Auburn concludes the week 3 college slate with a 45-19 victory over the New Mexico Lobos. As anyone who watched the game will tell you, the final score looks like a lopsided Auburn victory, however the score is deceiving as this game was much more frustrating than it needed to be, with Auburn only leading by 4 at the half.
Redshirt Freshman Hank Brown got the start at QB for Auburn, replacing veteran transfer Payton Thorne who struggled mightily last week versus Cal. Auburn’s offence was able to boast an efficient attack that covered up for an exceedingly lackluster(putting it nicely) performance by their defence against the pesky Lobos offence.
At the end of the day, Auburn comes out with a 45-19 victory, improves to 2-1 on the season, and heads into SEC play next week when they host Arkansas.
Lets start with the good…
1. Quarterback play:
As mentioned, Hank got his first start and albeit against lesser competition, he looked comfortable under centre as Auburn’s signal caller.
Hank looked accurate and on time, and although he did not show off his wheels, he was able to showcase some impressive arm strength on a deep pass to Keandre Lambert-Smith before finally finishing the drive with a touchdown throw to… checks notes… Cam Brown!!!
Brown was able to execute Freeze’s RPO scheme well, finishing the day with 235 yards through the air and 4 touchdowns.
My favourite stat, especially due to the inclement weather on Saturday night, is that Hank finished with zero turnovers. Clearly this was against an inferior New Mexico team, however given the circumstances of this being your first start as a redshirt freshman, no turnovers either passing nor fumbling is quite impressive for your maiden voyage leading the Tigers offence.
2. The running game… at times:
On a rainy, sloppy night, with a freshman making his first start as QB, fans probably would have liked to see Auburn lean on their running game a touch more. Auburn got off to slower start on the ground, but their rushing attack started to take form and started churning out larger chunks of yardage as the game wore on.
Jarquez Hunter finished the night with a tidy 152 yards on 20 carries as Auburn’s bellcow back, Damari Alston spelled him with an explosive 80 yards on 10 carries, and Jeremiah Cobb managed to tote the rock 7 times and finished with 34 yards.
As mentioned, this wasn’t necessarily a classic drubbing on the ground where Auburn really leaned on their running game and bullied the Lobos up front, however their O-Line and backs were able to churn out yards where they needed to in order to allow Auburn’s offence to remain on schedule and on time.
3. Spreading the ball around:
Auburn didn’t have 1 receiver dominate touches in this game, however Quarterback Hank Brown was able to spread the ball around to Auburn’s plethora of pass catchers to lead an efficient passing attack.
Cam Brown was the leader in the clubhouse with 4 catches on 5 targets, trailed by Robert Lewis and Rivaldo Fairweather who both had 2 catches.
By the end of the game, 10 different Auburn receivers caught passes (including a running back), leading to a very efficient passing attack that boasted many players who gave Hank many options to throw to and added to the overall passing total.
Now let’s take a look at the bad…
1. The defence as a whole:
Putting it frankly, Auburn’s defence was brutal on Saturday night. Coordinator DJ Durkin constantly decided to deploy a 3 man defensive line which led to a flat pass rush. The Tigers pass rush rarely got home, and when they did, they struggled to bring down Lobos quarterback Devon Dampier.
Pass rushers Jalen McLeod and Keyron Crawford (normally thought of as Auburn’s best pass rushers) continuously dropped back into pass coverage, which was a head scratching decision.
Auburn was unable to muster a sack in the game, and their run defence left much to be desired as well, allowing 157 yards on the ground.
The secondary, albeit with some key starters inactive (mainly Kayin Lee) looked lost for most of the night. Allowing Lobos receivers to run wide open throughout the secondary, New Mexico was ultimately able to rack up 291 yards through the air.
New Mexico had some self inflicted errors in the red zone with penalties and missed assignments while also missing a field goal, or this score could have looked much closer.
Overall the defence was disorganized, looked slow, lacked intensity, and looked unimaginative all throughout Saturday night’s affair.
2. Penalties:
Auburn finished with 8 penalties for a total of 88 yards, and while this doesn’t look like an egregious number by any means, sometimes it’s the timing of penalties that means the most and can be so detrimental.
Penalties that extend drives, including personal foul calls and defensive pass interference infractions really hurt and extend drives by giving the opposing team a fresh set of downs. The Lobos didn’t need any more help from Auburn, as they finished with a total of 448 yards on their own accord.
Penalties can sometimes be unavoidable but are nonetheless extremely frustrating. Personal foul calls, procedure infractions and the like are all debilitating and will need to be cleaned up as we head into SEC action.
3. Red Zone rushing attack:
It’s hard to back this up with stats, but if you watched the game it was easy to realize that whenever the Tigers entered the red zone or goal to go opportunities, they struggled mightily to run the football. The o-line did a very poor job of run blocking in these short yardage situations.
In the red-zone, teams like to lean on their rushing attack and trust their offensive line to open up holes and bully the opposing d-line up front to allow their backs to cross the plain, however the Lobos defense was able to stop Auburn running backs at or behind the line of scrimmage (seemingly before they even grabbed the handoff) on multiple occasions.
Whether this is a play-design issue, and offensive line issue, an execution issue (or all the above), this needs to change heading into SEC play.
These weren’t necessarily in the red zone, but it is with noting Auburn running backs fumbled twice as well on Saturday. Auburn ultimately recovered the ball that Hunter put on the turf, however Alston also ended up losing the handle on the football on a separate occasion which the Lobos recovered. It’s hard to decipher if the inclement weather had an impact on this poor ball security, however it needs to be cleaned up.
Another week of college football has come and gone. Auburn heads into SEC play with a 2-1 record, and has many aspects of their game to clean up before facing more stout competition.
Hank Brown will seemingly get the start again at home when Arkansas rolls onto the Plains in week 4, and Auburn hopes he displays another clean performance similar to this outing. Spreading the ball around through the air and a hopefully improved rushing attack will help the Redshirt Freshman feel more comfortable and get into a rhythm against the Razorbacks.
In vintage Auburn fashion, they haven’t made things easy on themselves and many questions still remain as they head into the heart of their schedule. Let’s buckle up and (hopefully) enjoy the ride. At the end of the day, that’s why we love college football and Auburn. Endless drama. Should be a fun one.
Bring on the Hogs… and as always…War Eagle.
