Thought I'd listen in to Gene Chizik's weekly radio call-in show tonight. Nothing groundbreaking here. Here's a rundown of things he had to say:- On Cam Newton winning the SEC Offensive Player of the Week award. "Any time our guys can get any kind of recognition, it helps Auburn."
- The team's game plan was "fairly base" in the first game. "You can tell that it was our first game," he said. "We weren't good in the execution area on most things," he said. "Thursday night we'll have to be a completely different team to go into Starkville and win that game."
- Chizik said he was pleased with freshman running back Mike Dyer's performance in his first game. He especially like Dyer's running style. He keeps his pad level low. "He's got great vision, and when he makes a cut, he makes a cut with no hesitation," Chizik said.
- He was pleased with his special teams coverages. "We ask: did they help you with field position? And we won every field position battle there was to win."
- Chizik's philosophy on redshirts: "Sometimes that gets difficult. All these guys want to come in and play and rightly so. So they all come in with high hopes and expectations. No matter how highly recruited you are, everybody is different when they get here. It's really simple for us: Can he help us win ballgames now. If we feel he can do that and is a significant contributor to our cause, then you have to pull the trigger on it." Said there's about a 50-50 split on freshman this year on who's ready to play.
- WR Trovon Reed (knee cap) is still day-by-day. No further details there.
- Said punter Steven Clark has been good in practice. Made it sound like he might make the trip to Starkville.
- Wasn't happy with the pass defense but was highly complimentary of Arkansas State offensive coordinator's Hugh Freeze's scheme. "We've got miles and miles to go all over our defense in every regard. By no means is that an acceptance of a performance, because we know in this league we've got to play much better."
- On Mississippi State: "Doesn't even look like the same football team. Let me tell you something, they can run that football and now they have a two-quarterback system so they can throw it much better than last year. This is a completely different Mississippi State team."
- Chizik thinks Zac Etheridge and Aairon Savage needed that first game to get back into the swing of things. "There's no substitute for doing it. You can talk it. You can't think it. You've got to do it."
- "We can't lose sight of the things defensively we did do well." Chizik liked the rush defense. He thinks that's why Arkansas State threw so much.
- Caller just compared Chizik to George Bush on the sideline. Don't know what to make of that. To avoid getting into any political stuff, let's just move on.
- We're talking about more cowbells. "Right now I'm more concerned about stopping blitzes and their option game," Chizik said. "Right now, that's the least of our worries."
- A caller wanted to know Chizik's defensive philosophy. "We're going to be more of an attack and pressure defense when the situation calls for it. You're going to see more blitzes, more pressures, you'll see that more as the season wears on."
- A caller claims not much has not come out in the media about the team's health this week. He's about to find out why after Chizik's answer. "I think we're in decent shape. I think we came out about as good as we could come out."
- Keys to the game: "Got to protect the ball on the road. Not just on offense. You saw on special teams we turned the ball over. We need explosive plays. And on defense, we've got to stop the run."
If you want to talk more about Auburn football, though, join tomorrow's live chat at 3 p.m. ET/2 p.m. CT. Great turnout last time. I hope to go at least an hour if there are enough questions.
7 comments:
I think you ment high HOPES not high hoes...had to laugh.
Wish I could somehow blame that on the computer crashing. Nope, just bad typing.
Andy, just wondering your thoughts about something. We kept a base 4-3 the whole time, save for a few 3rd and long situations. This wthey've same problem that I thought caused us many problems last year on D. Why aren't we playing nickel and dime more when the offense comes out with 4-5 wide? To me, that is how all those little dink and dunk passes always get completed on us. And several times, the safety was having to come up on get on the WR, leaving us vulnerable to downfall shots.
But then again I am just a casual observer sitting on my couch purchased at Big Lots writing this.
Thanks for posting.
Sorry to get picky, but you might want to stick another p in the first word of the headline too.
Now I'm sure there's something wrong with my "p" key.
Get a Mac.
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