Never too early to start talking about our next game, right? Let's recap Auburn's path to a 3-2 record.
Auburn started the year losing to Clemson. In a game many were predicting a blowout, Auburn had a couple of heaves at what would have been game winning hail marys. The two narratives from that game were Auburn’s offense sucks (and they didn’t help it by playing three QBs), and Clemson looked bad. I think we’ve seen in the weeks since that perhaps Auburn’s defense had something to do with Clemson looking bad. I also think Clemson’s defense is pretty good, and that had something to do with Auburn’s struggles.
Auburn followed that up by blowing out Arkansas State. Arkansas State has been respectable the last few years, but this year so far they are horrible. Today they lost to Central Arkansas, a team who had never beaten an FCS team before. But Auburn did what you are supposed to do bad teams. They throttled them.
Following that was the Texas A&M game. What we now know is that A&M appears to be the somewhere between the second and fourth best team in the conference (with UT and Ole Miss). It’s probably not a surprise that they came into Auburn and won. Auburn’s offense again was the target of criticism, and maybe rightly so. But A&M has to get some credit too. They’ve been good defensively.
Then LSU rolled into town fresh off their dominating (for 57 minutes) win over the Dogs. Auburn had trouble getting in the end zone again. Six field goals is never the goal, but it does say something that Auburn was at least getting into scoring position consistently throughout the game, something we failed to do. And inside the 35, Carlson is basically automatic.
Finally, today it was ULM. Jump up about three paragraphs and you’ll see the same reasoning. ULM is not good, and Auburn ran all over them.
So a couple of questions come to mind. Is our defense closer to that of Clemson, A&M and LSU, or to that of Arkansas State and ULM? The answer may be that it’s a far sight from either set off those. But those first three held Auburn to 13, 16 and 18. I don’t think we are salty enough to do that.
The other question is where are our points going to come from? Clemson and A&M are good offenses. Auburn held Clemson to their lowest output of the year. Held A&M to their second lowest. We haven’t shown the ability to do anything consistently well, but we’re going to have to figure it in a hurry on Saturday morning.
I hope to be eating some crow on Saturday afternoon, but I think we get it handed to us on Saturday morning. Something like 30-17.
Auburn started the year losing to Clemson. In a game many were predicting a blowout, Auburn had a couple of heaves at what would have been game winning hail marys. The two narratives from that game were Auburn’s offense sucks (and they didn’t help it by playing three QBs), and Clemson looked bad. I think we’ve seen in the weeks since that perhaps Auburn’s defense had something to do with Clemson looking bad. I also think Clemson’s defense is pretty good, and that had something to do with Auburn’s struggles.
Auburn followed that up by blowing out Arkansas State. Arkansas State has been respectable the last few years, but this year so far they are horrible. Today they lost to Central Arkansas, a team who had never beaten an FCS team before. But Auburn did what you are supposed to do bad teams. They throttled them.
Following that was the Texas A&M game. What we now know is that A&M appears to be the somewhere between the second and fourth best team in the conference (with UT and Ole Miss). It’s probably not a surprise that they came into Auburn and won. Auburn’s offense again was the target of criticism, and maybe rightly so. But A&M has to get some credit too. They’ve been good defensively.
Then LSU rolled into town fresh off their dominating (for 57 minutes) win over the Dogs. Auburn had trouble getting in the end zone again. Six field goals is never the goal, but it does say something that Auburn was at least getting into scoring position consistently throughout the game, something we failed to do. And inside the 35, Carlson is basically automatic.
Finally, today it was ULM. Jump up about three paragraphs and you’ll see the same reasoning. ULM is not good, and Auburn ran all over them.
So a couple of questions come to mind. Is our defense closer to that of Clemson, A&M and LSU, or to that of Arkansas State and ULM? The answer may be that it’s a far sight from either set off those. But those first three held Auburn to 13, 16 and 18. I don’t think we are salty enough to do that.
The other question is where are our points going to come from? Clemson and A&M are good offenses. Auburn held Clemson to their lowest output of the year. Held A&M to their second lowest. We haven’t shown the ability to do anything consistently well, but we’re going to have to figure it in a hurry on Saturday morning.
I hope to be eating some crow on Saturday afternoon, but I think we get it handed to us on Saturday morning. Something like 30-17.
