78
   plays (3.6 YPP). Morehead was 24/36 passing for 161 yards (4.5 YPA), with 1
   TD and 1 INT, and ran the ball 42 times for just 117 yards (2.8 YPC) and 1
   TD. The Bears managed two takeaways, recovering one of Morehead State’s two
   fumbles, as well as snatching a pick six to blow the game wide open in the
   first half.
   
   PERSONNEL
   
   On the offensive side of the ball, Mercer’s triggerman is Fred Payton, the
   senior QB in his second year with the Bears after transferring from Coastal
   Carolina in 2021. He was an efficient 11/17 in week 0, throwing for 248 yards
   (almost 15 YPA) and 4 TDs. This is a big improvement over last season, when
   Payton completed less than 58% of his passes at 8.7 YPA with a mediocre 12-10
   TD-INT ratio. He only had 4 carries for 5 yards with a long of 6 (college
   football still counts sacks as negative rushing attempts by the QB for some
   reason).
   
   Mercer has a solid one-two punch in the backfield with sophomore RBs Austin
   Douglas and Al Wooten II, who have moved into bigger roles this season after
   being lower on the depth chart last year. They combined for 236 yards on just
   18 attempts against Morehead State, including a 65-yard touchdown run by
   Douglas. As we’ve discussed before, RBs are essentially fungible, but Mercer
   does have some talent there. Mercer doesn’t have great size on the OL, but,
   like Auburn, they do have a lot of experience returning there.
   
   The Bears’ go-to receiver is sophomore Ty James, who exceeded 500 yards in
   each of the past two seasons, and scored 3 TDs on just 5 receptions against
   Morehead State, including a 90-yard catch-and-run. No other receiver caught
   more than two passes, but Mercer only completed 13 passes against Morehead,
   so that’s not necessarily a negative indicator for them. Senior Devron Harper
   is probably their next-best receiver and is also a dangerous weapon in the
   return game, managing a 93-yard runback against Morehead.
   
   On the defensive side of the ball, Mercer doesn’t necessarily have a ton of
   true standouts, but they do have a lot of experienced upperclassmen and a
   good distribution of talent across the defense. It’s worth noting that eight
   different Bears had five or more tackles against Morehead, showing the
   balance that they have on that side of the ball.
   
   SCHEME
   
   Let me start the scheme breakdown with a caveat: I didn’t have the film of
   the full game available to chart, so I had to rely on an extended highlights
   package rather than the full game, but I think most of my conclusions here
   will hold up.
   
   Mercer’s offense, led by third-year offensive coordinator Bob Bodine,
   actually bears some resemblance to Auburn’s. It could be described as
   “multiple”, in that the Bears used a variety of formations, both from the
   shotgun and under center. Another similarity to Auburn’s offense was the
   frequent use of snug receiver alignments, wing alignments, and pre-snap
   shifts and motions, presenting the defense with a lot of window dressing and
   attempting to gain advantages in leverage.
   
   Mercer is really a run-first offense, as demonstrated by their 38-20
   run-to-pass ratio. They spent the vast majority of the game in 11 personnel,
   only occasionally venturing into 12 personnel. Most of their run game is zone
   based, mainly inside zone and mid-zone, with a few gap schemes (notably buck
   sweep and GH counter) mixed in. They frequently used jet sweep motion to
   freeze the LBs and constrain perimeter defenders to facilitate their inside
   zone runs, and ran a fair number of RPOs on their zone runs from the guns
   (mostly basic RPO concepts like tagging a glance route or key screen on the
   backside of their runs). They made fairly extensive use of the receiver
   screen game, including both key screens and tunnel screens, which they were
   pretty adept at springing for big plays.
   
   One note is that I really didn’t see any QB runs from them, so the RPO and
   screen game really is vital to their ability to keep the perimeter
   constrained on their run plays. The whole purpose of a read option (1st level
   conflict read) or RPO (2nd/3rd level conflict read) is to eliminate a
   defender from the box by reading him, equalizing the numbers so that the
   offense has a blocker for every defender. If the read option isn’t available
   because the QB isn’t much of a runner, the RPO becomes even more essential
   for maintaining their ability to run from the gun because they don’t have the
   constraint of the read option. This is harder to do from under center (one of
   the reasons I think the traditional under center run game on standard downs
   is mostly obsolete), and as a result, the use of motion, fakes, and other
   types of misdirection becomes more important.
   
   Mercer’s passing game, aside from their RPO concepts, was relatively simple
   and straightforward, mostly consisting of two-man half-field concepts like
   slant-shoot and quick concepts like spacing/all-curl. Their play-action
   concepts were harder to discern due to the perpetual issue of TV camera
   angles, but they did show the willingness to take the occasional downfield
   shot off of play-action. The conventional wisdom is that this is an obvious
   strategy for a run-first offense, but modern analytics have shown that
   play-action success is more closely correlated with passing success than
   running success; i.e. teams are good at throwing play-action because they’re
   good at throwing the ball in general, not because of their run game, meaning
   that the idea of “establishing the run” or “running to set up the pass” is a
   myth. The run game truthers are going to pull out the torches and pitchforks,
   but numbers don’t lie.
   
