Newtonpalooza Looks To Have Long Run
by Jay Coulter on Sep 6, 2010 2:00 AM CDT
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PrintWith apologies to the thousands who've come before him, Saturday night's opening act by quarterback Cam Newton now sits as the best premiere in Auburn history. Rarely does reality live up to the hype. On Saturday it exceeded it. Dare we say Newton's night was Tebow-like?
For the better part of a year, Auburn coaches have kept the junior transfer under wraps like he was the newest iteration of the stealth bomber. When all was said and done Saturday evening against Arkansas State, Newton had carpet bombed Jordan-Hare Stadium for 186 yards through the air and 171 yards on the ground.
Critics will point to the relative weakness of the opponent, but if you sat at Pat Dye Field and watched with your own eyes, today you are a believer. Not since Dameyune Craig lit up the blue skies of Auburn back in the late 90's has an Auburn quarterback looked so athletic and just plain capable.
"I don't know if I have seen an individual performance better than Cam Newton," said Arkansas State coach Steve Roberts. "He is the best player I have ever seen live."
One game doesn't make the player. And Saturday was not perfect for Newton - cue the end of the first half. Thursday will bring an entirely different level of competition. While the game program says he's a junior, we all know he's a freshman at heart. With it will comes challenges and mistakes.
Auburn coach Gene Chizik knows Newton will have to continue to improve the little things. "For his first football game, I couldn't be prouder of what he did," Chizik said. "(But) he will be the first one to tell you he knows there is a lot of work to be done."
Newton knows his limitations. After making a Carnell Williams like move on a 16 yard run for a first down in the second quarter, the East Alabama heat caught up with him momentarily. Sensing it, offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn pulled Newton and reached into his bag of tricks, resulting in a 42 yard completion by third-string quarterback Neil Caudle.
No one was more grateful than the new comer. "Let's just say I was happy," Newton said of Caudle's appearance. "I saw disaster in the near future, I was so tired."
With Newtonpalooza in full swing, the performance of the nation's top prep running back was nearly lost. After watching fellow blue-chipper Marcus Lattimore get off to a good start in South Carolina Thursday night, Michael Dyer had to wait until the second quarter to make his Auburn debut. He wasted little time matching Lattimore's performance, running for 95 yards on 14 carries with one touchdown.
It was a night where the tailback depth chart seemed to mean nothing. Dyer began the day as the number three tailback. Together with back-up Onterio McCalebb, they put up 171 yards of rushing while the starter, Mario Fannin managed only three carries for 14 yards.
What gives?
Speaking Sunday afternoon, Chizik said, "I wouldn't read anything into it." Asked a short time later, Fannin said the same thing. Despite only three carries, he still finished the night in fine fashion, catching two touchdowns.
The five day turnaround in preparation for Thursday night's conference opener with Mississippi State presents its own set of challenges. "You've got to be smart on how you proceed," Chizik said Sunday. "We've got a lot of work to do to get ready for a very, very tough conference game. We made a lot of mistakes, but I think they're fixable."
"Their (Miss St.) offense is tremendous looking. They're throwing it and running it at will,'' he said. The Bulldogs defeated Memphis 49-7 in its season opener.
Kickoff from Scott Field in Starkville is set for 6:30 p.m. Thursday night and will be televised by ESPN.
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defense
I’m posting a $30,000 reward for anyone that may have information that leads to the safe return of our defense. They’ve been missing alittle over a year now and we’re all very worried.
"Jay Jacobs can't go to the bathroom without Bobby Lowder's permission" - Paul Finebaum
by GumptownTiger on Sep 6, 2010 9:23 AM CDT via mobile reply actions
What a great debut!
I was VERY pleasanty surprised by Cam’s play on Saturday, he definitely exceeded my expectations. The game was as tough as I suspected but I went into the game thinking Cam was going to make the mistakes that lead to Red Wolf points. Thankfully that wasn’t the case, but unfortunately we still made lots of mistakes that lead to points for Arky State. Cam is perfect for the offense because he has an arm that makes defenses pay for choking the line. He had a lot more touch down field than I was expecting as well, throwing rainbows in places where only Adams and Carr could catch the ball. Hopefully his short and mid range touch is just as good, although if he can stretch the field 50-60 yards it may not matter! One thing you can be certain of this morning is that every defenseive co-ordinator in the SEC is at the chalkboard this morning trying to figure out how to defend against a guy who can gash you for 50 yards on the ground or in the air at any time. The one sore point on offense I noticed was our difficulty in short yardage situations. We didn’t have many, but when we did, Arky State gave us a lot more trouble that I would have cared to see, including that series on the goal line after the Caudle bomb where we had three consecutive plays that lost yardage before settling for a field goal. That won’t pass muster in the SEC.
