TIGER TALK REVIEW: Ball State Week

It’s once again time for TIGER TALK.

WHERE TO LISTEN: You can check here to see which radio station near you may be carrying the show. You also can click that link and get hooked into the stream through Auburn’s web portal.

WHERE TO WATCH: You can check here to see if the Tiger Talk Live Stream is active. I am told everyone can watch the stream on War Eagle + even if you’re not a paid member. I am not sure this is true. I will update this as conditions merit.

* I refer to Brad Law as “Not Andy” as a sign of affection. Though I had a beef with Brad for a number of years, that beef has been squashed. I said I’d begin referring to him as “Brad” on these reviews, which date back the Tuberville days on HABOTN, but he said he’d prefer I continue referring to him as “Not Andy.” So that’s the story.

THE SHOW BEGINS

We are congratulating Hugh and Jill for becoming new grandparents! “All is good.” (Ragan had the baby.)

NOW WE’RE ON TO FOOTBALL.

“It was a good win for us to open the year.”

NOT ANDY asks about Baylor being so balanced and how you attack them. “You have to make them one-dimensional. If our d-line did not control the line of scrimmage, we’d have been in one heck of a tussle. They still had way too many explosive plays in the passing game. I thought we were sluggish starting the game defensively. So you immediately start asking your strength coach and everybody about it … we get shocked those first two drives. The great thing is that we get to coach them hard off that film.”

NOT ANDY asks about the defense finding a way to come up big on 4th down early in the game. “That was a huge stop. That thing was in danger of going two scores down for us.”

“It’s very hard to be patient calling offensive plays when you have the weapons we have. And that’s kind of your personality. But it was certainly the right thing to do. We stayed disciplined … and take what they gave us.”

THE SECOND SEGMENT

NOT ANDY makes a statement about how the receivers celebrated the most when the game ended. “We preach team team team team. In this day and age, there are a lot of voices. I don’t blame the kids. They’re usually fine; they just want to win a football game. It’s those other voices that say: ‘You didn’t get yours.'”

ANDY fishes for a compliment on Too Tall Miller. “If anyone had a reason to pout, it would be him. I still view him as a starter, but he’s not running out there sometimes with the first team. He waited for the baton to come to him.”

HERB is in the house. He just celebrated his 50th anniversary. (COOL!) He said he didn’t think Auburn could get open and couldn’t defend the pass. “The good thing is when you can show your kids film and you still win. Hopefully there will be improvement from Week 1 to Week 2. They were going to play their two-high safety structure. We were clipping off some pretty good runs most of the time.”

Freeze mentions again that they needed to play more bracket coverage Friday.

“We do have improving to do, for sure.”

MARY is in the house. She wants to know about the focus for this Ball State game. “Getting better and being 1-0 this week. It’s now time to, hey, you’d better find a way to be 1-0 this week at Jordan-Hare. It’s not even about who we’re playing. How do we … get Auburn better to make sure we’re not beating ourselves with some of the same mistakes we made.”

THE THIRD SEGMENT

CAM/KAM is in the house. He wants to know about Freeze’s favorite part of this win. “Probably being able to see us be able to dominate the line of scrimmage offensively and kinda control the game. It’s rare in Power 4 games that you can do that. I thought it was a dominating performance.”

CHLOE is in the house. She wants to know about the Saturday off after a Friday win. “Give me a Friday night win and a Saturday off any time you want to schedule it. I laid around Saturday and watched games. It was a great Saturday.” GUFFAWS ALL AROUND

ANDY re-directs to the 4th down decision to go for it late in the game. “They’re always feeding me information. I was originally told it was 4th-and-Inches. We were going to go sneak. Then we get on the ball … and it’s 4th and more than a yard. I was uncomfortable, so I called the timeout. The book said kick the field goal. I said I’m not doing that. That was pretty easy for me. We had rushed the ball so well; I just wasn’t going to kick the field goal there. Then it’s a matter of what you run? Deuce Knight is in my ear saying the best players on the field are the quarterbacks. I swear that’s true. I kinda knew what I wanted to do and Nix and them agreed. It was just out of a different formation. It worked out real well.”

NOT ANDY asks about the jet-sweep action with Eric Singleton. “The first touchdown we scored was a little slip screen to Eric out of the backfield with a draw blocking scheme for Jackson.”

“That’s the Coach Freeze Rule: If they make a decision and it’s over five yards, I can’t say anything. If it works out, I shut up. I let the other coaches go through it.”

REN is in the house. Ren asks about Jackson Arnold’s performance. “I thought he was patient. He wanted to throw RPOs, but his rule is that if the safety is flat-footed at 10 yards, the box is where we should play the game. He was very very very disciplined and did that. I thought he had one play that was careless. We have talked through that.”

THE FOURTH SEGMENT

NOT ANDY makes a statement that Auburn will play Ball State at home this weekend. (Freeze mentions a fan in the restaurant that hasn’t missed a game since 1980.) “Jordan-Hare is pretty special.”

ANDY asks about the Dye-era guys coming back for the game. “Everybody that sits in this seat, hopes, wishes, dreams about restoring an element to Auburn football that’s similar to the Pay Dye days. To have those guys back to celebrate the first game, really, on Pat Dye Field is remarkable and special.”

NOT ANDY makes a statement about how the tailbacks ran hard at Baylor. “They, truthfully, waited their time behind Jarquez. These two instead of jumping ship … they love Auburn and they love their teammates and they worked to get their shots.”

(He mentions that either Durell Robinson or Omar Mabson must be ready to go if Damari Alston can’t go this weekend due to injury.)

ANDY asks about defensive plans for this weekend. “I haven’t seen much of their offense. That’s usually later in the week for me. I have trust in DJ and that stuff; I have my hands full with other things. It’s unconventional … but can be effective. We have to be on our toes and communicate better than we did last week to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

(He says Ball State’s defense plays the run well.) “They play really, really hard. This is game where we should get better. It’s really Auburn versus Auburn in my mind. We have a better roster. What do we do with that? How do we approach that? All of it is a test. We’ve got to pass that test. We have not passed all those tests before.”

THE FINAL SEGMENT

SAMPSON is in the house. He asks for Freeze’s favorite play. “Victory Formation. After that, I kinda like that kickoff return, too.”

ANDY asks if Freeze had to talk Pleasant into not making a fair-catch call. “He was instructed to do that by Chad (Lunsford), but after that I said: ‘Don’t do that anymore. Let that boy loose.‘” GUFFAWS ALL AROUND

NOT ANDY makes a statement about Alex McPherson. “He was very honest with me — 20-yard line and in he was good. He didn’t feel comfortable outside of that. Everything we gave him was inside that, so that was good.”

NOT ANDY says McPherson cares so much. “He’s an Auburn man. He’s also very honest about where his limits are until we get this thing figured out.”

ANDY asks about Champ Anthony, who is out with a broken thumb. “We’re going to have to have these young kids step up pretty quick. Athletically, (Newboy Fegans) is ready. He was a little off in practice as far as getting the checks. Hopefully this week will be better. He’ll be thrown into the fire; he needs to get them right.”

NOT ANDY asks about making the head coach happy Saturday. “I’d like to get the penalties down. We’ve got to get that cleaned up. I’d like to see us continue to take care of the ball like we did. I’d like to see the defense go get it a few times. You establish the line of scrimmage first and should, in most cases, open up opportunities for explosive pass plays.”

Freeze ends with a hearty, confident “War Eagle” to close.