Sunday, October 4, 2009

Vanderbilt's going to turn the offensive ship around... one way or another


There's just not much more you can say about the Vandy offense.

It's just pointless. Listen to the kinds of stupid questions reporters were asking our guys after last night's game:

• Where's the frustration level of this team?
• Do you guys feel like you need to start getting into the end zone?
• You've been struggling on offense for several weeks now — why haven't you been able to make the necessary changes?

You're going to hear lots of angry stuff from Vandy fans this week about how we're choking and how we always seem to perform poorly after winning a big game or having a big season, and how suddenly we've got all this great talent but poor coaches.

Let's face it: It's a rarity when we beat another SEC team; Bobby Johnson's slowly turning the ship around but for Vandy fans to all of a sudden talk about how losing is unacceptable and we can't tolerate it from our players or coaches... well, I suggest those fans maybe trade teams. Alabama or Florida would be nice choices right now. Auburn's playing well at the moment.

Nobody's more frustrated than our players and coaches. Just listen to these quotes after last night's game:

Johnson: "I don’t think I’ve ever had a team that had that many penalties, that many mental errors in a game; it was just disheartening… we’ve got a lot of work to do."

Johnson: "It’s hard when they know you’re going to throw all the time because it’s 3rd and 15. Larry’s the guy right now for us… it was a group effort. We were very poor, the whole group."

Warren Norman: "We were stopping ourselves. I don’t feel like they were stopping us."

Bradley Vierling: "The first half we weren’t very good at all and in the second half we weren’t very good either."

Vierling: "We were atrocious in the red zone and that trend needs to stop."

Vierling: "We’re gonna start winning some games around here."

Larry Smith: "We can’t keep relying on defense to keep bailing us out."

Even Myron Lewis was taking the blame: "On defense, we didn’t convert on third and long."

I believe we're going to work through this, and I believe we beat Army next week and we win at least two more games after that. How are we going to do it? I have no idea. I'm not a football coach. But Bobby Johnson and his staff are.

So I'm going to sit back and watch them make adjustments and figure out a way to win. And when we look back on this season, I believe we'll remember how we much we progressed on offense and built a foundation for future seasons. Remember how much Auburn struggled last season implementing a new offense? Just look at them now. Of course, they also have a new offensive coordinator. Hmmmm.

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