With the announcement of Sean White as Auburn football’s starting quarterback for the 2016 season seemingly imminent, I can’t help but have concerns — none of which are his fault.
I can’t help but think of last season and all the many drives that were stalled because Gus Malzahn insisted on continuing to slam it up in the middle twice in a row after a decent gain on first down, when everybody — everybody — knew it was coming.
I can’t help but think of how frustrating it was to see the Tigers have a drive going, see Malzahn calling for tempo, giving all Auburn fans a heart-warming flashback to 2013’s offensive juggernaut, only to see the same play calls off of that tempo over and over and over — right up the middle, twice in a row.
I can’t help but think of how many times I thought to myself, “Here is where he goes play-action and connects with an easy first down or touchdown! It will be wide open! He has virtually (frustratingly, annoyingly, accidentally) been setting it up all year!”
It was like Malzahn was somehow the only person in the stadium that didn’t know he was making two utterly predictable calls in a row — repeatedly. Or he stubbornly thought that it didn’t matter if the defense knew what was coming — they did — because it should still work if blocked effectively.
I don’t know how many times he needed to see otherwise to realize that wasn’t the case.
I can’t help but think of how many times I imagined Southeastern Conference defensive coordinators calling each other, saying, “Can you believe he is still going tempo only to dive twice in a row 97 percent of the time? He’s basically tipping his own plays!”
(Aside: And that’s why last season was so frustrating. There were missed opportunities all over the field all throughout the season, a high-percentage of those due to coaching calls or decisions. It seems like a wasted season that didn’t have to be.
The Georgia game, at least, was winnable and is the most given-away game by Auburn coaches I’ve seen in my 30 or so years as a fan. The decision to interject a hobbled White was mystifying. The decision to leave him in for multiple series after it was obvious right away that he had nothing to offer? Inexcusable and unexplainable. And costly.)
And I can’t help, with all of the smoke signaling that White is soon to be named the starter, but to again envision those same defensive coordinators, again calling each other and saying, “Thank the football gods! Gus is without a dual-threat at quarterback yet again! What have we done to deserve this charity!?”
I could go into how disturbing I find it that Malzahn got into a position last season where he didn’t even have a dual-threat option at the quarterback position. Because whether Malzahn likes it or not, running an offense with that type of trigger-man is the one area that he could truly teach a master class in this league. Without a dynamic athlete at quarterback, though, he’s merely a magician without a wand.
And please don’t try it: I’ve grown tired of hearing about how Malzahn had this great success at Tulsa with pocket passers and how he broke records with Chris Todd on The Plains. The fact is that this isn’t Tulsa. And this isn’t Conference USA. And Auburn struggled against SEC competition in 2009. Here, in the SEC, watching Malzahn call plays for a traditional quarterback against top competition has, the vast majority of the time, been painful at worst and puzzling at best.
Please don’t misunderstand: I have absolute belief in White’s ability; I just don’t have faith in Malzahn being able to maximize it.
But Malzahn continues to pull a reverse Les Miles. Once again, Malzahn will find himself, due to recruiting misses or recruiting miscalculations, without the type of starting quarterback he needs to best excel. And Miles will once again have a dual-threat quarterback leading an offense that pleads for a traditional signal-caller.
And yet they probably both wonder how their coaching seats have gotten less than comfortable.
Despite my frustrations, I like Malzahn. I think he’s as good a person as Auburn has had as a head coach of a major sport. I want him to succeed. When he has what he needs, no offense is more fun to watch — or dangerous. But he doesn’t. And that’s his fault. And that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in a decent-sized portion of the Auburn faithful.
As things stand, it just seems unlikely that an offensive renaissance is on the horizon.
Unless . . .
. . . Malzahn’s co-offensive coordinator at Tulsa, Herb Hand, was even more instrumental in the gaudy numbers put up by the Golden Hurricane — especially through the air — than we know. If so, White may have a chance to have more than moderate success on The Plains after all.
And if that’s the case, it will be Hand — not Derrick Brown, Marlon Davidson, or anyone else — who was Auburn’s biggest 2016 addition.