CFB Expert Breaks Down Byrum Brown, Explains What Happened

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Subject of credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. Jake, give me one word for Byrum Brown right now. I'm gonna give you two. It's be yourself. Okay, all right. You are Locked On Auburn, your daily podcast on the Auburn Tigers, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Always bend in the rules, Jake Crane. That's okay. That's okay. Yes. Welcome on into Locked On Auburn. I'm Zac Blackerby. He is Jake Crane, the goat himself of Crane and Cone. So, you and I talked on the phone for a little bit Saturday night after the game, but the main thing we talked about was Byrum Brown. I was stunned. I was speechless. As much as you can be doing, you know, post-game shows and all of that about what we saw on Saturday. I didn't see it coming. Just being honest. Yeah. So first off, I do want to say this. Hell of a win. That's how you make the play at the end of the game. Thank goodness. It's nice to see you make a play. And I know the throw was a little bit behind it, but Eric Winters made the play after Auburn didn't make the play to stop him. That's another story. But you made the play to win the game. That's the main thing. Here's where I met on Byrum. Here's what I honestly believe, Zac, because I went back a couple of days ago and I watched him at USF. One, I don't know if he's put on great weight. He doesn't look. Go back and watch him at USF. I mean, this dude is not just big but lean, like lean. I could see a lot more of his neck at USF than I can now. Second thing, it seems to me, and I, you know, haven't anybody tell me this or anything like that, but just watching, it almost looks like he's trying to prove to the NFL that he can be a pocket passer. And like somebody told him, because they all sent the tape to the NFL and the NFL feeds them back. This is what you need to do. That guy that played against Baylor did not approach the game mid-play like the guy that played at USF. And I hate to break it to Byrum Brown. You're not playing quarterback in the NFL. You're just, you're not. You don't throw the ball well enough. I don't think you can get to that point to be able to do that. However, you can still play in the NFL by showing them your athleticism. Remember Stowers from Vanderbilt? Sure. That played quarterback. They moved him to Titan in college, changed his career. NFL guy, 100%. He was not going to play in the NFL as a quarterback. Byrum, you're the quarterback. Nobody's saying you're not. You have to be yourself. Be who you say you are, not what they're trying to get you to do because you hurt Auburn when you do that. You are not good enough to sit in there from a throwing standpoint. I'm not saying you don't know what you're looking at, even with the interceptions, but you don't have the arm talent to try and be Drew Brees. You're huge. You're athletic. Be and you throw it good enough to get away with it. That's who you are. So if you want to play in the league, show your athleticism, show your running ability, show your lateral movement ability. You're not playing in the league as a quarterback. So to me, if I'm Alex Golish and Joel Gordon, we need to get Byrum back to doing what Byrum does best. That's running the ball on designed quarterback runs. That's when you scramble, get out there and go. You don't need to get to the fourth read. You're not a fourth read guy. Oppenheimer couldn't do the math, but he could hear the music. That's who I think Byrum Brown is. I think another thing with Byrum, you talk about the weight aspect of it, he did seem like he didn't have that other gear. Slower, right? We saw it on the touchdown run, I think he got there once he finally got vertical, but there were times where I'm expecting him to beat the guy to the edge in a scrambling situation at pick up six, and he would just get back to the line. We saw him do that last year time and time and time again. Well, Zac, do you remember when Golis told him he was fat when he came back? You remember that? You remember him talking about it? Go back and look. I'm not saying Byrum Brown is fat, but it's like a coaching thing, like you're bigger than what you are. Like he went back, he said, you showed up to camp, you need to lose some weight because he doesn't. You're right, Zac, he didn't. Again, he may be able to turn it on here and there, but go back and watch this guy run against Bama when they went up there and played him. Go back and watch it. It looked different. That's why the shock value I think was, wait, you're a dual threat guy, you're not one playing in the pocket like a dual threat guy, and you're not running like a dual threat guy. When he slid on that quarterback design run after he got three yards, alarm bells started going off to me like that. I didn't see, I'm not saying never slide, but I didn't see that dude do that at all at USF. So to me, we need to sit down. If we're going to score the most points possible, which is the goal, you have got to play the way that God intended you to play, in my opinion. Yeah, which is use that size, fall forward, use that shoulder, and then yeah, you're a good enough passer. I thought all of his passes were on point. I think some of the decisions were questionable, but all of his passes on Saturday, like I don't think he just blatantly missed anybody. Now, he missed seeing where certain defensive backs were. Not when he just flat out missed anybody, Jake. Yeah, no, and again, it's not, if he wasn't able to throw the ball at all, you wouldn't be playing quarterback. That's the thing with Byrum. And that's probably tough on him is that you throw it well enough to, because you're so nasty running the ball, that you can get away with it. It's like, I know him and Nick Marshall run different, but that's what, Nick Marshall knew six, seven plays. Okay, if we're being honest, he could throw the dig, he could throw the post, and he could throw the hitch. That's what he could throw. And the dig and the post work off of each other typically. So like that's, he knew who he was. And right when he went to the NFL, what'd they do? They said, start backpedaling, buddy. Start backpedaling. Which if Byrum Brown, he's not going to backpedal. But I think he's a guy that could play in the NFL somewhere at tight end, you know, things like that. So like to me, bro, you're not, if you do, if you play with that mindset, Auburn will not go to a bowl game. They will not go to a bowl game. So that needs to change, and it needs to change now. What else, Jake? Did you see that Auburn needs to change going into this weekend to prepare for Florida? And what should expectations be this weekend? We attack that next right here, Unlocked On Auburn. Today's show brought to you by our friends at Odoo. Odoo understands that the best businesses run on being productive. The best organizations know that success is not just about talent, it's about having everyone working together towards the same goal. It's true in sports, just like in business, running a business shouldn't feel like trying to connect a bunch of systems that were never designed to work together. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow none of them talk to each other. Odoo can help you with all of that. Great organizations win because operations matter, and that's why you should get Odoo. 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There's also opportunities to earn 2% daily cash back when you use your Apple Card with Apple Pay. Apply for Apple Card now and use in minutes with Apple Pay. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and more at applecard.com. All right, Jake Crane of Crane and Cone hanging out with us for a few more minutes. I've spent a lot of time really like, I guess calling out the interior offensive lines. Yeah, not good. That needs to be better, specifically that left guard spot. One, what do you think of that? Did you think that was like one of the main weaknesses from what you saw on Auburn? And how would you address that moving forward? Yeah, the interior offensive line, including center was not impressed with center. And Baylor, you do have to caveat this, that Baylor front seven, because they went and spent some money on that front seven. You feel good about it? And that Baylor team is different. That's a totally different defense personnel and schematically. And I'm telling you, Klandersman who came up from Kansas State, unbelievably respect in the business, and Gullish is right. His game plan, the disguising when Auburn wasn't able to go fast, that's what hurt Auburn the most. They weren't having a ton of success, so they really weren't able to go fast for long periods of time and catch them in base. That was a different defense. But the interior of the offensive line has got to be better. I don't know if, Ellis may have to play center. I just don't think the other guy is good enough. And you think those guys putting their hands on you is bad? Wait till you see what's about to happen. When you play Georgia and Oklahoma and Bama and I know we don't have Oklahoma in the regular season, but if you got to run into them and LSU and the creatures you're going to run into, they're going to put their hands on you. I think Ellis has to play. I thought when the other backup came in, Auburn's run game was better. Now the right side was better than the left side. I think that's why they kept running it to the right side, especially with Jeremiah Cobb. But the tackles I thought were pretty good. But it's hard to say anybody was good when you give up, what, 12 TFLs? 12? Dude, I mean, hell, where I'm from, you don't get a postgame meal after that. That's awful. That's awful. It wasn't a lot of missed assignments either. That's the scary part to me. But you did win the game. You made the drive when you had to. You made the run when you had to. That was actually on the left side. I think you may see some personnel shift. I don't know if they're going to give the center another chance because he's the guy he brought over. He'll probably look like a world beater against Southern Miss. Florida, defensively on that defensive line, we know who Florida is. It's really who they've always been. But yeah, I'm worried about the interior. But I do think there's better personnel that can gel better to put out there. But this all goes back to if Byrum is going to play like Byrum needs to play. You can't sit back there and go through four reads. You can't read a Harry Potter book back there, man, especially not with this offensive line. I would love if it was one read, two, and go, and go, and go north, and don't get swiped down by somebody's arm. You're huge. Be huge. It's like they say McDonald's, you're great at making burgers, then make burgers. I was discouraged with seeing Byrum like, all right, he's taking the drop back. And then when he felt any sort of pressure, like the pressure wasn't there yet. And then he wanted to look and see where it was instead of either running or if you want to progress to your next read, like you still have time to make a decision to throw the ball. Yeah. And it's like you had two options that were right. And then you didn't make either of them. That was the thing that really struck me the most about all of it was like, what? Yeah. Well, Zac, I would have one word to describe Byrum Brown after the first and second read in the pocket. It looked what? Unnatural. You want to know why it looked unnatural? Because it is. Because at USF, they weren't doing, I'm not saying he never did it. Sure. Right? Like I'm sure you can go find a couple clips, but it was one too and I'm gone. Yeah. Because that's who I am. That's who I have to be. It looked unnatural because it was unnatural. And I do, I wonder how much my question, Zac, is Joel Gordon is trying to get him to do that. And I think that's why at that, you know, Joel Gordon's press conference in Golis, they said, oh, we tried to force some things. I don't think they were talking about just specific, you know, play calls. I think play style. That's what I think they were trying to force. And you can't turn an F250 into a Lamborghini. You can't do it. It just, it doesn't work that way. This isn't Fast and the Furious, right? This is not how this works. Yeah. There are a lot of those now. There's nine of them and it's still not how it works. That shows you how much it doesn't work. I'm talking about the movies did good, but that would never work. Yeah. Right. Right. You think we'll see anything that matters on Saturday or is this just, hey, stay healthy, get a few things right and then it's time to host Florida? Well, I would look at how Byrum plays. Is there an adjustment from a timing standpoint, play style standpoint, aggressiveness running the ball standpoint? Sure. That and the offensive line should push these guys around. Jay, how can people, sorry. I would say the offensive line should push people around. Jay, how can people check out everything you've got going on? Easy, man. Cran and Cone on YouTube, C-R-A-I-N and Cone. Got instant reactions after every game. It's going to be interesting to see, handle this one in that Florida game. Florida, trying to scare everybody. I wouldn't be too scared yet. You're not there yet? Not there yet. All right. All right. Hope you're right. Please like the video. Please subscribe. We'll see you next time. This has been Locked On Auburn. On Kalshi, you're trading against peers in a live market, meaning there's no house. And as the probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position for a limited time. Download the Kalshi app and use code locked on to get $10 when you trade 10. KALSHI, Kalshi. Trade on anything. 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see kalshi.com/regulatory. The Locked On Podcast Network is brought to you by FanDuel. 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