Auburn 31 Washington State 24. The "new day" for Auburn football started out looking a lot like the old one. The Auburn defense came out giving up yardage in huge chunks and the offense was out of sync. However Auburn was opportunistic and rallied to nip Washington State to open the season. It was not pretty and the question is how good is Washington State? The Cougars looked strong at times but I do not think they are close top-to-bottom to any of the SEC teams Auburn will play this year. They say that sometimes the biggest improvement a team makes is between game one and game two. Let us hope that is true for the 2013 Auburn Tigers. For now let's look at the good, the bad and the ugly from last night's game...
THE GOOD
Well first I guess it was the Auburn special teams and running game. These guys came to play. Cody Parkey kicked three big field goals. Tre Mason had a 100 yard kick off return and added another 75 yards rushing. He had a critical fumble late but fortunately it did not come back to haunt Auburn. Corey Grant made the most of his opportunities and definitely shared offensive MVP honors with Mason on the strength of a 75 yard touchdown run and 146 total rushing yards for the game. Cameron Artis-Payne added another 50 yards and some glimpses of his strength. These guys are a solid stable of running backs and it appears that Auburn will go as these guys go.
With that said about the running backs, I guess you also have to give some kudos to the guys up front. However I was disappointed at the lack of push the line got in some critical situations. I expected a little more but when you rush for almost 300 yards you have to credit the offensive line. The only receiver to make a real impact on the game was Sammie Coates. His great catch on one of the only long completions of the night was a huge play and kept the Auburn passing game from being a total disaster in this game.
The defense was not in the good category most of the night but improved late to save the game for Auburn. Washington State was in position to tie the game up three times in the second half but had to settle for a field goal, threw an interception and then gave up the ball on the downs. Kudos have to go to the defense for that. The heroes on defense were the emergency subs. Robenson Therezie subbed in for Justin Garrett and had two picks while Montavius Adams subbed in for Jeffrey Whitaker and did more in one night than some of these older defensive linemen have done in their whole career at Auburn.
THE BAD
The Auburn defense came on late but floundered early. Washington State rolled down the field repeatedly slicing up the Auburn defense and putting up 21 points in the first half. Auburn got no pass rush while Wazzou wide receivers were open all over the field. The worst rushing team in the country last season also tacked on 100+ yards rushing against Auburn. The Tigers also continued another disturbing trend from last year giving up an astounding 28 first downs to the Cougars. Washington State also converted on 3rd and 4th down about half the time. The Auburn defense rose up late and that is an improvement over last year but again how good is Washington State?
The Auburn special teams were good and helped win the game but there was a missed field goal, a botched kick off and a muffed punt last night. Also there was a blatant holding penalty that sprung Tre Mason on his kickoff return. I am pretty surprised the refs missed that. Auburn also appeared to commit a few obvious pass interference penalties that were not called. I know Washington State got away with a few as well including an obvious late hit out of bounds but Auburn still has to clean it up. Penalties like that will be called when Auburn goes on the road in the SEC and could cost the Tigers dearly.
THE UGLY
I am accused of being negative at times but even I expected Nick Marshall to come out and look pretty good. I was shocked at how bad he was last night. Auburn had 20 yards passing at halftime. Marshall appeared to have absolutely no touch on his balls and overthrew many balls badly. He did have a couple of drops and did not turn the ball over but it was still a pretty ugly night. The coaches made it pretty obvious that they were scared to have him throw a regular mid-range pass. This resulted in Auburn only putting up two field goals in the second half when they had a dominating running game.
Marshall showed some scrambling ability late and hit a few short passes but again he did not show the ability to be able to drop back in the pocket and hit a decent pass. His inability to do this completely hamstrung the offense. As good as Auburn was running the football, there should have been a touchdown in the second half. Auburn should have pulled away in this game. Instead Auburn had to score critical touchdowns off a turnover and a kickoff return. That worked last night but it is not going to work in any of Auburn's SEC games this season.
THE FINAL WORD
Auburn beat a team from a BCS conference which is more than it did all of last season. That is something to build on. Auburn has one more week to get it together before the real season begins. Nick Marshall has to improve a whole lot or nothing else is going to matter much. He has to be able to pass good enough to at least keep teams honest so that Auburn can run the football.
The biggest game of the season may be in two weeks. Auburn must win against Mississippi State to have a chance at a good season. After that a trip to Baton Rouge looms along with another huge game against Ole Miss. I believe the measuring stick on how good this season is starts with Auburn winning against the Mississippi schools at home.
State did not look great yesterday but played a pretty good team. Ole Miss has it's share of problems as well but they have a senior quarterback who is good at running their system and some talented freshmen already making big plays. All of these teams are looking at taking that next step and having good seasons. Auburn is going to have play a lot better than last night if they are going to take that next step.
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