re: This Auburn game will be uncomfortably close.

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and we have not looked great defending the run this season.

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“Not looked good” is an understatement. Everybody is focusing on how bad our passing defense is, but our rushing defense is even worse. We are dead last in the SEC, giving up over 160.3 yards/game. Vandy is next to last at 157.4. 3rd worst is South Carolina at 141.6. Then State at 131.7. All 10 other teams give up less than 130/game. So we are giving up almost 30 yards more rushing per game than the 4th worst rushing defense in the SEC.

Our rushing defense is also worst in the SEC yards/carry at an embarrassing 5.0. Vandy is 2nd worst again at 4.6. Then Florida at 4.3. So we’re giving up .7 more yards per carry than the 3rd worst team in the SEC. “Good” news is that Auburn is 4th worst at 4.1. But the bigger picture is that only 12 SEC defenses give up over 4 yards/carry and we give up fricking 5.

Auburn also leads the SEC—maybe the nation—in turnovers per game. They average 2 takeaways a game. One of their DBs leads the country with 4 picks. Now, Jayden is very good at not turning the ball over.
His only 2 interceptions so far this season is even more impressive considering how much more he’s throwing downfield. His yards/attempt is ridiculous. He’s been fricking amazing.

However, I think this is where their bye week comes into play. They have a really good coaching staff, and they are going to show us things on both sides of the ball we haven’t seen all year. I don’t think Jayden’s gonna be bad or even not great, but what if they run some crazy coverage that we haven’t seen and bait Jayden into a pick on our side of the field. Or some exotic blitz that confuses the left side of our OL where they don’t know who to pick up, and Jayden gets blown up from a backside untouched rusher that he never sees and he turns it over 7 yards behind the LOS.

It’s insane that our offense is this great despite the pressure of knowing they pretty much have to score on every drive. But, as great as we are, defenses still do manage a few stops per game even when we’re rolling. Now a good bit of those have been aided by penalties and dropped passes. But if Auburn gets, say, 3 just straight up stops that they would have anyway, does that extra week to prepare just get them 2 more? And if those 2 are explosives on our side of the field, could that be enough?

I think our offense is just too good to not score and score a lot. And I think Tiger Stadium is going to be electric and a big factor like they were against Arkansas. And Auburn just doesn’t have a good enough QB to keep pace with our offense, especially in that environment. And, like most seem to in this thread, I think it’s probably close for a while—longer than we want—but we eventually pull away late and win by 10-13.

But it’s not crazy to think that their bye week may be good for 2 explosives on offense and 2 on defense. And they are gonna run on us until we prove we can stop it. Partly because they’re better at that, and we haven’t shown we can stop any team from running the ball. But also to try to keep the ball away from Jayden and our offense. If they can shorten the game and limit possessions, just a couple of big plays by their defense could be enough for them to escape with an ugly win.