**This column was submitted early Sunday morning and I have not been able to post it properly due to an emergency situation with my mother. I communicated with Will about this and apologized. I am running the column here since it's so "late." (Again ... not Will's fault.)
******
BY @Will Collier
AuburnSports.com Columnist
There was more than a little hope (expressed in this space among many others) that the near-miss of the Georgia game could be used as a springboard to a better second half of the season, especially given that Auburn had an extra week to tune up before going on the road.
Those hopes were comprehensively dashed Saturday night in Baton Rouge. Auburn played its worst game of the season — to date. I wouldn’t put anything on this one keeping the bottom spot going forward.
Speculation going in that LSU's bottom-10-ranked defense (nationally, not in the conference) would give Auburn's offense a chance to find its footing was quickly rendered groundless.
The offense looked like it hadn’t practiced at all during the off week, opening with a false start and going backward from there. The offensive coaches didn’t call a running play until the third series*, by which time the Tigers already were 10 points down thanks to a lackadaisical defense that looked checked out from the first snap.
Nothing Auburn did on offense made any sense. The game plan looked like a recycled copy of the Texas A&M playbook. Anytime something started to click (RPO slants or Brian Battie/Jeremiah Cobb getting traction) Hugh Freeze and/or Philip Montgomery would apparently figure, “That worked—better not do it again!” and revert back to play calls for players they don’t have.
For the second game in a row, a Robby Ashford-led attack was moving the ball into range just before the half, only to be pulled for Payton Thorne for (wait for it) two incompletions and a drive-killing sack.
If you were watching from home and switched over from the Washington-Oregon game, Auburn’s ineptitude on offense was particularly glaring. Going from two exceptionally well-prepared and well-coached teams crisply executing smart game plans to whatever Auburn was doing was enough to make you wonder if you had also gone down a division or two when you changed channels.
And what’s worse, the now very familiar cycle of the Losing Season Death Spiral has reached the point where the defense says, “Why bother?” Loafs, bad tackling, playing out of position: Auburn’s defensive “effort” (I use that term very loosely) had it all: Everything that gets you beat, that is.
Bear this in mind: LSU committed a dozen penalties for a hundred yards.
That’s the kind of sloppy play that should at the very least put you in a dangerous place in the SEC. Instead, the Bengals rolled up 563 yards, 48 points and were never in jeopardy for an instant. Auburn could do absolutely nothing to take advantage of its opponent’s miscues.
I don’t have any idea what Auburn’s coaching staff thinks it’s doing this year.
There’s a lot of talk about needing to dedicate time to recruiting — and getting the roster up to SEC standards is certainly called for — but if the decision has been made to just toss this season, they ought to man up and say so.
Continuing to put lifeless and unprepared teams on the field with laughable game plans and randomly selected plays is lurching towards Scot Loeffler and Bryan Harsin levels of futility.
This is already the worst “rebuilding season” for a new AU coach since Doug Barfield’s inept 1976 squad. The 1981, 1993, 1999, 2009, even 2021 seasons gave Auburn reasons to think a corner had either been turned or was at the very least within sight.
Half of 2023 is in the books with a losing record looming and that proverbial corner remains well beyond visual range.
Even given the benefit of a season when the SEC is clearly down from top to bottom, with most of the league mired in mediocrity, this Auburn team manages to be well below the conference’s median.
At this point I will be surprised if the Tigers win more than one SEC game, and the results to date indicate that a repeat of Auburn’s 2008 and 2012 faceplants in Nashville is far from impossible.
*I guess the third play of the first drive might conceivably have been intended as a run, but since the snap went right past the quarterback and was nearly fumbled away on the LSU 15, it’s a moot point.
******
BY @Will Collier
AuburnSports.com Columnist
There was more than a little hope (expressed in this space among many others) that the near-miss of the Georgia game could be used as a springboard to a better second half of the season, especially given that Auburn had an extra week to tune up before going on the road.
Those hopes were comprehensively dashed Saturday night in Baton Rouge. Auburn played its worst game of the season — to date. I wouldn’t put anything on this one keeping the bottom spot going forward.
Speculation going in that LSU's bottom-10-ranked defense (nationally, not in the conference) would give Auburn's offense a chance to find its footing was quickly rendered groundless.
The offense looked like it hadn’t practiced at all during the off week, opening with a false start and going backward from there. The offensive coaches didn’t call a running play until the third series*, by which time the Tigers already were 10 points down thanks to a lackadaisical defense that looked checked out from the first snap.
Nothing Auburn did on offense made any sense. The game plan looked like a recycled copy of the Texas A&M playbook. Anytime something started to click (RPO slants or Brian Battie/Jeremiah Cobb getting traction) Hugh Freeze and/or Philip Montgomery would apparently figure, “That worked—better not do it again!” and revert back to play calls for players they don’t have.
For the second game in a row, a Robby Ashford-led attack was moving the ball into range just before the half, only to be pulled for Payton Thorne for (wait for it) two incompletions and a drive-killing sack.
If you were watching from home and switched over from the Washington-Oregon game, Auburn’s ineptitude on offense was particularly glaring. Going from two exceptionally well-prepared and well-coached teams crisply executing smart game plans to whatever Auburn was doing was enough to make you wonder if you had also gone down a division or two when you changed channels.
And what’s worse, the now very familiar cycle of the Losing Season Death Spiral has reached the point where the defense says, “Why bother?” Loafs, bad tackling, playing out of position: Auburn’s defensive “effort” (I use that term very loosely) had it all: Everything that gets you beat, that is.
Bear this in mind: LSU committed a dozen penalties for a hundred yards.
That’s the kind of sloppy play that should at the very least put you in a dangerous place in the SEC. Instead, the Bengals rolled up 563 yards, 48 points and were never in jeopardy for an instant. Auburn could do absolutely nothing to take advantage of its opponent’s miscues.
I don’t have any idea what Auburn’s coaching staff thinks it’s doing this year.
There’s a lot of talk about needing to dedicate time to recruiting — and getting the roster up to SEC standards is certainly called for — but if the decision has been made to just toss this season, they ought to man up and say so.
Continuing to put lifeless and unprepared teams on the field with laughable game plans and randomly selected plays is lurching towards Scot Loeffler and Bryan Harsin levels of futility.
This is already the worst “rebuilding season” for a new AU coach since Doug Barfield’s inept 1976 squad. The 1981, 1993, 1999, 2009, even 2021 seasons gave Auburn reasons to think a corner had either been turned or was at the very least within sight.
Half of 2023 is in the books with a losing record looming and that proverbial corner remains well beyond visual range.
Even given the benefit of a season when the SEC is clearly down from top to bottom, with most of the league mired in mediocrity, this Auburn team manages to be well below the conference’s median.
At this point I will be surprised if the Tigers win more than one SEC game, and the results to date indicate that a repeat of Auburn’s 2008 and 2012 faceplants in Nashville is far from impossible.
*I guess the third play of the first drive might conceivably have been intended as a run, but since the snap went right past the quarterback and was nearly fumbled away on the LSU 15, it’s a moot point.
