EAVdog said:
Relf is like kryptonite to <span style="text-decoration:line-through">the Ole Miss defense</span> Tyrone Nix. In the third year the offense really should not be a surprise but low and behold they still cannot defend Relf. And really Relf running opened up everything else. They couldn't stop the Relf to Perkins/Ballard screen pass. And they couldn't stop Relf from throwing for a touchdown.
I wish we could bring him back for every Egg Bowl.
I think it's funny that Relf has basically sucked all year, sucked bad enough to lose his job during the middle of a game against UAB. Your offense really was pretty bad at times with Relf at QB, yet Mullen knew that Egg Bowl week he needed to go back to Relf full time because he was coaching against the dumbest defensive coordinator in the SEC, and all he'd have to do is pull out the read option left, read option right to win the game. If Mullen is smart, Relf will go back to the bench for your bowl game, with the exception of a few packages, like he was doing prior to the Egg Bowl.
It's really not that hard to understand assignment football...unless your name is Tyrone Nix. He still hasn't figured out the read option, despite the fact that pretty much every team we faced that ran it with a decent tailback and quality running QB dominated him.
About the only wrinkle I saw this time out is that he had our DL stand up and bounce around to try to confuse your blocking assignments. He still doesn't understand the concept of gap assignments, and you can tell because his players never play with gap assignments. Makes things really easy for a read option offense.
Mullen really hasn't even been challenged in an Egg Bowl offensively because he's been matching wits with Tyrone Nix all 3 years. Hopefully the new coach we hire will hire a DC that's a touch smarter than Nix, and maybe Mullen will actually have to strain a little bit next year to determine how to attack us.