   That tangent aside, let’s move to the defensive side of the ball. There’s not
   as much to say here, both because Mercer’s defense is pretty straightforward
   structurally and because Morehead State spent most of their game in 10
   personnel, which Auburn didn’t use once during the spring game (although
   there were some four- and five-wide sets using 11 personnel). Third-year DC
   Joel Taylor has built his defense around a base 4-2-5 look, which they seemed
   willing to stay in even against a true 10 personnel four-wide look, so it’s
   safe to say he’ll be comfortable doing the same against Auburn’s heavier
   personnel groupings. They seemed to mainly use one-high coverages (man free
   and cover 3) with some quarters mixed in. Another feature I noticed was the
   frequent use of “sim” (short for “simulated”) pressures, where they would
   show six or seven defenders at the line of scrimmage, threatening an all-out
   blitz, only to drop three or four of them into coverage after the snap. They
   didn’t use a ton of true blitz man, but their primary blitz schemes seemed to
   be fire (OLB blitzing C gap) and cross dog (both ILBs blitzing the opposite A
   gaps). They also used some stunts up front on the defensive line, but I
   didn’t catalog the frequency of those.
   
   KEYS TO THE GAME
   
   It’s hard to really talk about “keys” to winning a body bag game, since the
   answer is almost always going to come down to “win because you have much
   better players than your opponent”. However, Mercer is a pretty good team for
   their level with a reasonable amount of talent to work with, and I don’t
   think they’re going to be a pushover.
   
   Auburn’s defensive front, and especially the inside LBs, are going to have to
   be disciplined against the run game and make their fits consistently without
   getting distracted by the eye candy. If Auburn can get stops against the run
   on early downs, Mercer might not have the weapons to move the ball
   consistently in the passing game (most of their pass yards against Morehead
   State came on explosive plays from play-action or RPOs). I think Auburn can
   be relatively aggressive here and use press man coverage to counteract
   Mercer’s RPO and receiver screen game, which is going to make it very hard
   for Mercer to constrain the perimeter defenders and get favorable boxes to
   run against, and if they can’t gain those numbers advantages, they’re going
   to struggle due to the talent differential.
   
   It’s a bit harder to judge the other side of the ball, because I don’t think
   Mercer is likely to play as much man coverage against Auburn as they did
   against Morehead State for obvious reasons. If they stick to their base
   one-high looks, I think Auburn can make use of the flood concepts and two-man
   quick game they demonstrated in the spring game; three-man flood concepts
   (the most common type of bootleg concept) are highly effective against cover
   3 because there are three receivers at different levels versus only two zone
   defenders (the deep zone defender and the hook-to-flat defender), and it’s
   also relatively easy to run two-man games off of that hook to flat defender
   because you can isolate him by formation and pick on him. Another option is
   to make use of Auburn’s favorite quick concept, spacing/all curl, which
   distributes five receivers across the field at shallow depth, flooding the
   four underneath zone defenders in a basic cover 3 look. I think it’s likely
   that Mercer will devote a lot of their resources to stopping the run (keeping
   a six-man box against spread looks and a seven- or eight-man box against
   tighter formations), which means Auburn will have to be willing to test them
   deep at some point, whether through play-action shots or concepts like four
   verticals.
   
   I expect Auburn to keep things relatively close to the vest and focus on the
   run game, counting on the talent and depth disparity to carry them through.
   However, I’m not convinced that that’s going to be viable because I’m still
   highly skeptical of Auburn’s offensive line and their ability to consistently
   run the ball against anyone. Auburn might be able to bully inferior
   opponents, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Mercer is certainly capable of
   keeping this game close, even if it’s unlikely to pull a Jacksonville State
   on us. I’m not as comfortable as I should be for a body bag game, and this
   could be a rude awakening for Auburn fans who have expectations for this
   season.
   
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   September 1, 2022
   Uncategorized
   


 * 2022 AUBURN FOOTBALL PREVIEW: DEFENSE
   
   Yesterday we started our series of preview articles for the impending Auburn
   football season by looking at the offense, a post which was mainly filled
   with ennui and depression. Today, we’re going to take a look at the defense,
   which will feature some guarded optimism for the upcoming season. Auburn’s
   defense will almost certainly be the strength of this year’s team (as it has
   been since 2015). However, the loss of Derek Mason (by far Auburn’s most
   capable assistant coach) to a lateral-at-best move to Oklahoma State, as well
   as a few notable departures, is cause for concern that there will be at least
   some drop-off from last year’s relatively competent unit.
   
   STATISTICAL PROFILE
   
   Unlike Auburn’s relatively mediocre offense last season, the 2021 defense was
   pretty good, although well short of elite. There were some notable high
   points (the first 59 minutes of the barely-watchable rock fight against
   Alabama) as well as some dismal low points (the total collapse in the second
   half of the Mississippi State game).
   
