Auburn- Similar to last week's observation, it is what it is. Jeremy Johnson is not going to get much better. He's not going to be coached up. He's not going to improve to the level we need in order to compete with the best SEC teams. Maybe he can get a little better and maybe we can gameplan around it, but he like Kiehl Frazier is a detriment to the offense.
- It's not that he doesn't have the size, arm strength, and play calls. It's that he can't handle the speed of the game.
When I was in undergrad, I went to a practice during the fall of 2004. It was during two-a-days, I think, and it was an evening practice to avoid the heat. What amazed me the most was just how quick the players were. I watched Carnell Williams juke and shift through the hole and then cut it up the sideline. There were a lot of players yelling, hooting, and just being downright competitive about a simple practice play. Every time a play was run or even during drills, you would hear pads pop and heavy breaths being taken. To sum this up, it was just fucking fast, like handcuff lightning, throw thunder in jail fast.
Another time was in the spring of 2007 when I was a Tiger Host. It was A-Day, and I was on the field guiding recruits around to watch the warm up drills. I got stuck near the linebackers and someone told me to step back. I didn't. I watched as the linebackers did this shuffle and run drill, where they shuffled away from me and from about ten yards out, bolted into a dead sprint right in my direction. A linebacker was charging at me and in my face so quickly that I couldn't make sense of just how a human being that large could move that way.
And that's why even if I had all the physical tools in the world to play quarterback, I would be a failure. My brain just doesn't comprehend the speed of college football defenses. To get the snap, know the play, make the read, innovate, make the adjustments, execute the play all within a second or two, there's no way I could handle it.
And neither can Johnson. I'm sure he looks great when the pressure is off (see Arkansas 2014 when he knew Marshall would come in at the half). I'm sure he does everything right in practice. But he's a shit quarterback who is going to lose us a lot of games.
- Not that this team as a whole is all that better. The offensive line couldn't get any kind of a push on an FCS defense. We've been plagued with holding calls so far, and the running backs are having to fight through congestion just to break the line of scrimmage.
- Defensively, I was confused about the strategy. We stayed in man coverage the whole game. Does Muschamp just not run zone? Our secondary couldn't cover Jax State receivers. How will they handle Dupree next week? Why didn't we change the coverage? To Jax State's credit, two of their receivers were downright ballers.
- I attended the game and sat beneath the jumbotron on row 53. It sucks for people underneath it. The picture is a bunch of squares with smudged moving colors in each one. You can't tell what's going on in the replays, and I couldn't even see the other side of the screen to see stats or other scores. We walked to the other side of the stadium after the game and from the opposite side, it looks beautiful. But it seems rather lame that 1/4 of the stadium can't even see the damn thing when you spent millions of dollars on it.
- Also, not sure if this was seen by anyone else or if it's been brought up, but two of our defensive linemen were loafing their fat asses off the field going into halftime. One was Montravious Adams who walked over to Malzahn as he was finishing up his pre-halftime interview. I don't know what was said, but Adams said something to Malzahn and Malzhan lit into him right there on the field. As a spectator, I have no idea what happened there, but if I had to assume, I would assume that there was some bullshit laziness from Adams going into the locker room and it looked like he had some kind of complaint, which set Malzahn off. I hope Gus nips that bullshit in the bud quickly and I hope there aren't some kind of discipline issues going on behind closed doors.
- Here's a disturbing quote from Johnson:
"I didn't feel that I wasn't playing good," Johnson said. "It's football, interceptions are going to happen. All the greats throw interceptions. I feel really good about where this team at, where I'm at. I have a lot of confidence in myself and also my team. They always tell me we've got confidence, we believe in you, and that's great to hear from your teammates."
- I miss Nick Marshall. Guy was a straight baller, clutch in big games, clutch in big moments. Feet from Michael Jackson and legs from Usain Bolt.
Other Thoughts- Hahahahah Arkansas.
- Watched the 1st quarter of the LSU game. LSU looks stout. Real stout. But Miss State also looks like dogshit. Stanky dogshit.
- Tennessee could have been back tonight, but they're not. Typical 6, 7 win Tennessee team.
- Best teams in the SEC right now: Alabama (that defensive line OMG) and Texas A&M (Sumlin's offense with a decent defense plus a win against a respectable opponent).
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