| 2008
A-day Review 3-30-08 by: Ryan A-Day is a very special occasion. It’s that magical time of year when college football gives back to the community. For those of us who don’t know what to do with themselves during the offseason, the A-Day game acts as a placebo to calm the shakes from dealing with the intense withdrawal from Auburn Football. There is pretty much nothing you can take from A-Day because it's nothing more than the display of a half-finished product. Last year our offense blew up the defense and it looked like our offense was going to have to outscore our opponents and compensate for our sketchy defense. One season later our defense was 8th best in the nation and our offense was 8th worst. Having said that, I am now going to write a lengthy article on what we can take from this year’s A-Day. 1) I still think our defense is going to be beastly. Even though all we saw was a very vanilla defense completely void of any blitzes or clever coverage schemes, I still see a ton of promise from our defense this season. What impressed me most are the names that are popping up this season that no one really heard much from last season. Michael McNeil and Chris Evans are our two top tacklers right now. If they keep improving (and I see McNeil BLOWING UP this season), we can add their names to the list of already proven All-SEC real-life-Terminators like Antonio Coleman, Sen’Derrick Marks, Tray Blackmon (we still have two more years of this guy!), Jerraud Powers, Zac Etheridge, Aairon Savage… and this without future star player Raven Gray coming in to rip through offensive lines like wrapping paper on Christmas morning. I think Paul Rhoads could be the most incompetent moron in the world and he’d still have a top 10 defense with these players. Sadly (for the opposition), Rhoads might be a defensive genius, along with the fact that Tubs gets an almost sadistic amount of satisfaction out of suffocating rival offenses. 2) I’m never trusting a meteorologist again. Once again I was lead to believe that we’d suffer from a terrible squall only to find that the storm has once again flaked out so that we may enjoy a sunny, 70 degree day instead. I don’t think weather.com has come to the realization that Auburn is immune to bad weather. Every storm finds a way to dance around the plains as if it would be defying its own natural laws by doing so. I’m waiting for the day when bad weather’s intense fear of Auburn is recognized as a universal law. They’ll call it, Tub’s Law. 3)
Part of the new offense sometimes has the entire offense stand up
out of their stance to look over at a bunch of people on the sidelines
doing an odd macarena-esque dance. Every time this happens, I think
of when I flip through the Discovery Channel and it shows a pack
of meerkats standing up alertly when they sense a possible predator.
5) The quarterback race REALLY IS tied. What we saw on Saturday was a handicapped version of both Chris Todd’s and Kodi Burns’ (Kaybles!) styles and ability. Kaybles couldn’t show off his scrambling skills as much because he was counted down as soon as someone put two hands on him. Todd is still working on recovering from a shoulder injury on his throwing arm and Offensive Coordinator Tony Franklin says he’s throwing at “60%.” If that is true, then holy cow. I would imagine that a 100% Chris Todd would throw the ball around 102 mph. Todd and Kaybles were pretty much statistically equal as far as passing percentage and yardage per completion. Some people might complain that a lot of the passes were underthrown, while I would suggest that maybe the receivers are just a lot faster now, give ‘em a break. The way I see it, we are going to have two GREAT quarterbacks this season, and there will probably be a whole lot of rotation. On one hand, you have Kaybles, who is the more dangerous of the two, for the opponent AND us. Every time he touches the ball, he might go atomic, but he is also the more likely of the two to hand the ball over. Chris Todd on the other hand, seems like a Brandon Cox with more range and mobility. He seems much more about being an on-the-field general and being consistent. My prediction is that Todd will get about 60% of the playing time but Kaybles will be the playmaker of choice when we get inside the 40. 6)
Big names this season: |
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