   Statistically, Auburn’s defense checked out relatively well. Although it was
   a mediocre 62th in total defense, allowing 374.9 YPG, it ranked much higher
   in scoring defense at 27th, conceding 21.8 PPG. Auburn’s defense against the
   run was pretty solid, ranking 29th at 129.3 YPG, but it was a dismal 96th
   against the pass, allowing 245.6 YPG. The discrepancy between the total
   defense and scoring defense illustrates the bend-don’t-break nature of Derek
   Mason’s defense, which was often frustrating to watch between the 20s, but
   usually impressive in the red zone.
   
   The advanced stats were also relatively favorable to Auburn’s 2021 defense,
   which comes in in 20th place on FEI’s defensive efficiency metric.
   
   However, Auburn’s defense struggled in a couple of notable areas. One, which
   has been a perpetual bogeyman since 2017, was the pass rush, which ranked a
   paltry 47th in the nation in sacks; however, this is partially attributable
   to schematic factors that we’ll get into later in this article. This issue
   likely played into Auburn’s relatively poor pass defense, since opposing QBs
   often had plenty of time in the pocket to find the holes in Auburn’s soft
   zone coverages.
   
   The more glaring issue was takeaways: Auburn ranked 116th in the country in
   takeaways, averaging less than one takeaway per game (0.9 TPG). Thankfully,
   Auburn’s offense was relatively good at avoiding turnovers, as we discussed
   yesterday, so the impact of this was less severe, but knowing that our
   offense is going to struggle this season, increasing the number of takeaways
   will be essential to creating scoring opportunities, and it’s an area where
   Auburn really has to improve.
   
   PERSONNEL
   
   Auburn returns many of the key players from last year’s defensive unit,
   including its best pass rusher, Derick Hall, and its best linebacker, Owen
   Pappoe. However, Zakoby McClain, who was the emotional leader of this unit,
   and Roger McCreary, its primary shutdown corner, are gone, leaving two major
   holes to be filled. Thankfully, Auburn’s recruiting on the defensive side of
   the ball has been more resilient than its offensive recruiting during the
   late stages of the Gus era and the fits and starts of the Harsin era, and it
   has more proven contributors and fewer question marks and obvious liabilities
   than the offense does. Let’s take a look at the preseason depth chart.
   
   Defensive Line
   
   Starter: Derick Hall (Sr.), Colby Wooden (Sr.), Jayson Jones (So.), Marquis
   Burks (Sr.)
   
   Backup: Dylan Brooks (R-Fr.), Morris Joseph, Jr. (Sr.), Marquis Burks,
   Jeffrey M’Ba (So.)
   
   Auburn’s defensive line is likely to be the strength of this unit. Hall is
   obviously the team’s best pass rusher, who will be backed up by Dylan Brooks,
   a highly touted recruit two years ago. Auburn will have plenty of senior
   leadership in Colby Wooden and Marquis Burks, supplemented by some important
   transfers in Jayson Jones and Morris Joseph, Jr.
   
   Linebacker:
   
   Starters: Eku Leota (Sr.), Owen Pappoe (Sr.), Cam Riley (So.)
   
   Backups: Marcus Bragg (Sr.), Wesley Steiner (Jr.), Eugene Asante (Jr.)
   
   The linebackers also feature a strong group of experienced upperclassmen in
   Leota and Pappoe, along with some promising but inexperienced players in
   Riley and Steiner, as well as a couple of useful transfers to add some depth.
   Depth is still a concern at this position, given the relative lack of proven
   contributors and the loss of one of its key players in Zakoby McClain, but
   barring any injuries (knock on every bit of wood you can find), the
   linebacking corps should be solid.
   
   Defensive Backs:
   
   Starters: Nehemiah Pritchett (Sr.), Jaylin Simpson (Jr.), Zion Puckett (Jr.),
   Donovan Kaufman (So.)
   
   Backups: Keionte Scott (So.), DJ James (Jr.), Craig McDonald (So.)/Marquise
   Gilbert (So.), Cayden Bridges (R-Fr.)
   
   The defensive backfield has been an area of strength for Auburn for several
   years, and this unit has consistently produced top-tier players who became
   high NFL draft picks. Thankfully, there are still a couple of players who fit
   that bill on campus, and Auburn’s cornerback pairing of Nehemiah Pritchett
   and Jaylin Simpson could stack up with just about any other team in the
   country. The safeties are less certain, although Zion Puckett has been solid
   (albeit something of a liability in man coverage) and Kaufman is promising
   but relatively unproven. The backups consist primarily of interesting young
   prospects, who have good potential but little experience. I don’t think this
   unit will be as good as it was last year (no unit would be after losing a
   player of Roger McCreary’s caliber), but it looks like it should be next man
   up, at least at corner.
   
   SCHEME
   
   I’m going to be honest, I know far less about the Xs and Os of defense than I
   do offense, primarily because offense is just more interesting to me.
   Creation is inherently more compelling than destruction. However, I’m going
   to attempt a general overview of Auburn’s scheme for those who are unfamiliar
   with it, and will include at least some degree of defensive breakdowns during
   the season (although this is often hard to do without all-22 film since the
   tight angles of TV cameras make it hard to see what’s going on more than 10
   yards past the line of scrimmage).
   
