DG's Takeaways from the Auburn Game

[BeecherVol]

While I could be wrong, most of that seems to be coming from Pruitt, not Helton. Pruitt is the one pushing the idea that we're a run-first offense and that's "our identity". Unfortunately, it's not "our identity", because the O-line is incapable of winning the battle at the line of scrimmage in its present form.

Helton comes from the Brohm / Petrino school of though. At Western Kentucky in 2014 and 2015, Helton passed about 55% of the time. Compare that to this season at UT, where we've only passed 36% of the time in spite of the passing game being much stronger than the run game.

To the extent we're getting better, it's largely because Helton is getting his way more and we're passing the ball at a higher rate. We passed 47% of the time against Auburn and the results were obvious. Really, that needs to be up at 55% - 60%. I get that Pruitt wants to be more like Bama and UGA in the long-term, but in the short-term, we have a better chance at winning games by passing more.

So I agree with you to a large extent; I just see Pruitt being the primary reason for this more so than Helton.

I'm not sure I buy that. If Pruitts essentially forcing his OC into 2nd and 3rd and long because they are going to run more often than not on 1st and 2nd than he hired the wrong guy. Especially if Helton is wanting to be less predictable on early downs. That just sounds too convenient to the point.

 

[DiderotsGhost]

I'm not sure I buy that. If Pruitts essentially forcing his OC into 2nd and 3rd and long because they are going to run more often than not on 1st and 2nd than he hired the wrong guy. Especially if Helton is wanting to be less predictable on early downs. That just sounds too convenient to the point.

Have you ever had to work for a micromanaging boss? I have. Micromanaging bosses have the tendency to make everyone look worse.

I'm not saying Pruitt is a "micromanager" (Butch was), but he's also not quite in the "I'm going to let Helton do his thing" camp. He's sort of in a middle ground where he's pushing Helton into a "run-first offensive identity" and "letting Helton have free reign." I just don't buy that this run, run, pass stuff is coming from Helton. It's never been him M.O.

I know people want to believe Pruitt is infallible and blame everyone else for problems, but it's possible that Pruitt could be a good coach and also that Pruitt is currently making some mistakes.

Fwiw, Orgeron admitted that his biggest mistake at Ole Miss was doing exactly this; not letting his assistants have enough leeway. It's a very common new coach mistake.

 

[J C Higgins]

I haven't felt so elated on a Fall Saturday in a long time! Not only did we end the SEC losing steak, but we ended the even worse SEC West losing streak. The last time we had beaten an SEC West opponent was in 2010 in Derek Dooley's 1st year when we beat Ole Miss. And the win came against a top 25 opponent!

Feels great to finally get a big win.


Offense

The Guarantano Express. Ever since the West Virginia game, I've been beating the horn on the idea JG and these WRs are our best offensive weapons. This game demonstrates that more than any other. JG has a breakout game completing 21 / 32 passes for 328 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs, and 10.3 yards per pass.

9.03 ypa. JG has been averaging 9.03 yards per pass for the season. He's the best Tennessee QB at throwing deep ball since at least Tyler Bray. His 9.0 yard average is higher than Tyler Bray in 2012, Erik Ainge in 2006, Casey Clausen in 2001, and even Peyton Manning in 1996. Albeit, that average will likely take a hit next week against Bama, but it's time to stop selling JG short. He's the most underrated QB in the SEC right now.

O-line getting better at pass protection; still sucks at run blocking. I haven't been able to rewatch the game yet (and I'm not sure if Freak has posted it on YouTube yet), but without reviewing the tape, my initial thought is that the pass blocking has improved immensely. Yet, the run blocking is still terrible. However, the issue (as it has been all year) is that we're getting overpowered on the line, which is not an easy fix. It's going to take recruiting and more time with S&C to fix the run game issues.

You can't blame Butch for illegal formations. The fact that we are weak at O-line is absolutely Butch's fault, but the fact that we constantly have illegal formation and other line-of-scrimmage penalties is not. Coaching staff really needs to fix this. We've seen it all season and there have been a few where we've been lucky that they didn't flag us.