Obviously the concern coming out of the game was the play of the defense and we all knew that was going to be where we needed to improve the most if we are to challenge LSU and Bama in the west. While on the surface and on paper, it looks like the Red Wolves gave us a time, you have to give Alpin, Frampton and company credit for making some very nice plays. The 1st TD pass those two connected on was as impressive as any you will see all year. Frampton exploited a seam in the defense and Alpin was able to deliver the ball where, a closing McNeil and Etheridge were unable to get to it. I’ve seen that same pass go incomplete dozens of times by much more heralded QB’s. Sometimes you have to tip your cap.
That being said, we did have numerous breakdowns on defense in the secondary and the continued poor play from Eltoro Freeman. The 61 yard play was NOT Washington’s fault however. Washington correctly released the receiver to Zac Etheridge to cover the bootlegging Aplin, HOWEVER Etheridge incorrectly dropped out of coverage to pursue Aplin as well which left Muze WIDE open for the big gain. That was totally Etheridge’s fault. If you review the game tape you will see Zac run right by Muze to pursue Aplin. Now while that wasn’t smart, I’ll attribute that more to Zac wanting to get that 1st big hit out of the way than I am to him being oblivious of his coverage responsibilities. He made some more coverage gaffes in the 1st half but you have to remember he’s only been cleared for contact for a couple of weeks and we all know that practice just isn’t like the real thing. Also I don’t think you can take away too much from our lack of desire to play the nickel and dime against multiple receiver sets since I think Roof and Chzik don’t want to show to much of their scheme going into Starkville, where they will most likely see a spread attack all night. Me, I would have wanted to get those guys in game action to see where we needed work and make MSU beat you with what they know. What they WILL know is to direct as much of their attack towards Eltoro Freeman as possible, who continues to be unable to shed a blocker and make and impact around the line unless he goes unblocked. I made a point to look for Freeman throughout the game, and the guy is just too easily removed from the play. Hopefully whatever Craig Stevens did to get benched won’t linger into this week because we need him out on the field and Freeman on the sidelines getting tutored on lowerng his center of gravity and eluding blocks. Much like last year, the defense had its moments. The line play looked very solid and the secondary looked close to where they need to be, aside from a handful of coverage gaffes. We aren’t near where we need to be but I’m going to wait to see how they do in Starkville before I start to worry.
All things considered, the offense looked great and we won going away but I don’t think you can take a whole lot away from it other than to say the obvious, which is, Auburn has much better athletes on offense than the Red Wolves had on defense. Thursday is the real start of the season.
On what day did the Lord create Bear Bryant and couldn't he have rested on that day too?
I saw it a bit differently
To me, Auburn’s defense looked better when Freeman was on the field. Roof doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. I think that’s obvious. You guys have kept saying and kept saying that Roof is a good coach and I’m just being too negative. Well, it looks exactly the same this year and there’s no more excuses. We were letting them get yardage in the first quarter. That’s our starters the last time I checked. Oh yeah, don’t let me forget-Chizik seemed to pull Roof aside a few times. I think Roof is washed up and washed out. Get him out of there!!
With all due respect to the great Sparkey... I like your analysis Colonel.
AubTigerman
"The reason you come to Auburn is because of Auburn people.This is a special place, from the coaches all the way to the fans" - Andrew McCain OT
You may be right...
Lord knows I am as critical as they come but I don’t think you can derive too much from the first game so I’ll cut him some slack in this one. Like I said the season REALLY starts on Thursday and if we are getting abused by the wrong Bulldogs, I will have a problem with him. This year will tell the story on Rooff, he can’t use the depth card to the same extent he did last year. You can’t make too much of Chizik pulling him aside however, unless they are yelling back and forth, that could be about anything. Make no mistake though, Roof will be here all year unless the defense is a disaster of Franklinesque proportions and at that point you have to get after Chizik for not getting involved and making adjustments. At the end of the day its Chiz’s team, not Roof’s and he has to own it.