   New DC Jeff Schmedding is expected to carry on with a similar scheme to the
   one used by Derek Mason last year. At one time, Mason was regarded as a true
   innovator on the defensive side of the ball, as he was basically the only
   coach in the PAC-12 who could slow down Oregon’s prolific offenses during the
   Chip Kelly era. He was underwhelming as Vanderbilt’s head coach, but that’s
   hard to avoid given that it’s, you know, Vanderbilt (let’s just ignore
   Auburn’s .500 all time record against the Commodores since most of their wins
   predate color television).
   
   Mason’s scheme that Schmedding has inherited is generally described as an odd
   front scheme (i.e. one that uses three defensive linemen in its base package
   rather than four), although I don’t think that’s a great way of classifying
   defenses anymore, since the spread offense has forced defenses to largely
   abandon their base 3-4 or 4-3 packages in favor of a variety of nickel and
   dime sets, and most defenses will use both even and odd fronts depending on
   the situation. I think it’s more useful to categorize modern defenses as
   either one-gap or two-gap systems, which is pretty much what it says on the
   tin: in a one-gap system, defensive linemen are generally responsible for
   fitting one gap in the run game, while in a two-gap system, they’re
   responsible for two.
   
   Since many modern defenses also divorce their coverage from the front
   (following the example of Gary Patterson’s innovations in the early 2000s),
   coverage is less dependent on the type of front than it used to be. At one
   time, it was common to categorize defenses as either one-high or two-high
   coverages, based on the number of safeties, although this was always more
   diffuse than the base front and most teams used both one-high and two-high
   looks. That said, Derek Mason’s defense was primarily a one-high setup, often
   playing a relatively soft cover three (three deep zone defenders), either
   with four underneath zone defenders, or five underneath zone defenders (the
   drop 8 coverage that’s become increasingly popular in college football as a
   way of countering spread offenses), although he would play man free at times
   (man coverage with only one deep zone defender, the free safety). Auburn did
   not blitz heavily and its use of pressure packages was highly situational,
   often focused on high leverage situations (which is common throughout college
   football).
   
   Both of these aspects of Mason’s system incurred some significant growing
   pains because of their dissimilarity to Kevin Steele’s system, which the
   entire defensive roster was built around. Steele based out of a 4-2-5 front
   (i.e., an even/one-gap system) and Auburn’s base coverage was quarters (with
   a four-deep shell), probably the most common base coverage in college
   football today (along with its close relative, two read, popularized by the
   aforementioned Gary Patterson) because it facilitates pattern matching
   coverages to combat the more sophisticated passing offenses of the modern
   era, as well as the increasingly prevalent RPO schemes. It’s worth noting,
   however, that Steele did use an odd front at times, most notably against LSU
   in 2019, playing a reduced 3-2 box with six defensive backs to slow down
   LSU’s pass-heavy attack (which Auburn did more effectively than most other
   teams LSU faced that season). Since Auburn was changing both its base
   coverage and its base front, this required some adaptation of the existing
   personnel since the types of players you recruit, particularly up front, will
   differ between the two systems (although this is less true in the spread era
   than it was 15 to 20 years ago, when most teams spent a significant portion
   of each game in their nominal base front).
   
   There was a good deal of frustration among fans with Mason’s frequent use of
   soft zone coverage, which modern spread/RPO schemes are designed to exploit
   by throwing quick passes to receivers who aren’t closely defended, which
   increased Auburn’s tendency to give up a lot of third and medium to third and
   long situations (continuing the “third and Auburn” meme of the Steele era).
   However, as I noted above, Mason’s philosophy was very much a
   “bend-don’t-break” one, and its focus was mainly to limit explosive plays and
   force an offense to execute consistently on a long drive, which, as any
   offensive coach will tell you, is hard to do at any level, but especially in
   college and below. However, this approach was subject to exploitation by
   offenses that are built around that type of dink-and-dunk approach, most
   notably the air raid systems of Mike Leach and his protégé, Dana Holgorsen.
   Why teams continue to play drop 8 against the air raid is beyond me, since
   it’s been demonstrated several times that that’s a very bad idea.
   
   In any case, I wouldn’t expect a ton of change from Auburn’s defense from a
   scheme perspective. I didn’t chart the entire A-Day game (mainly due to the
   frustration I noted above with using TV camera angles to study defense), but
   Auburn showed a variety of even and odd fronts, as well as a number of
   different defensive looks, although the two-gap system with a one-high base
   was still evident. Of course, the one offense you’re guaranteed to never face
   in a competitive game is your own, and the inferences you can draw from a
   spring game are therefore quite limited. However, I think this will be a case
   of substantial continuity on the defensive side of the ball. I think the loss
   of Derek Mason and key contributors like McClain and McCreary are valid cause
   for concern, but I’m certainly more optimistic about the defense than I am
   the offense, and suspect that Auburn will rely heavily on the defense to keep
   them in games where the offense struggles to generate much.
   