We still need to pass more. I get it ... Pruitt comes from the Saban school of pounding the rock. He wants to be a run-first team. At the same time, he's also said he wants to play to the team's strengths. Right now, the passing game is the strength and the run game is a weakness. We were more balanced in this game than some others (36 runs, 32 passes), but I'd honestly say we should be passing 55% - 60% of the time. In this game, we averaged 10.3 yards per pass and 1.9 yards per run. That's a huge disparity!

How about those wideouts! JG deserves credit for delivering some perfect deep passes, but Josh Palmer, Jauan Jennings, and Marquez Callaway also came down with some great catches! This WR unit is really starting to hit its stride. And David Johnson is one of the WR coaches in the country.

Tyson Helton. Helton is a great OC and he's taken some unfair flack this season for problems that have little to do with him. The O-line issues have limited the playbook. He called a great game against Auburn.


Defense

Defense made great adjustments. I thought we were in for another long afternoon during the 1st Quarter as Auburn was running over our D, but gotta give credit here ... our coaches and players figured out how to adjust and stop Auburn. After 10 early points, Auburn only scored 14 the entire game (and 7 of those shouldn't have counted).

Auburn's last TD shouldn't have counted. Am I crazy or did the Auburn WR not have possession? I've watched that play two dozen times and I'm 100% convinced he never had the ball. He bobbled it the entire way and our guy got the interception. I'm not sure how that didn't get reviewed. After that happened, I was so terrified that the Tennessee curse was still on and we were going to lose the game.

The pass rush continues to get better. Speaking of improvement, our pass rush has improved more than any other aspect since Game #1. We went from getting no pressure at all during that West Virginia game to consistently getting pressure in this game.


Miscellany

Happy for this team and coaching staff. They deserved a big win.

Gus Malzahn on the hot seat. I knew if we won this game, Malzahn would be on the hot seat. He's a good coach, but he's been weirdly inconsistent. Auburn looked like a national championship team last November, before losing the SECCG to Georgia. Their offense has struggled this season.

Constant improvement. One thing I am really happy about is that we've seen consistent progress in almost every game this year. The 1st Half of the Florida game is the only real exception to this, but otherwise, we've looked better on offense and defense every single week. That's a good sign to me.

The caveats. I'm happy we got the win, but let's be honest ... Auburn made a lot of big mistakes. It's good that we avoided turnovers this game (though we had a few "big mistakes" in the form of penalties), but I'm not so sure we still don't get beat if Auburn had played its "A" game or even its "B" game. We still have a long way to go.

Next week. Enjoy it now, because we're getting clobbered next week versus Bama. Bama has looked like one of the best teams in college football history this season. We'll be lucky to keep it within 3 touchdowns. The things I'm hoping to see: (1) we slow the game down, (2) minimize dumb mistakes / turnovers / penalties, and (3) continue to improve.

South Carolina and beyond. I hate to write-off the Bama game, but realistically, the most important stretch of our season starts in two weeks in Columbia, South Carolina.

Bowl game is possible. Still a tough road ahead, but winning 2 of 4 between SCe, Mizzou, Vandy, and Kentucky is much more doable than 3 out of 4. I think we're about even with South Carolina so far this season, so that'll be a critical game. Kentucky is looking much better than expected, so the SCe and Mizzou games are even more important now.


That's all I got.

GBO!

Not to take away from JG (I'm a JG fan....one of the toughest QB's I've ever seen) but his completion percentage in that game was enhanced significantly by some of the best receptions I've ever seen.

Kudos to both JG and the receivers.

 

[jwilliams]

Jake, I'll refine your observation even more:

There was a hand signal JG used during the game (never saw it before, think it was new), where he was under center, surveyed the defense, and then--sometimes--put his left hand behind his back and wiggled his fingers at the tailback.

Every time he made that read and gave that signal, Chandler got the ball for a run between the tackles. It usually happened on first down. It never got more than a yard. Sometimes lost a yard. It was the single most ineffective read of the game, on either side of the ball.

And the worst thing was, the signal was completely visible to almost half of the Auburn defense. If they didn't know what it meant the first time, or the second time, they were almost certainly keying off it by the 5th or 10th time. Really bad signal to use, off what seems to have been a routinely ineffective read in the first place.

I don't know what that new read was, I just know we gotta stop using it, and that signalling method, immediately.

UNLESS...

...unless they're playing chess, and that read was put in the Auburn game purely for Bama's consumption.

