Auburn's Back To The Future Offense Makes Them One of 2010's Most Interesting Teams

Love that kind of offense. its everything that is cool about the chess part of football.  but here is my very first thought after watching that video.  as a defensive player you have to play just slightly less aggressively andbe more defensive than attacking, and then what you must do is` stay in position and be where you are supposed to be, that is to say defend your area of the field until it is obvious where the ball is.  the linemem simply have to get penetration which they arenot achieving at all here and stay in their lanes and gaps to get upfield.  i think as the game goes on a good defensive coach would look for mismatches to exploit to help disrupt and perhaps get some aggression going.  is the key for the defense to stay home and play their area then?

I like the single wing a great deal(the team I played against in Michigan, Menominee, has been running it since the current coach took over in the late 60s or early 70s) and I like what Auburn is doing.  Here are a few observations about the single wing.  It is difficult to prepare for because of two things:1.  You only see it once a year.  You get a week to prepare for it, then you don’t think about it again for another year.  Nobody else ran it.  2.  It is difficult for the scout team to replicate it.  What you see in practice is never as fast and confusing at what you will see in the game.  It is difficult to stop, but it helps a great deal to do the following:1.  Follow the guards.  They will usually lead you to the play.  In the film clips, watch to see what the line is doing.  The linemen have to be your reads.  2.  Get defensive penetration.  The single wing is a bit slower to develop than some offenses.  If you can get upfield, you will disrupt the guards and the fakes.3.  A good defense from the old days for attacking the single wing was the old Gap 8.  The ends box in to take away the reverse and six people inside attack the gaps and try to penetrate.  This leaves your corners on an island and everyone has to do their job (one missed assignment is a disaster), but you aren’t standing around trying to figure out who has the ball.  You just take care of your assignment.  Anyway, good luck to Auburn.  I love to see teams thinking outside the box.  On a final note, i don’t think Gus is a great coach because he runs this offense.  I bet he would be a great coach using any offense.

Both of these first two comments are very good and make excellent points.

Malzahn’s offense when run properly and with a good running threat at QB are very tough to handle for four quarters.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the SEC adjusts in season two of playing against it. The opposing defenses will need to play a lot of players because this is a fast paced-run all over the field type motion offense.

The article also talks about a few games where it sputtered and only produced a modest amount of points—and some of the defenses it ran against weren’t particularly stout.

 Maybe Cam Newton will help to keep it running smoothly.

So why then was this offense of the future shut down after the first ten minutes of the Iron Bowl?  AU ran plays they had saved for Bama (by their own admission), and once those expired, Bama’s D sat them down, save one play in the third quarter.

I agree it’s a good offense, but one that will never see the inside of the Georgia Dome (unless they scheudle a non-conference game there or make it to the Peach Bowl).