As much as it hurts, we take a detailed look at what went wrong and right for Auburn in their 10-42 loss in Athens this past weekend. First under the microscope? Defense & Special Teams.
If there was any enthusiasm birthed from the offensive yardage accumulated by Auburn’s offense in its narrow loss to LSU the week prior, it has since been snuffed out after a miserable performance on the road as Auburn took it on the chin against a Georgia team that was far from perfect.
The bright spot, if there were any, was that the defense played admirably for most of the game, until the 3rd qtr when they simply gave out due to exhaustion. Pursuit slowed down, gaps got wider, and the Georgia run game took advantage of a tired Auburn defense to start widening the gap. With absolutely no help from their offense, the defense’s play ended up as simply a footnote on a terrible day.
I’m encouraged by the defense. (…) The defense is not the issue. They gave us every opportunity to win that game. You give them (Georgia) too many possessions, too many tries, too many cracks at it and eventually you’re going to bust. That’s what happened to the defense. I hate for them to be in that position.
– B Wil on The Auburn Express Podcast
If there were any bright spot about this team, it’s the defense. But that bright spot can only last as long as the offense can give them reprieve by at least moving the ball consistently. How good is our secondary? How does our defensive progress project forward to the rest of our schedule? How much more attrition can they suffer before their performance begins to suffer too?
You can catch more conversations like these from The War Rapport on The Auburn Express Podcast, updated every weekday.