If we see JG use the same hand signal next Saturday, then throw the ball downfield, we'll know it was the long game.

Otherwise, they gotta get rid of that.


p.s. Great write-up as always, DG, thanks for it!

I’m 95% sure that hand signal was not new... I saw it in some other games. I’m also not sure Helton is letting JG audible out of plays, but maybe he is...

 

[zidanefan]

Good summary, DG.

Quick question (for anyone) on your Helton comments: the rumors about him being dissatisfied / limited by Pruitt in his play calls - is there any truth to this? Because I agree with you, his play-calling looked good yesterday.

 

[chrismc1000]

Auburn's last TD should have counted, he was simply moving the ball away from our defender. He had complete control of it.

 

[BeecherVol]

Have you ever had to work for a micromanaging boss? I have. Micromanaging bosses have the tendency to make everyone look worse.

I'm not saying Pruitt is a "micromanager" (Butch was), but he's also not quite in the "I'm going to let Helton do his thing" camp. He's sort of in a middle ground where he's pushing Helton into a "run-first offensive identity" and "letting Helton have free reign." I just don't buy that this run, run, pass stuff is coming from Helton. It's never been him M.O.

I know people want to believe Pruitt is infallible and blame everyone else for problems, but it's possible that Pruitt could be a good coach and also that Pruitt is currently making some mistakes.

Fwiw, Orgeron admitted that his biggest mistake at Ole Miss was doing exactly this; not letting his assistants have enough leeway. It's a very common new coach mistake.

So why would a run heavy, smash mouth personality HC hire pretty much the opposite of what he wants to be? That might make sense if Pruitt was told this is who you re gonna hire, deal with it. I doubt that got overlooked in the interview process.

It doesnt have anything to do with thinking Pruitt is infallible. He is as green as Helton is. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything I posted. I never mentioned his name.

I just dont agree that Helton has proven he is a "great" OC after his best game. That's as silly as saying Pruitt is infallible.

 

[UT-Rex]

While I could be wrong, most of that seems to be coming from Pruitt, not Helton. Pruitt is the one pushing the idea that we're a run-first offense and that's "our identity". Unfortunately, it's not "our identity", because the O-line is incapable of winning the battle at the line of scrimmage in its present form.

Helton comes from the Brohm / Petrino school of though. At Western Kentucky in 2014 and 2015, Helton passed about 55% of the time. Compare that to this season at UT, where we've only passed 36% of the time in spite of the passing game being much stronger than the run game.
To the extent we're getting better, it's largely because Helton is getting his way more and we're passing the ball at a higher rate. We passed 47% of the time against Auburn and the results were obvious. Really, that needs to be up at 55% - 60%. I get that Pruitt wants to be more like Bama and UGA in the long-term, but in the short-term, we have a better chance at winning games by passing more.

So I agree with you to a large extent; I just see Pruitt being the primary reason for this more so than Helton.

2. Helton coached from the sidelines this game.
1. Pruitt spent the last 2 weeks weeks with the Offense (at the least, he spent more time with them than usual?).

Question: from where (the booth or the sidelines) did Helton call plays, the last time he was OC?
Question: how much time, in practices, did Pruitt spend with the Offenses, when he was defense coach at bama, ga and fsu?

Seems to me -- they're figuring things out.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

I’m 95% sure that hand signal was not new... I saw it in some other games. I’m also not sure Helton is letting JG audible out of plays, but maybe he is...

J, if you find that hand signal in the tape from any other game, please let me know which game and the time hack. I'm pretty sure I never saw it before yesterday.

As for whether it was an audible or not, not sure. It was certainly a read, but that doesn't necessarily mean there was a decision involved. It could've just been communicating information. Like, "some big-ass dudes are gonna meet you at the line of scrimmage; you're probably not gonna make any yardage." Could be that.

 

[hUTch2002]

Pretty much agree.

Couple things...
1. Winning this game was/is an upset, so usually for that to happen it takes the favorite helping the underdog a little and the underdog doing something they haven't. Both boxes got checked yesterday.
2. The only issue I had with the coaching was the first down play calling. It just wasn't good and honestly, when you're behind the chains like we were most of the day you wind up calling plays you have to, not plays you want to. Still would like to see that balance you mentioned more on first down.