   This concludes our season preview series (I’m not writing about special teams
   because come on, nobody is reading a special teams preview). Tomorrow, we’ll
   take a look at Auburn’s first opponent, the Mercer Bears. This will be the
   typical format for most game weeks going forward: a film review of the
   previous game early in the week (with gifs and illustrations rather than a
   Great Wall of Text like these last two articles), followed by a scouting
   report on the next opponent later in the week, with additional articles
   sprinkled in if something catches my interest (whether it’s Auburn-related or
   another team that’s doing something noteworthy from a scheme perspective).
   
   August 31, 2022
   Uncategorized
   


 * 2022 AUBURN FOOTBALL PREVIEW: OFFENSE
   
   Well, it’s that time of year again. Auburn football season almost upon us.
   Depending on your perspective, it’s either a time for excitement or a time
   for dread (or maybe some combination of the two). It’s also time for every
   sports website to do its obligatory season preview post, and this site is no
   different. Today we’re going to take a look at the Auburn offense; tomorrow
   we’ll take a look at the defense, followed by a Mercer scouting report on
   Thursday. Content won’t be this compressed in the future, this is just a
   product of my own laziness up to this point.
   
   After Auburn was mediocre to downright bad on the offensive side of the ball,
   Mike Bobo was canned and replaced by Zak Hill Austin Davis Eric Kiesau, who
   had served as Auburn’s wide receivers coach following the dismissal of
   Cornelius Williams. The turnover and tumult on that side of the ball and the
   lack of obvious personnel improvements from last year has filled most Auburn
   fans (or at least me) with a sense of ennui and relatively little in the way
   of optimism for this season’s offense, which is probably the correct
   impression. We’ll take a look at statistics, personnel, and scheme here,
   which will be the format for future preview/scouting reports as well.
   
   STATISTICAL PROFILE
   
   In 2021, Auburn’s offense was emphatically mediocre statistically, both in
   terms of raw totals and advanced metrics. Auburn averaged 402.5 yards per
   game, good for 67th in the country, with 240.1 pass YPG (59th) and 162.4 rush
   YPG (T-64th). Auburn was better than average in terms of penalties, with 5.7
   per game (T-52nd). The only raw offensive statistic in which Auburn’s offense
   was truly good was turnovers; their average of 0.9 turnovers per game was
   tied for 13th best in the country.
   
   Most of the advanced metrics are similarly unkind to Auburn, with most of its
   efficiency ratings on Football Outsiders hovering around the middle of the
   pack, aside from its OFEI, which was actually 30th in the country. I won’t
   get too deep into the proprietary/advanced stats stuff here since the number
   of offseason changes makes comparisons between last year’s offense and this
   year’s less valuable/predictive than they might normally be.
   
   PERSONNEL
   
   Since I’m not an insider of any sort and have no access to what’s going on in
   practice, I’m not going to go into too much depth on personnel since all I
   really have to go on is A-Day and last season. However, I will give some
   general thoughts on each position group.
   
   Tight Ends (H):
   
   Starter: John Samuel Shenker (Sr.)
   
   Backup: Luke Deal (Jr.)
   
   Others: Tyler Fromm (Jr.), Landen King (So.), Brandon Frazier (Jr.)
   
   The best-known quantity for Auburn’s offense this year is the tight ends,
   ironically, given the complaints about Gus Malzahn’s non-use of tight ends
   from people who don’t understand the concept of 20 personnel. John Samuel
   Shenker is the incumbent and will probably be the safety valve for whoever
   ends up being the QB this season. Many of the other guys are unproven but
   have strong potential to contribute in the passing game (particularly the
   versatile Tyler Fromm and Landen King, as well as the physical freak Brandon
   Frazier, who can line up out wide or as H-backs/inline TEs). Auburn had at
   least one tight end on the field on every snap in the A-Day game, and more
   than one on the field on a third of the snaps, which should give a pretty
   clear indication of their importance in this year’s offense.
   
   Running Backs:
   
   Starter: Tank Bigsby (Jr.)
   
   Backup: Jarquez Hunter (So.)
   
   Others: Damari Alston (Fr.), Jordon Ingram (So.), Sean Jackson (Fr.)
   
   The TEs are probably the best-known quantity, but I would say the RBs are the
   closest thing to a clear strength in this years Auburn offense. Auburn has a
   strong one-two punch at the top of the depth chart in Tank Bigsby and Jarquez
   Hunter, and Damari Alston has been getting strong reviews during fall camp.
   There’s also Jordon Ingram, perhaps the only person in the world other than
   me who has attended both Auburn and Central Michigan, and former walk-on Sean
   Jackson for some additional depth. We didn’t see much of the RBs in the
   spring game, which isn’t surprising since there really wasn’t a question mark
   there. It’s good that Auburn has a strong stable of running backs, but it’s
   also the least important offensive position; running backs are essentially
   fungible (if you don’t believe me, look at the NFL’s drafting trends over the
   last two decades) and your RBs are only going to be as good as your offensive
   line. Speaking of which…
   
   Offensive Line:
   
   Starters: Kilian Zierer (Sr.), Brandon Council (Sr.), Tate Johnson (Jr.),
   Keiondre Jones (Jr.)/Cameron Strutts (Sr.), Austin Troxell (Sr.)
   
