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     Despite playing a relatively poor game Saturday night Auburn still managed to put 54 points on the board against an outgunned Ball St team. Auburn again started the game pretty poorly like they have every game this season. The difference this week was they picked up the pace in the 2nd quarter instead of the 2nd half so they are improving there.

     Special teams and 3rd down defense are going to eventually catch up with the Tiger's. Auburn's punt return team is absolutely horrible. How does the punt return man fumble the ball on a fair catch? It happened and led directly to Ball St. first touchdown. The very next punt the same returnman caught the punt but this time fumbled on first contact. Luckily Auburn recovered this one and kept the ball.

    Chis Todd has completed the best two game stretch for any quarterback in Auburn history with 9 Td passes over the past 2 games. The going is only going to get tougher with their next game coming against a pretty good Monte Kiffin coached defense at Tennessee. So far though this year Auburn's offense has been able to take advantage of what the defenses have been giving them and if the run has been taken away Auburn has passes successfully, and vice versa. Tennesse has the defense to slow down the Auburn offense, but they don't don't have the offense to put a ton of points on the board against Auburn's defense.

    Auburn's defense despite its lack of depth in the linebacker corp is playing really well and have gotten a ton of turnovers so far this season which had directly led to a 4-0 start. I figured with all the ranked teams that lost this week Auburn might creep back into the polls, but not yet. If they get past Tennessee they won't be denied.

September 29, 2009  11:02 AM ET

I will agree with everything except the defense. If you allow Ball State to score 30, even with the backups, it is going to be a long SEC season. Starting this week we will see if the offense is for real and if the defense can get their act together. It's not just Auburn either, if you watch any college game and even the pro games, there is a loss of fundamentals when it comes to tackling. I hope the 3rd down defense turns around and Auburn gets back to the style of defense that has led this team for ever.

September 29, 2009  10:27 PM ET

I totally agree with you on the lack of tackling fundamentals these days. There seems to be way to many linebackers and defensive backs, not just at Auburn, everywhere that will make a huge hit then don't wrap their arms around the ball carrier and drive him to the ground. Guys these days are too good of athletes with great balance that it takes more than just a huge pop to take them off their feet. I think some of Auburn's problem though is that they are trying to hard to strip ball's first, and make the tackle second as apposed to doing it the other way around.

 
October 2, 2009  08:20 PM ET

That offense has really only scratched the surface so far and will only get stronger once these kids actually figure it out. I suspect it's going to take about 30-35 pts to defeat Auburn in SEC play and only a few SEC teams can score > 30 with regularity, even against a tired, questionable Auburn defense.

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