FanPost

The O-Line

I'm an engineer by trade and whenever something is broken and I asked to fix it, I always as "Why?" What was happening before? How did we get here? Why did we get here?

I've been watching the games and in my opinion the key element in being 5-1 instead of 3-3, as were at this point last year was the hiring of Herb Hand. I'll never know what induced him to leave Auburn, but as I was listening to a CFB podcast today, they were in agreement that Auburn's OL is a "hot mess".

Hmmm, what was the difference? Herb Hand.

In less than a year of his coaching:

  • Sam has more time in the pocket
  • The running backs have lanes they can actually dart through

Bravo coach!

But on the flip side, with the recent OU game, we blew a 21 point lead in the 4th. Now comes the asking of why?

Why did we blow the lead? We couldn't burn the clock.

Why couldn't we burn the clock? Because linemen were being called for holding calls pushing us back further and further.

What was the effect of pushing us back? We were relying on poor throws that stopped the clock

Why were the linemen holding?

And this is the gist of this post. Several people have commented that the line was just getting tired. I don't disagree with that assessment. The heat and the humidity took at toll on the line and they were just grabbing or playing poor technique trying to sustain a block.

Throughout the game, I saw the names on the backs of the D-Line of Wilbon, Christmas-Giles, Graham, etc.... Obviously, Oscar Giles was rotating the guys through to keep them fresh for chasing down Murray (cough, not that it helped).

And here's the question to y'all: Is the O-Line different in that late in the game, it's too much of a risk to substitute non-starters into the line? Couldn't we have started subbing in when we were 21 or 14 points ahead?

Bonus question: are we resigned to 1 or 2 penalties from Shackleford each game? The freshman Cosmi, I understand. But c'mon Shack, you're a 3-year starter!

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