If you have the game recorder, you may want to go back and review more on Eltoro, I have watched the game 3 times already, reviewing as I went along (patheitic for an Arky St. game I know) and other than a couple of times where blocking assignments were missed, Eltoro is not participating in the play. I want the kid to succed but he just looks lost out there to me.
On what day did the Lord create Bear Bryant and couldn't he have rested on that day too?
Still sounds like excuses to me...
So when does Roof take the blame? Last year it was the depth, this year it is Chizik’s fault? I don’t get it. El-Torro didn’t look that great on his own. It just seemed as if Auburn had more energy when he was out there is all. Granted, I haven’t had much time to really see it again so I’ll go ahead and say I was wrong on that one.
My problem for the most part was watching one side of the defense look completely confused. Early on, the guys weren’t even lining up in the right positions. I have said over and over again I’d like Roof to prove me wrong, but I haven’t seen evidence yet going against him not being the right Defensive Coordinator. I realize Chizik is the head guy. I am just so sick of people making excuses for him. However, if Auburn has a good defensive showing come Thursday night all of my harking and whining is meaningless and all will be forgiven. The encouragement I have stems from the fact that AU’s D did get better as the game went along and it was noticeably more aggressive.
If Freeman is that bad, then by all means bench him. I’d like to see more of Sanders. That kid has a motor that doesn’t stop. I also bet Trovon Reed makes an impact Thursday night. I guess my biggest issue is how hard people are being on the kid Freeman when Ted Roof makes good money and he’s a man he is even over 40. If Eltoro is that bad, like I said sit him down. I’ve got no problems with that. My problem comes in when we start blaming Chizik and somehow Roof completely gets off without any sort of naysayers coming out against him. I guess, I’m alone on that. As I said, I’d be happy to be wrong and you can bet I’ll be cheering Thursday hoping I am.
I'm not absolving Roof of anything...
I’m just not ready to start the bonfire yet. We all know that the defense has underperformed, I just can’t say right now its the scheme, which is what Roof controls. If you don’t have the players, or the players don’t perform, then the scheme means nothing. Obvious case in point, the 61 yard reception at the beginning of the game. That pass play WAS covered by the scheme but when Etheridge neglected his repsonsibility to pick up Muze once he was released by Washington, the coverage broke down and you had a receiver wide open for a big play. Roof had the right coverage called, the players did not execute. Now what you can do at that point is bench Etheridge for his mental lapse or say “that was a mistake” and learn from it and don’t do it again. Now if the same mistake keeps happening and Roof continues to play Etheridge, then Roof gets the blame. The problem last year is we had nobody else to plug in when players didn’t perform. The scheme was vanilla and we played bend but don’t break defense. That can work in college becasue college players make mistakes and last year we were able to capitalize on those mistakes. Against the better teams though, we got exposed and lost.
If the defense underperfoms and Roof can’t fix it, it is Chiziks problem because this is his team and he is the defensive guru. Just like Tuberville, when Franklin kept running the same moronic plays with players who had no business being in a spread offense…..and nothing was changed……the blame fell on Tuberville for not relieving Franklin sooner and running an offense suited to the talent we had. The same goes this year for Roof, if he can’t incorporate a scheme suited to the talent he has, he is going to find himself in trouble with the fans and Coach Chizik. If you get beat by a superior team or lose because the opposition makes the plays they have to, it doesn’t matter what the scheme is….you likely were going to lose anyway. What is not acceptable is when you fail to make adjustments to what the opposition is doing, or you continue to put yourself in position where you can not stop the opposition …like continuing to play a 4-3 when the opposition is running a four or five wide receiver set. In that instance YOU KNOW that you have speed mismatches with one or more players. Yes, that happened a lot on Saturday but I will give Roof the benefit of the doubt for the time being knowing that the mismatches were not significant given our overall team speed AND he didn’t want to show our dime and nickel packages before next week. If that WASN’T his reasoning then I would sure love to hear what it was becasue it didn’t look that smart.
