to be a team that can win a championship. Auburn 45 Arkansas 21. Every Auburn fan can take a deep breath now after what was for me the ice bucket challenge. Arkansas may be much improved and worked on this game the whole year but they are BY FAR the worst SEC team Auburn will face this season. Outside of the passing game and special teams, there was not much resembling the Auburn team from last year. The running game was decent but Auburn was stuffed on several third down and short situations early in the game. There was also a fumble and several bad penalties. Auburn finished with good rushing stats but padded them some late.
Finally there was the defense. Good night what has Ellis Johnson and the defensive coaches been working on for the past six months? The "rhino package"??? Arkansas destroyed that. The defense in the first half was completely atrocious. This Auburn team will be measured each game by one measuring stick and that is of a championship team. On that measure this team would get a C- and I think that is generous.
THE GOOD
The quarterbacks, receivers and the passing game. Jeremy Johnson started the game and went 12 of 16 for 243 yards and two touchdowns. He was incredible. I think Auburn could have a quarterback controversy if Nick Marshall drops off any. Fortunately he did not in this game sparking the Tigers with his added dimension of running the ball. Marshall quickly led the team down the field and took it in himself to start the second half. He also went 4 of 6 for 50 yards. JUCO sensation Duke Williams put up one of the best first games for a receiver in Auburn history with 9 catches for 154 and a touchdown. Melvin Ray also turned in his finest game so far as an Auburn Tiger with 2 catches for 77 yards and a touchdown.
The running game was decent but nowhere near last year. Cameron Artis Payne ran hard and did well rushing for 177 yards on 22 carries with over 50 of those yards after the weather delay and was jerked from the game for awhile after fumbling. Corey Grant resumed his role from last year as the change of pace speedster and had a few good runs especially after Marshall entered the game. The offensive line was decent but not very close to the unit that ended last season in the first half. As stated above they got stuffed on several third and short situations and just did not get that push at times. They appeared to protect the passer very well though. Last year's unit was not great early on so maybe this group will mature over time as well.
THE BAD
Bret Bielema. This guy only misses the ugly list because of Auburn's defense in this game. I have honestly never seen a performance like Bielema has put on this preseason. I have never seen anyone who went 0-8 and 3-9 the year before run his mouth like that. He first joked to a group of fans to knock the **** out of any Auburn fans videoing his scrimmage. He then bragged that his team was ready and had no one suspended or under a dark cloud on his team. Finally the week of the game he bragged about how confident he was of upsetting Auburn.
All of this in and of itself is not that bad. It was the manner in which Bielema delivered all of this stuff. Each time he seemed to be going out of his way to slight Auburn or start something. On top of that he has also taken shots at Nick $aban's Big Ten record and been the spokesperson for this war on the HUNH offense. Again this kind of mouthing off has been done before, i.e. Steve Spurrier, but the big difference is most people that run their mouth like this win a few games first. Again this guy is now 0-9 in the SEC and there are not any easy SEC wins out there on the horizon. Bret, how about SHUTTING YOUR MOUTH till you win at least one game in the SEC...
THE UGLY
At Auburn, you really don't expect great defense anymore. There has not been one since 2007. Auburn has overcome it by great offenses in 2010 and 2013 and playing opportunistic defense both of those years. The same was pretty much expected this year with maybe a slight improvement. Boy was that wrong... Arkansas pretty much did whatever they wanted in the first half. They shredded the "rhino package" and found wide open receivers all over the field. It did not seem anyone was hitting the right gaps and there were missed tackles everywhere. I am not one to get overly optimistic and I was sitting there in shock.
Auburn recovered and shut the Razorbacks down in the second half but lets not break our hands patting the defense on the back for that. Again, Arkansas is one of the worst teams Auburn will play this year. The defense has to improve A WHOLE LOT for Auburn to have a chance at a championship. Auburn must find some way to get a pass rush or we could be looking at Texas A&M scoring another 60 points like they did the last time they were in Auburn. There will be several other teams with better offenses than Arkansas before then. If Auburn plays defense like they did against Arkansas then it could get well... ugly.
THE FINAL WORD
Thank goodness Arkansas is not that good and Auburn was able to still get the win fairly comfortably. Auburn will get one more easy one in San Jose State before getting a week off and then heading into enemy territory in Manhattan, Kansas. Kansas State is a better team than Arkansas and Bill Snyder is a much better coach than Bret Bielema. Hopefully we will see that big improvement from game one to game two that I always hear coaches talking about.
I guess it is good to remember how last year's team struggled against Washington State, Arkansas State and Mississippi State to open last season. Last year's team came together and made that big jump. This year's team does not have near as far to go as last year's team so maybe they are on schedule. Let's just hope they can make that big jump a little sooner and not have to go through a game like LSU last year. For the moment though, the college football season has started and Auburn got a big win. One down, eleven more to go...
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