AuburnFamilyNews.com: SNAP JUDGMENTS: #1 Alabama 42, Auburn 13

Saturday, November 28, 2020

SNAP JUDGMENTS: #1 Alabama 42, Auburn 13

Auburn vs Alabama
Photo by UA Athletics/Collegiate Images/Getty Images

Get ready for the takes.

Hey, did you watch the Iron Bowl today? If not, you can read these assessments below to see how this game turned out.

SNAP JUDGMENTS

-AU Chief

That was chicken shit, and Gus doesn’t deserve to wear a block A hat for that.

-James Jones

Ah, well, nevertheless

-Josh Dub

Man we looked lost from the gun. This auburn team seems more affected from the Covid-practice and schedule nonsense than any other team. We are up and we are down. Alabama remains constant. And constantly better than auburn at the line tonight.

-Son of Crow

I’m not supposed to be more interested in the Egg Bowl and making a plate of leftovers than the second half of the dang Iron Bowl. I won’t sit here and claim every mistake was Gus’s fault, the execution in this game was pretty poor. And it’s hard to blame Gus for being at a talent deficit against the best dynasty in the history of the sport. But on things he could control specifically on Saturday, Gus failed. The offensive game plan was unimaginative. The decisions to punt and kick field goals were mind-numbingly archaic. You can’t be that conservative when you’re a 25 point road underdog.

All of that said, moving on is not an option. At $21 million with half due in a month, it would be fiscally irresponsible even if it weren’t a pandemic year. There’s not much else to it. Let’s go fix the mistakes against A&M and finish on a high note.

-Ryan Sterritt

I’m just so tired and frustrated.... I’m just tired of knowing what to expect and the bar getting (somehow) lower from there.

-Drew Mac

I came in with low expectations but with the hope that AU would at least be somewhat competitive. But that was asking for too much...

-AU Nerd

Nothing that happened today surprised me. Alabama just had too many weapons on offense for Auburn to stop them all. It was disappointing to see Gus settle for field goals when they weren’t going to do us any good. Alabama scored touchdowns on both of their next drives following Auburn FGs. It is what it is. I said Auburn would go 7-3 this year and if they win their last 2 games, they do just that. A&M game is MASSIVE this week.

-Will McLaughlin

I hate everything about their stupid faces, and their stupid Wal-Mart red, and their stupid elephant honking, and their stupid excellent talent across the board. Can we just go back to the times when Tommy Tuberville would squeak by a below-average Alabama team? Gus Malzahn has the toughest job in America, and so that should make us realize that this is something that will happen from time to time.

Still, I don’t want to have to accept the fact that Alabama is that much better than we are. I want to go back and strangle Tuberville for not destroying them when he had the chance in the early 2000s. He could’ve upended their program, and chose to just win the games rather than make a point. Now, they’re the most powerful dynasty in the history of the sport. Thanks. That’s not to let Gus off the hook. Today was an abysmal game plan. Haven’t we learned that you can’t just try to run side to side on Alabama? Didn’t we all learn that in like 2009? There was no urgency today, and no guts in playing a team that you knew would score 40. We tried to grind it out and reduce their possessions, but that doesn’t help when they’re capable of going the distance on any given play. Isn’t it wild that I was more confident in our defense when Bama got the ball at our 34 than I was when they’d start with typical field position? Less room for their super athletes to out-athlete our normal human athletes.

We were injured, yes. But Bama didn’t do anything special today. Rarely brought blitzes, didn’t really throw out anything wild on offense that we hadn’t seen before. They’re just better. They may as well have not even game-planned specifically for us. And that sucks.

-Jack Condon

Well that went just as I expected it would. Look, the Iron Bowl is often an indictment on the season as a whole for Auburn, and in this year’s case I am not sure that is entirely accurate. After all, there hasn’t been a team to really keep it close with this bunch all year.

I’m not frustrated by this result. Sure, I wish it had been closer. It should have been. But Vegas had us as a 25-point underdog for a reason. This is an excellent Alabama offense that we were never going to keep pace with. I think it’s important to ask why we were never going to keep pace with them though.

For starters, this offensive line was never going to be good enough. They haven’t been very good for several years now, but this group has done something that 2018 and 2019’s OL didn’t really show a lot of: improvement. But this OL was never going to be good enough with the lack of talent compared to their opposition AND a lack of meaningful snaps coming into the year. Being seasoned at that position group clearly matters for Auburn in this game during the Nick Saban era.

Second, this team got beat up along that OL just last week, had their best offensive player (sorry, Seth, but the truth hurts) dinged up last week and was not 100%, and has some real liabilities in the secondary that weren’t fixed since this game a year ago. They aren’t good enough to beat Alabama without several breaks, and this version of Alabama in 2020 doesn’t give you any.

Third, this has been a super weird year. Any momentum built from LSU was hard to sustain with having to take a week off. You can say that the same happened to Alabama, but the cold, hard reality is that they can overcome that because they are supremely talented when compared to every other team in the SEC (including Georgia because Alabama knows how to recruit and manage quarterbacks).

So, again, I’m not frustrated by this loss. I’m SUPER FRUSTRATED by the South Carolina loss. I’m still white hot mad over the Georgia games of the last 2 years. And I’m going to be bitter at how we’ve evaluated our offensive line since about 2016. We didn’t lose this game because of anything that happened tonight. We lost this game because of what isn’t happening on Signing Day.

The good news is this…this game isn’t the end. We have a chance to bounce back and beat a team that isn’t nearly as talented as the one we just faced. We should beat Mississippi State. And most importantly we should expect a championship team next year with no pandemic-related issues (assuming a vaccine is on the way). Even if we do have pandemic issues I’m confident we can at least get a spring in.

Bottom line is that Auburn fires coaches when there is no hope left that this can get fixed. This is not an unhealthy program that cannot get this specific game to go their way next year. This is a program that can win a championship next year based on who will be coming back and the experiences they learn from this. It’s a program that still has hope. And that’s what’s so frustrating. I get that. I feel that. But hope is all Auburn people need and we’ve still got it. So hang onto it and hang in there with this group. It’s what makes the most special of seasons at Auburn worth it. And my hope is next year will be worth it.

-Josh Black



from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2020/11/28/21724592/snap-judgments-1-alabama-42-auburn-13

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