Like I said, I’ll give him some time but I want to see improvement…and in a hurry.
On what day did the Lord create Bear Bryant and couldn't he have rested on that day too?
Easy to see ...
… your right Jay. Not since the great spring debut of Dameyune Craig in ‘94 have we seen an Auburn quarterback display such athletic ability. Thoroughly enjoyed being there and thoroughly enjoyed the read. I’ll end with with a phrase I heard at the game and have already seen on comments on Acid’s article “Newton Explodes” … War Cam Eagle !
AubTigerman
"The reason you come to Auburn is because of Auburn people.This is a special place, from the coaches all the way to the fans" - Andrew McCain OT
I agree, Newton certainly lived up to the hype.
And Saturday may not have been perfect, but it was close enough. No disrespect to the Qb’s since 2004, but I believe we may have a great one now. Good read Jay.
Its going to be a very exciting season
We may see quite a shootout in Starkville on Thursday. I’m guessing at least 1000 yards gained between the 2 teams. I don’t see them stopping us and I don’t see us stopping them. Hey its better than 3-2, right?
I don’t get the whole “not tipping your hand” philosophy. I’m not saying there isn’t some strategic advantage to holding back some schemes, but is that really smart on defense?Do you guys really think there were schemes we purposefully avoided using for an advantage later? I never played football, but it just seems crazy to me.
I hope you AREN'T right....
I prefer we whip their flea bitten hides 52-nil, however I’m afraid we still have a penchant for missing assignments and giving up the big play. I like you, don’t understand holding back on defense, because after all, defense is about match-ups primarily and scheme secondarily because you are reacting to the play being run. At best, defensive scheme can minimize an offensive advantage, or alter the offensive execution, for instance when blitzing. If I’m coaching the NFL, maybe I hold back for a big divisional game, but in college I think you stand to gain more from your boys getting game experience and becoming proficient at running your scheme so as to minimize mistakes. On the other hand if I am coaching offense I certainly would not taylor my offensive gameplan according to the oppositions defensive scheme, but more to their players strengths and weakeness in accordance with my own. For example, you don’t gameplan a straitforward running attack with speedy undersized running back against a line of senior 300 lb defensive tackles if they have inexperienced linebackers on the edge that you engage one on one in open space.
I am going to rest my hopes on the fact that our defense will up their game on the road against a conference opponent. We certainly were outmanned against Alabama last year but rose to the occasion, I expect Coach Roof and Coach Chizik to inspire them to learn from this past Saturday’s game and to up their level of play and to put them in the best position to nullify the Bulldog offensive gameplan. They can do it, its just a matter of execution, and as we all know, if you execute your gameplan, generally you win.
On what day did the Lord create Bear Bryant and couldn't he have rested on that day too?
We certainly did look weak defensively..
In the early stages of the first half especially. There were however some changes made, and things progressively got better in the first half, and Auburn’s “D” was much better in the second half.
I have watched it twice, and I thought Eltoro was better than last year, but he still has a way to go to be great.
Good points by everyone.
WAR EAGLE!
Come and join me at http://trackemtigers.com
Eltoro....
looks to me like he has a hard time identifying whats going on and who has the ball. I counted at least 4 times where the ball was coming his way and by the time he idenified what was happening, a) a blocker was on him or b) it was too late for him to keep the play in front of him and make a play on the ball. Bates and Evans seemed to do a much better job, in fact Bates had to have had a least twice the number of tackles in similar amounts of playing time. Eltoro also just looks very tentative out there unless he is rushing the line. I don’t know what you do about that.
After watching the game again, the D looked much better when we put pressure on Aplin and didn’t allow any cushion for the ASU receivers. Those are problems that can be fixed. The majority of the rest of ASU’s offense was just good play by Alpin, Frampton and freinds.
On what day did the Lord create Bear Bryant and couldn't he have rested on that day too?
I wish our defense had looked better.
I certainly hope it is something that can be addressed in practice and by getting some much needed playing time for the younger guys.
Its worrisome to see that out of the SEC teams ranked, we were atleast tied with LSU as the worst looking team on defense. And I think LSU was up against a much better offense, NCAA suspensions or not.
