The Vanderbilt Review: Auburn Won the Football Game

Auburn lost five home SEC games in a row (four against ranked teams) and some would have you believe they haven’t won a game in 15 years. Either way, that national nightmare is over. Auburn beat Vanderbilt, an SEC team.

🙂 HOW I’M FEELING

I’m glad. Auburn’s defense looked much better. The offense seemed a little reserved, but maybe we were playing things a little close to the vest once it was obvious that the defense mostly had the Commodores locked down. But yeah, Auburn won a game in the SEC.

👍 WHAT I LIKED

The defense looked mostly back to normal. They were playing a not-great Vanderbilt offense with a pretty good freshman quarterback, but Auburn stuffed Vanderbilt’s offensive line all day and got to the quarterback multiple times. Multiple sacks, stuffed running backs, an intentional grounding, and a blocked punt for a touchdown are good signs that the defensive side of the ball is dominating.

👎 WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE

The Auburn run game still wasn’t back to half of what it needs to be. Mabson had a good hard run. Cobb had a decent run around the end to ice the game, but it’s the obvious sore spot on Auburn’s football team. It is assumed it’s the offensive line, but I noticed some pretty questionable cuts or non-cuts by the backs all day.

👀 WHO STOOD OUT

Defensive lineman Cody Sigler is quickly becoming my favorite. He’s all over the place. He’s a little red. He looks like he enjoys destroying linemen and quarterbacks. The unnecessary roughness call on him was ridiculous, but I’m good with it. Auburn is good when they have a defensive lineman like him.

🤔 STILL THINKING ABOUT…

That blocked punt. It feels like Auburn used to block kicks all over the place when I was growing up. It hadn’t happened since 2020, the Covid year, and Omar Mabson II was tired of that stat. He took it in his own hands, sacrificed his body, and let Cade Carlson score his first college football touchdown.

😬 STILL WORRIED ABOUT…

October. Since Greg Sankey hates Auburn and refuses to change Auburn’s schedule, the Tigers once again have an October with 3+ games away from home. And it just happens to be at Tennessee, at Georgia, and at Ole Miss, with LSU at home (at 11am) in the middle of it. I don’t care what kind of team Auburn is fielding, that’s stupid.

📈 DID ANYTHING CHANGE?

The Auburn defense changed back to what they used to be, giving up two touchdowns and letting the offense do more than that.

🏆 THE BLOGLE GAME BALL

Xavier Atkins led the defense with 8 tackles and 1 sack. It was a pretty non-gameball type of game. But it was a win.

➡️ WHAT’S NEXT

Auburn travels to Knoxville for the first time since 2013, a 55-23 Auburn win. Tennessee doesn’t look great offensively and they’re coming off a loss to #1 Texas. They’ll probably be a little down but a little confident since they’re at home. We’ll see.