Quote Originally Posted by trackem:
jimmy and game,
I know AU had Bynes spying Ingram the whole game. Auburn had to choose how to lose the game. They chose to make McElroy win it and not Ingram. That is the gameplan I would choose too. My point is, UF is far superior on D than AU and AU was able to stuff the run. Why would Bama try to stay vanilla? UF has seen them go down field. I think Bama has played a few more games than just AU. BTW, I haven't placed a wager on the game, and might not, I just like a good, senseable discussion. 
Trackem I absolutely agree with what you are saying. McElroy is an average QB at best (although still better than JPW), and I don't think there is any doubt that Florida will be gearing up to stop the run first. Florida would love nothing more than to force Alabama to rely on McElroy to chase down a deficeitlike they did last year with JPW. But there is really nothing new about this strategy. Teams did the same thing for the 3 years while JPW was the QB, and teams did the same thing this year with McElroy. Bama's coaching staff pretty much deals with this every week, so it's not really anything new.
The difference in the Auburn game was they had Bynes follow Ingram everywhere he went. Auburn's mantra for the Iron Bowl was that Ingram won't win the Heisman against us. I seriously don't think Florida will employ a similar strategy with Spikes, because doing so would encourage Bama to use Ingram as a decoy to take Spikes out of the game. That's not to say Florida may not employ some other strategy to shut down Bama's running attack.
Why would Bama stay vanilla against Auburn? To answer that, we need to go back to last year's Iron Bowl. Because of the streak, Bama's Super Bowl last year was the Iron Bowl. And as most of us gamblers know, after a big huge emotional win like last year's Iron Bowl was, teams usually have a letdown the following week. See Oregon victory over USC this season. What I am saying is that the SEC Championship game against Florida became a classic letdown spot for Bama. The jubilation from the Iron Bowl victory lasted well into the next week, and definitely effect Bama's mental preparation for Florida.
Saban, being the smart coach that he is, recognized what happened last year, and was determined to not to let that happen again this year. This year Bama/Saban made Florida their Super Bowl . . . not Auburn. The goal in the Auburn game was just win and not get anyone injured for the Florida game. Nothing fancy was added to the Auburn gameplan. Bama's staff felt like they could just line up and win the game with superior talent. Having said that, I'm sure they didn't want the game to be as close as it was.
You also mention in a different post that Auburn having 2 weeks to prepare for Alabama was not a significant advantage because Bama played Tennessee-Chattanooga the week prior. That is not true because I can tell that the coaching staff spent that week working on Chattanooga and Florida (their Super Bowl game), not Auburn. So Bama's staff only worked on Auburn for 3.5 days.
I hope this explains to people why Bama tried to stay as vanilla as possible for Auburn this year.
I will also add, if I haven't already in a previous post, that Bama has been cooking up some surprises offensively for Florida. I guess it remains to be seen if those surprises are sucessful or not.
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