   Backups: Brendan Coffey (Sr.), Jeremiah Wright (Jr.)/Jalil Irvin (Sr.), Jalil
   Irvin (Sr.)/Avery Johnson (So.), ?, Alec Jackson (Sr.)
   
   Auburn’s offensive line has been its Achilles’ heel for most of the past
   decade, failing to produce an explosive run game or consistent pass
   protection for Auburn’s QBs. Gus’ failures in recruiting offensive linemen
   and both his and Harsin’s failure to develop them have been discussed ad
   nauseam and there’s no reason to relitigate those problems here. There’s been
   some hope that this year might be different, given the amount of returning
   experience on the offensive line (all of the starters are upperclassmen),
   although I question whether bringing back a group of players who weren’t that
   good before is really a positive. Those hopes took a big hit yesterday when
   starting center Nick Brahms announced his retirement due to injuries. This
   offensive line group has several guys who never had the opportunity to really
   reach their potential due to injuries (I’d include Austin Troxell and
   probably Brandon Council in that category as well), which is obviously
   unfortunate. However, Brahms’ replacement, Tate Johnson has been receiving
   strong reviews during camp, so perhaps he can prevent too much of a drop-off
   from Brahms (who, despite his experience, was inconsistent at best over the
   last couple of years). Overall, I’m not optimistic about this group just
   because it’s been almost ten years since Auburn has a legitimately good
   offensive line and there weren’t enough changes this offseason to expect
   major improvement. Speaking of changes without improvement…
   
   Quarterbacks:
   
   Starter: TJ Finley (Jr.)
   
   Backup: Robby Ashford (R-Fr.)
   
   Others: Zach Calzada (So.), Holden Geriner (Fr.)
   
   I’m just going to say it up front: running off Bo Nix and replacing him with
   other teams’ discarded backups was horrendous roster management by Harsin,
   and there’s a good chance it’ll cost him his job. TJ Finley, announced as the
   week 1 starter, is a known quantity, and not a good one. Auburn’s winless
   record down the stretch with Finley as the starter was a testament to his
   limitations. That last stretch of games without the Bo Nix injury is an
   interesting counterfactual, but not useful here.
   
   As for the other additions to the QB room, I’d give them an emphatic “meh”.
   Calzada seemed like the obvious choice to be the starter this year, but has
   apparently been terrible in camp and is third or fourth on the depth chart.
   Robby Ashford was the most intriguing addition to me, simply because he
   brought something new to the table in terms of his running ability. That
   said, I’m not optimistic that Harsin would really be willing to make adequate
   use of Ashford’s running ability, given his refusal to play Dematrius Davis
   over an obviously-injured TJ Finley against Alabama last year. Then there’s
   Holden Geriner, a genuinely promising prospect, and maybe the best pure
   passer in the QB room, at least based on what we saw from the A-Day game.
   He’s definitely more consistent and more accurate than Finley and Ashford,
   even if his deep balls weren’t totally convincing.
   
   Finley is the week 1 starter, and I can say with confidence that if he’s the
   week 12 starter, it’ll be Bryan Harsin’s last game in charge at Auburn. He
   offers less than Ashford as a runner, and, in my opinion, less than Geriner
   as a passer, so I’m not really sure why he’s there. Harsin’s best prospect
   for saving his job is probably to channel his inner Harry Redknapp and let
   Ashford JFRAAB, but I doubt Harsin is willing to be flexible enough to
   accommodate Ashford’s skill set (as we’ll discuss later).
   
   Wide Receivers:
   
   Starters: X: Shedrick Jackson (Sr.), Y: Tar’varish Dawson (R-Fr.), Z: Malcolm
   Johnson, Jr. (Jr.)
   
   Backups: X: Camden Brown (Fr.), Y: Ja’Varrius Johnson (Jr.), Z: Koy Moore
   (So.)
   
   Finally, we come to the biggest question mark on Auburn’s offense, the wide
   receivers. The receivers were…not good last year, despite two coaching
   changes at that position. As with the QBs, Harsin ran off his best returning
   option, Kobe Hudson, who immediately became a starter for Gus down in
   Orlando. Auburn, meanwhile, is left with a likely starting group of Shedrick
   Jackson (who, like Finley, is a known quantity, and not a good one), slot
   receivers Tar’varish Dawson or Ja’Varrius Johnson (both good athletes who are
   not especially polished as receivers but have potential), and Malcolm
   Johnson, Jr., who I think has potential to be a legitimately good player.
   Beyond them, there are a lot of question marks. Guys like Camden Brown and
   Koy Moore have clear upside but aren’t necessarily going to be reliable
   options in the short term. Ike Hilliard seems to be a competent position
   coach, so hopefully these guys will develop better than the receivers have
   under the past few position coaches.
   
   OFFENSIVE SCHEME
   
   Now for my favorite part of any preview post, the Xs and Os. This is going to
   be the main focus of this article and this blog in general.
   
