Game Review: Arkansas State

Knee-Jerk Reaction
Ugly. When leaving the stadium that was the word that continually came to my mind. The offense absolutely lit it up at times but it also seemed as if a lot of the yards and points came on broken plays (thank you Cam) or busted coverages by an overmatched Arkansas State team. This is an offense that is built around big plays so it would be unfair to ridicule them too much for not manufacturing a drive of over SIX plays until the end of the 3rd quarter when the game was in hand and we were clearly just grinding it out. Even those final two grind-it-out scoring drives were of eight and nine plays. On the other side of the ball this defense which was supposed to be much improved in year two gave up two scoring drives in the second quarter, an eight play, 55 yard touchdown drive and a 10 play, 66 yard drive that ended with a field goal, which proved there is still a ways to go. I like to think that its possible the defense played down to the oppoenet, especially seeing that the offense could score at will, but after last year's struggles its hard to make that case. Also, even for an opening game, there were far too many penalties (7 for 60 yards) which need to get cleaned up in a hurry. The three fumbles (one overturned) on consecutive positions to open the third quarter was just painful to watch. Overall the offense made this big win look easy but there were waaaayy too many miscues for a team expecting to play for a championship this year.

Positives
Cameron Newton - It has to start with him. Newton took the offense on his shoulders making plays through the air and on the ground. Sometimes the plays on the ground were by design but it seemed like the biggest plays were when he saw something wide open or scrambled out of necessity and was able to turn it into a big play. The 171 yards rushing set an Auburn single game record for a quarterback and his 5 total touchdowns were just one shy of the school record. Newton was a one man wrecking crew and he made it look easy.

Michael Dyer - In my eyes it was clear who the best running back on either team was Saturday night, and that was Mike (his preferred name) Dyer. Every time he took the hand off he hit the hole with authority and bounced off tackles seemingly an inch away from breaking a few runs for huge yardage. He had the look of a back who wanted to get the ball 25+ times and would get you 150 yards every week.

Quindarius Carr - Last year our punt return unit was flat out embarrassing. Coming into the year all we were looking for was someone who would merely catch the ball consistently, any yardage he gained would be gravy. Well, Auburn fans got a healthy serving of gravy Saturday night. Carr caught every punt, all eight of them, and showed the ability to get up field quickly once he caught the ball gaining 9.4 yards per return. In addition to the abilities he showed returning punts he made two big catches as a receiver totaling 87 yards with one going for a touchdown.

Craig Sanders - "The Animal" is a great nickname for him because he looked like one when covering kicks on the kickoff unit. He seemed like he was around the ball on every kick return and was always one of the first ones down field. Having talented freshmen like Sanders covering kickoffs as opposed to walk-ons will make a big differnce this year in winning the field position battle.

Negatives
Lee Ziemba & Mario Fannin - I combined these two players because while both are clearly going to be stars of this team they both had a bad reputation for false starts in Ziemba's case and fumbling for Fannin. I had hoped that those were unjustified reputations and they would prove their doubters wrong this year but that didn't happen. Neither made it through three quarters of play of the 2010 season before falling victim to their reputations.

The Defense - I touched on this up top and there isn't one player in particular to call out but the defense as a whole really needs to tighten up. While the rush defense statistics look good there were a lot of gaps that opened up in the middle of the defense and a couple of times when their running back was able to turn the corner on outside runs and pick up big chunks of yardage. Against ASU's passing game we gave up way too many underneath passes. It seemed like their receivers were getting an 8-10 yard cushion and they just don't have enough talent to call for that. Its difficult to play defense when the opponent is picking up eight yards on first down. This seems like a scheming issue which is good on one hand because that is easier to change but it is frustrating on the other hand that the game is being called in that manner from our defensive coordinator.

Cameron Newton - I'm going to admit in advance that this is nitpicking. While Newton was great at completing passes down the field, and phenomenal at making things happen with his legs, what I didn't see was enough intermediate passes completed. He threw two screen passes that were completely blown up and I'm not sure if those should have been checked out of pre-snap, thrown away, or if it was just poor blocking, but either way one play set up a difficult down and distance situation that resulted in a punt and the other ended up costing us at least 3 points as Fannin was unable to get out of bounds at the end of the second quarter. Possibly Newton's best pass of the night was his first completion to Darvin Adams as Newton rolled to his right and found Adams streaking across the defense. After that Newton did not complete one pass that wasn't a bomb or a dump off. He attempted one when he overthrew Adams on a deep in but he will need to hit those kind of passes and also find more receivers in that middle zone when defenders start to come up to stop him from running.

Looking Ahead: Mississippi State
Mississippi State looked far more impressive than I would have expected in their opener beating Memphis 49-7. Mullen did go with the two quarterback approach but after redshirt freshman Tyler Russell went 13-16 for 256 yards and four touchdowns it might be hard to keep him off the field. On the ground MSU's top three running backs combined on 26 carries for 156 yards and two scores (both TD's scored by JUCO transfer Vick Ballard). Possibly most impressive was the Bulldog's stiffling defense which held Memphis to 237 yards, 68 of which came against the reserves at the end of the fourth quarter, and forced nine punts and two interceptions. To win this game in a hostile environment Auburn will have to cut down on the penalties and win the turnover battle in addition to tightening up on defense. This could be Cam Newton's coming out party to the nation but if the defense doesn't straight things out and if the team as a whole doesn't play a cleaner game than it could be Mississippi State's coming out party in the SEC West.