Last... The series after the Kongbo int... That was just bad. We left plays on the field in the first half that could have mattered to the out come.

The good news in all that is that's where we were in the game. That those kind of situations existed.

Past that I do think the coaching overall was very good.

Very excited about that game, and happy the players and coaches get some pay off for the work they're doing.... They earned it. Especially JG and the wrs.... Great day for them.

Speaking of, I think it was you and I discussing whether or not we would beat Auburn. You were more optimistic than I and I was wrong. Good call Jake.

 

[jwilliams]

J, if you find that hand signal in the tape from any other game, please let me know which game and the time hack. I'm pretty sure I never saw it before yesterday.

As for whether it was an audible or not, not sure. It was certainly a read, but that doesn't necessarily mean there was a decision involved. It could've just been communicating information. Like, "some big-ass dudes are gonna meet you at the line of scrimmage; you're probably not gonna make any yardage." Could be that.

Sure, I’m curious now so I may try to look this week.

 

[GRN1926]

Have you ever had to work for a micromanaging boss? I have. Micromanaging bosses have the tendency to make everyone look worse.

I'm not saying Pruitt is a "micromanager" (Butch was), but he's also not quite in the "I'm going to let Helton do his thing" camp. He's sort of in a middle ground where he's pushing Helton into a "run-first offensive identity" and "letting Helton have free reign." I just don't buy that this run, run, pass stuff is coming from Helton. It's never been him M.O.

I know people want to believe Pruitt is infallible and blame everyone else for problems, but it's possible that Pruitt could be a good coach and also that Pruitt is currently making some mistakes.

Fwiw, Orgeron admitted that his biggest mistake at Ole Miss was doing exactly this; not letting his assistants have enough leeway. It's a very common new coach mistake.

I don't disagree at all but a good HC can also make sure his coordinators are operating within his his philosophy properly. Recall all the head scratchers from Chaney when here as OC. Throwing bombs on 3rd and 1. He would be genius then madening. At UGA he has been a much more balanced OC and I'd bet it's because Smart has made it clear what his philosophy is and what he expects. Saban is the perfect example, he just continues to plug people in without missing a beat. He obviously makes it clear how they are supposed to work inside his system and philosophy.

 

[IPleadInsanity]

The tackling was still bad. It got better in the 2nd half. I agree, it's getting better.

Did not say the tacking was good overall, just saw some good open field and bone crunching tackles for a change. Had nit seen much of that this year.

 

[jwilliams]

J, if you find that hand signal in the tape from any other game, please let me know which game and the time hack. I'm pretty sure I never saw it before yesterday.

As for whether it was an audible or not, not sure. It was certainly a read, but that doesn't necessarily mean there was a decision involved. It could've just been communicating information. Like, "some big-ass dudes are gonna meet you at the line of scrimmage; you're probably not gonna make any yardage." Could be that.

 

[Remy]

Overstated? We were 0-15 against the SEC West from 2011 to 2017. We were 1-17 for the decade. Even against teams not named "Alabama" we were 1-9 and we lost to every single SEC West team during that timeframe at least once.

I recall a little bitty guy named Dexter McCluster from Ole Miss in 2010 going by memory that literally ran, north, south, east, west, high, low, up, down, in, out, around and through us the whole game during that period.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Sure enough, J, you were right. And it meant the same thing against ETSU: run between the tackles.

Good catch.

 

[cHiZzLeVOL]

If when we run the ball we would block like we do when we pass the ball we would actually do pretty good..... I’ve been rewatching the game and we actually get push and seal off when we pass block. It’s actually kind of weird.... it’s like our line has a pad level issue during the running game.

 

[cHiZzLeVOL]

Not to take away from JG (I'm a JG fan....one of the toughest QB's I've ever seen) but his completion percentage in that game was enhanced significantly by some of the best receptions I've ever seen.

Kudos to both JG and the receivers.

These were planned and worked on for 2 weeks specifically. Which means the staff saw something against Auburn.

Before the bye week we hadn’t been putting emphasis on just practicing back shoulder throws. Yet going into practice the 2 weeks before the game we were practicing them every day.

That isn’t just luck, that was our staff seeing something and JG doing what he was supposed to do by putting it where only his receivers could get it.

Edit: Also, a QB is only as good as his receivers. (That should tell you something about our receivers)