   I originally intended to do a post this offseason on the Bryan Harsin/Eric
   Kiesau offenses at Boise during Kiesau’s tenure as OC (2019-2020) but never
   got around to it because I frankly found much more interesting film to watch
   instead. The offense they ran was similar to the Boise offenses that preceded
   it: an incoherent mish-mash of plays that didn’t contain any consistent
   organizing principles. Okay, fine, that’s a bit terse, but I really do
   dislike the Boise offensive philosophy (as Chris Petersen put it, “we don’t
   run an offense, we run plays”), which likely explains why none of the Boise
   coaches (aside from Petersen, arguably), has been successful in exporting it
   to other programs.
   
   Harsin’s offense has generally been described as “multiple” or “pro-style”,
   which are generic descriptors that don’t really mean anything anymore beyond
   “not spread”. All those terms really mean is that a team lines up under
   center sometimes and uses heavier personnel groupings (12, 21, 22) more often
   than other teams.
   
   I’ll go ahead and clarify my biases up front: I think up-tempo spread offense
   is the optimal way to play offense, particularly coupled with the use of RPOs
   and SPOs. This is why I found late-stage Gus so frustrating: his offense was
   really a good fit for Auburn, he just struggled to implement it successfully,
   which made no sense. Gus is proof positive that the worst thing that can
   happen to someone is to be told they’re a genius.
   
   Rather than look back at the film from the Mike Bobo Experience™ last year,
   I’ve chosen to just focus on the A-Day game, since that’s the only film we
   have with Kiesau in charge of the offense. I’ll acknowledge up front that the
   amount of information that can be gleaned from a spring game is relatively
   minimal, since there’s a ton of rotation of players and the offense on
   display will inevitably be relatively basic. That said, we’ll take a general
   look at what Auburn was doing and the trends that were apparent for this
   season’s offense.
   
   Taking a quick look at the box score (which isn’t especially useful), Auburn
   ran 62 plays (46 passes and 16 runs) for a total of 395 yards, a mediocre 6.4
   yards per play.
   
   Auburn was 32/46 through the air for 342 yards, a not-great 7.4 yards per
   attempt but a nice completion percentage of 69.6%. I didn’t do the math for
   average yardage of each target or anything, but all of the QBs were
   unconvincing on their deep balls and Auburn generated few explosive passing
   plays.
   
   On the ground, Auburn ran for just 51 yards on 16 carries, a paltry clip of
   3.2 YPC. That said, I wouldn’t read too much into those numbers. Tank Bigsby
   got 5 touches and Jarquez Hunter didn’t play at all, while Auburn was also
   missing several offensive linemen due to injuries. I’m not optimistic about
   Auburn’s run game this fall, given the perennial question marks on the
   offensive line.
   
   In terms of play selection, Auburn threw the ball on 60% of its first downs,
   which is somewhat encouraging since throwing the ball on first down is almost
   always optimal. Still too many first down runs for my taste, but improvement
   from last year. The run game truthers will yell at me, but to quote Jay-Z,
   women lie, men lie, numbers don’t lie. I’ll probably write more about this at
   some point down the road, but as a general note, analytics have shown us that
   it’s better to throw on first down, as well as second and third down and 5+,
   and fourth down and 2+; run vs. pass is neutral on second and third down and
   2-4 yards, while running is optimal on third and fourth down and less than 2.
   2nd and 1 is a unique case where passing is optimal (primarily because of the
   high success rate of play-action in those situations).
   
   I’ll also note that Auburn only ran two QB run plays and a handful of RPOs.
   The former makes sense, since it was a scrimmage where QBs weren’t being
   tackled to the ground, although the few glimpses we got illustrated that
   Ashford’s running ability offers more potential for explosive plays than
   Auburn’s conventional run game. As I mentioned above, I think RPOs are simply
   the optimal way for an offense to protect its run game; rather than the
   traditional run, then play-action when the defense overplays the run, the
   offense can immediately identify the defensive player with dual run/pass
   responsibility and make the defense wrong every time. This is part of why I
   think under center running on standard downs is obsolete, because it limits
   the use of RPOs, and it’s just wasteful to not have something attached to
   your run plays (a quick pass, a screen, an option read, etc.). Sorry for the
   tangent, but I thought I’d clarify my biases up front.
   
   As I alluded to above, Auburn used at least one tight end on every single
   snap of the A-Day game. It used 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE) on 41 (66%) of its
   plays, which is in line with the rest of college (and pro) football, where 11
   personnel has become the dominant grouping due to its flexibility and
   versatility, which also facilitates tempo because it minimizes the need to
   substitute. Auburn used 12 personnel on 19 (31%) of its snaps, and 13
   personnel on the remaining 2 snaps. It’s clear that TEs are going to play a
   big role in the Auburn offense this season, which is no surprise to anyone.
   It’s also worth noting that Auburn used a wide variety of formations within
   these personnel groupings, as well as a number of different motions and
   shifts; pre-snap movement (especially with the TEs and RBs) is one of the key
   features of the “Boise offense”, changing run strength and increasing the
   number of gaps on one side of the line of scrimmage, which is very annoying
   for defense (and particularly odd front defenses like Auburns, which lack a
   natural adjuster). Auburn also used a fair amount of jet motion and orbit
   motion; these were primarily for misdirection, but Auburn did run a couple of
   jet sweeps and threw a few swings off of orbit motion, and I think these
   could be useful ways to get the ball to some of our better athletes, like the
   Johnsons.
   
