Given that Cam Newton just played a Monday Night Football game, let’s recall his most significant Monday game to date: the 2011 BCS National Championship Game between Oregon and Auburn. Those two programs and their head coaches have traced similar (though not identical) paths. They have much to prove in November, and regardless of how this month plays out, they’ll be questioned and doubted heading into September of 2016.
That’s what life is like when expectations (rightly, one should add) camp out at your doorstep.
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In the 2011 BCS title game, Mark Helfrich and Gus Malzahn were the respective offensive coordinators for their teams. While Helfrich never left Eugene and Malzahn tried his hand at head coaching with Arkansas State, the trajectories of the past five years for both men have been strikingly similar. Yes, Helfrich has won at least 11 games in two seasons, whereas Malzahn has produced only one special season at Auburn. However, Helfrich had Marcus Mariota in that 2013 Oregon campaign. Malzahn won 12 games that same year with Nick Marshall — a good quarterback to be sure, but nowhere near Mariota’s sphere of excellence.
Today, Helfrich and Malzahn are both feeling the heat, and rightly so. Yet, the fact that they’re under pressure (and should be) doesn’t necessarily mean every specific criticism aimed at them is accurate. Criticism is a complex art in which one can be correct on a general level and yet miss the mark when dealing with the smaller details. Some problems in Eugene and Auburn are easy to identify; moreover, both Helfrich and Malzahn are aware of those problems. How they’re coping with those problems doesn’t make criticism less warranted; it merely makes it more important to properly calibrate said criticism.
Let’s take a brief look at these two coaches and their struggling programs, which contested a national title five seasons ago and both played for another one in the past 22 months.
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The main columnists who follow these teams have not pulled any punches. John Canzano of The Oregonian and Kevin Scarbinsky of AL.com are not allowing Helfrich or Malzahn or their coordinators to get away with anything… and they shouldn’t. Yet, in both columns exists an attempt to rush to the bottom line, namely, that neither coach is cutting it this season. (True — neither one is.) It’s not that the ultimate verdict is unfair (it’s not), but what’s evident in each column is an undertone which says, “NOPE, NOPE, NOPE, COACH! You don’t get to finish your sentence! The results are what they are, and you’ve failed!”
Again, Helfrich and Malzahn deserve strong criticism, but this doesn’t mean that any specific itemized criticism is automatically valid. Sizing up the situations at these two programs is a little more complex than simply declaring that the coaches aren’t doing their jobs… because that’s when criticism tends to overreach.
For Oregon, it’s a bit jarring to see Canzano take aim at an offensive coordinator (Scott Frost) in a game when the defense allowed 41 points in regulation. Is it true that Royce Freeman should get a lot more touches in the Ducks’ offense, and that Frost needs to identify Freeman as the heart of his offense? Yes. Does that mean, however, that attempts to hit downfield shots to Darren Carrington (now back in the lineup) are unwise? Making sure Freeman gets touches and making sure the offense succeeds are not one and the same thing.
Yes, the wild pendulum swings between home-run plays and three-and-outs should frustrate Frost and Helfrich alike. Yet, Thursday night’s Arizona State game should not be seen as a typical representation of what’s wrong with the Ducks’ offense. Scoring 41 points in regulation shouldn’t automatically be seen as an ideal — the Ducks didn’t play close to their best — but it’s a far cry from the Washington State and Washington games.
Oregon is improving, but the inattentiveness to Freeman — a likely product of trying to establish Vernon Adams’ confidence in a disjointed season — is dominating the conversation. Such is the narrow box in which Helfrich exists: He is balancing the need to develop his players, including and especially his quarterback, with the need to win games. Developing Adams has trumped feeding Freeman.
Does Helfrich (with Frost as coordinator) need to correct this imbalance? Sure. Does this mean his approach is appallingly errant? That would seem to be a case of overreach.
For Auburn fans reading everything above, you might be nodding your head and saying, “Gee, that sounds about what our situation is like… except for the whole 41 points in regulation thing.”
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Unlike Oregon, Auburn faces a darker and more depressing reality: It can’t win games in its own division. This is something Scarbinksy emphasized in his piece, and he is right to do so. However, the unifying element in a comparison of Oregon and Auburn — more specifically, of Helfrich and Malzahn — is that their shared desires to develop quarterbacks at the expense of feeding quality running backs are not being seen for what they are.
Here’s the explanation of that statement:
Oregon and Auburn were eliminated from the College Football Playoff chase a long time ago, and they’re both fringe candidates at best for division titles. With comparatively little to play for other than pride, Helfrich and Malzahn face situations in which player development should be a foremost priority. Would any critic disagree with that claim? One shouldn’t. Helfrich and Malzahn know that if their long-term projects are to rebound in 2016 and beyond, they need the quarterback position to be a rock for each of them. Therefore, while the Ducks and Tigers are riding their passing games too much, this is being done in the service of larger goals beyond the scope of the 2015 season.
The problem — and this is where both Canzano and Scarbinsky are absolutely correct — is that if you’re Oregon or Auburn, you’re supposed to win games in the here and now. Spend some time developing your quarterbacks, Mark and Gus, but when you arrive at situations when a game can be won or lost depending on a few chess moves, why don’t you try to give your team the best chance to win?
For Oregon and Helfrich, feeding Royce Freeman has to be done in more high-leverage situations. For Auburn and Malzahn, handing Jovon Robinson the rock in the red zone should have been the play against Ole Miss. Malzahn — as was the case with Helfrich against Arizona State — put his players in position to win against Ole Miss. Auburn moved the ball with relative consistency against the Rebels’ defense. The problem was that once Auburn faced 10 to 12 crucial red-zone snaps, Malzahn abandoned what should have been his best plays, and that’s something you can’t do at Auburn or any other place which rightly expects big things from its football program.
Malzahn’s aggressive vertical passing approach on Saturday produced several big gainers, and it seems quite apparent that Sean White is maturing into a quarterback who will be a very capable leader for this team in 2016. Malzahn should get credit for that, much as Helfrich and Frost should get credit for bringing along Vernon Adams within the framework of their offense in Eugene.
Yet, in the constant push-and-pull of coaching — a profession which demands the ability to juggle short-term and long-term needs — Helfrich and Malzahn must tend to the business of calling their best plays, and calling upon their best players, when games hang in the balance.
That’s where the critics are right.
Developing players for 2016 and beyond? Helfrich and Malzahn shouldn’t stray from that point of focus; they’re properly coaching their programs with an eye toward rebounding next season. That correct instinct merely needs to be tempered by the urgency of the present moment… especially for an Auburn program which is using the word “almost” far too often against divisional foes these days.