Let’s just hope it improves. I quite enjoyed Cam Newton’s debut. I wish everyone would go a little easy on the Tebow talk however. He’s got lightyears to go before we can fairly compare him to Tebow. But we’ll see how it shakes out. If that is where he is headed, he has started in the right direction atleast.
I have very high hopes for the offense this year. I hope Fannin not getting many carries against A State was more of a sign of depth than trouble. We’ll have to keep an eye on that situation.
War Eagle
great stuff folks...
absolutely LOVED being in Auburn this past weekend. a FULL weekend of fun for sure.
i don’t know that i have an opinion against or for many of the comments here… it is too early to tell.
the sequence of games in september and personality of the teams and offenses we’ll face will go a LONG way to answering these questions.
we all know that. surely, chizik, roof, and the AU D know that they will be tested in a much more comprehensive way on Thursday…
the assumption that AU is solid against the run … for instance… an assumption that is premature until we get through miss st, clemson, and s. carolina.
after wk 1, we’ve got some players that have risen up to the top to define this team… and others that are still on the shelf needing to prove themselves.
the 2 most significant holes for me on both sides of the ball:
AU O: short to mid-range pass game. i didn’t feel newton grasping that underneath (5-10yrd) 4-wide option routes for burns, e smith, or lutz and really was excited about this potential of this area for a 6’-6" QB to really hurt the D. maybe we’ll see a new dimension in this game when reed is mixed in.
AU D: i didn’t sense good coverage communication between the LBs, corners, and safeties on the short to mid-range pass attack. there indeed was confusion. several times i saw burns directing people all the way up to the snap…and his head wasn’t even square to the play. AU wasn’t in position at snap. other times i saw OLBs up on blitz or run stop duty…and the corner with way too much cushion.
this should be, should be…easy stuff to correct. the communication has to be there and get cleaned up. this is all about leadership. bynes. savage. etc.
overall,… a good start for the O… not so with the D. this D should have been able to come out more physical and after they figured out that arky was in 3 step drop mode(short pass game)…the line needs to get their hands up and be more active in altering the play. i did not see the aggressive style play that i was anticipating.
i really missed bates in the secondary…though he had a solid game at LB.
if neiko thorpe can’t be the guy to match up with the big WRs… we need bates back at safety laying the hammer down.
thorpe had a terrible game IMO… #2 ate him up.
wappa
I disagree about Thorpe.....
he was picked on all night long and held his own pretty well.
I would have gone to bammer if my grades hadn't been good enough to go to AU
...sorry, am i supposed to feel good about ark. st. 'picking on' our supposed lock CB?
i don’t think #2for ASU is as good as alshon jefferey(6-4), julio jones(6-4), T. toliver(6-5), or AJ green(6-4)…
i thought thorpe got worked. i look forward to seeing the game again tonight.
wappa
Thorpe was on an island......
pretty much all night and I didn’t see him get worked…..they made some receptions on his coverage but he was solid in tackling when they did….and he also made some very good plays including a spectacular pass breakup late in the game look for that play when you watch the replay. All of the DB’s were playing soft on the line giving up the slant and the short pass under coverage….that is scheming and not poor execution….I can’t recall a reciever getting behind Thorpe for a reception. With the spread that ASU played all night long it was down right infuriating that AU didn’t go into a nickel defense or jam the recievers at the line to breakup their timing….but again that is the defense that was called by Roof and not a lack of execution. I hope to god that the scheme was merely to keep it vanilla and get alot of youth some experience and that we will see a much different Defensive gameplan Thursday night.
I would have gone to bammer if my grades hadn't been good enough to go to AU
The defense did show considerable improvement from last season.....
there were only a few missed tackles from the entire game and that is a huge improvement in itself. The other part is that the defense finished with as much gas as it started and that is a huge improvement. The scheme was very soft and I think that bothers me more than anything but I am going to attribute that to Roof keeping it simple without the playcaller being on the field (Steven’s) and not wanting to tip his hand before this Thursday night. War Damn Eagle.
I would have gone to bammer if my grades hadn't been good enough to go to AU
I hope you're right Todd...
Have we heard anything about Stevens for Thursday. As far as I know, he’s out again Thursday night. If that’s true, that could spell trouble.
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