   In terms of the actual concepts, the offense was, unsurprisingly, very basic.
   The large majority of Auburn’s run plays were inside zone variations. These
   variations included split zone, where the HB/FB kicks out the backside DE to
   open up a cutback lane; wham, where the HB/FB traps an interior linemen, and
   (when Ashford was in the game), bluff read, which looks like split zone, but
   instead of blocking the DE, the HB fakes that block and instead blocks the
   run support player (the person who would be responsible for tackling the QB
   if he pulled the ball), which was one of the primary plays for Auburn during
   the Nick Marshall era. Auburn only ran a couple of gap schemes
   (power/counter), along with a couple of mid-zone runs and jet sweeps.
   Notably, I didn’t see Auburn run outside zone at all, which I suspect will
   change during the season, since Tank Bigsby has already shown that he’s
   really good at finding the lanes and making the cutbacks on outside zone.
   
   The passing concepts on display were also quite basic, mostly consisting of
   half-field reads like fade-out and three-man flood. Auburn only ran a few
   concepts that attacked the middle of the field, including a few slants,
   shallow cross (once), and a deep cross (once, off play-action). I’m not
   really going to read too much into this in terms of where the QBs are or what
   we should expect to see in season, just making a general observation.
   Auburn’s primary concepts for attacking deep down the field were slot fade
   (which led to Auburn’s first touchdown), the deep routes on three-man flood,
   and four verticals (which was the call for the final touchdown). One
   interesting play that Auburn used a couple of times in the red zone was a
   mesh concept out of 4×1 empty with a RB aligned in a wing position. Auburn
   used this a couple of times last year, notably against Penn State and Ole
   Miss.
   
   I would expect to see at least a somewhat expanded playbook against Mercer,
   but the key elements of what we can expect from this year’s offense are
   fairly clear: a zone-based running game with a lot of motion/misdirection and
   a few gap scheme runs thrown in; a relatively simplistic dropback game
   focused on two-man and half-field concepts; and a play-action game mainly
   based on flood/bootleg concepts and traditional play-action shots. Probably
   relatively little in the way of QB runs unless Ashford takes over the
   starting job, and probably relatively few RPOs (with those RPOs mostly being
   simple receiver screens tagged to the backside of zone runs). I’m not sure
   this offense has a clear identity or direction in terms of its concepts, and
   it really does seem like it will be “running plays instead of running an
   offense”, which, as I mentioned above, I dislike precisely because it’s prone
   to incoherent grab-bagging rather than having built-in answers for the
   problems it might encounter.
   
   Note: in the future, these breakdowns will likely have gifs and diagrams, but
   I feel like it’s probably unnecessary in this case, since I’m just basing
   this off the spring game, which doesn’t make for a very interesting film
   study. There should be some gifs/diagrams in the Mercer scouting report
   coming out on Thursday.
   
   CONCLUSIONS
   
   As I noted above, the amount you can learn from studying film of a spring
   game is relatively limited, but it’s clear that there’s going to be a good
   bit of schematic carryover from last season into this season. I’m hoping that
   we’ll be closer to this run-pass ratio (75% pass) since passing is almost
   always the more efficient way to move the ball (sorry, run game truthers),
   but I suspect Harsin and Kiesau will revert to a more “traditional” (read:
   suboptimal) run-pass ratio.
   
   On the whole, I’m not optimistic about this unit going into this season. The
   loss of Bo Nix was a massive blow, and his replacements are underwhelming at
   best. The wide receivers are a major question mark, and the relative strength
   of the offense (RBs) is almost entirely dependent on the improvement of the
   offensive line. Unless TJ Finley and the offensive line have developed
   significantly from last year (or Harsin realizes that he has better options
   at QB), this offense doesn’t look like a serious contender in the SEC West.
   Hopefully tomorrow’s defensive preview will be a bit more encouraging.
   
   One final note: I realize that much of the Xs and Os discussion above is
   heavy on jargon and light on explanation of those terms. I plan on putting up
   a glossary of football terminology at some point soon that I’ll be able to
   refer back to in future posts, but for now just bear with me and pretend like
   I know what I’m talking about.
   
   August 30, 2022
   Uncategorized
   auburn tigers, sports
   


 * WELCOME TO AUBURN ANALYSIS!
   
   This is a blog dedicated to Auburn sports analysis, with an emphasis on
   football; there will also be some basketball sprinkled in since we’re a
   basketball school now. I am, admittedly, not an expert in any sense of the
   word, having never played a down of organized football in my life, but I’ve
   devoted way more of my free time than is reasonable to studying Xs and Os,
   and I hope to give you some insight into the strategic aspects of the game.
   If you’re looking for information on off-the-field stuff (news, recruiting,
   etc.), you won’t find that here, because I’m just a random stranger on the
   internet, not an insider or reporter of any description. I hope to have some
   actual #content up soon, but the long-term plan is to post a film review
   after (almost) every Auburn game, along with other analytical articles. For
   now, I’ll just be slogging through the offseason doldrums with the rest of
   y’all.
   
   July 19, 2022
   Uncategorized
   




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