Auburn 49 Mississippi State 10. Wow. I thought Auburn would win this game but was not expecting them to play that well. You just see the same thing so much that you are pretty surprised at any change. I give Gus Malzahn a pretty hard time on this blog for his philosophy and his play calling but I will give him credit for this game. The whole team was ready to play and State is no pushover. I, as always, still have some advice for Gus and it is that like it or not the offense's strength is passing the ball and you better deal with it or Auburn will blow a winnable game or a chance of knocking off Georgia or Bama. With that said...
THE GOOD
For the second week in a row the entire team gets in on this section... Jarrett Stidham had his finest game to date going 13 of 16 for 264 yards and two touchdowns. That is a pretty good day at the office. He threw to eight different receivers with Eli Stove leading the way this week with 75 yards on two catches. A shout out to Will Hastings for just using a State safety and getting open for a big touchdown. Kerryon Johnson did most of the work on the ground rushing for over a hundred yards and three touchdowns. This was all done on the backs of the offensive line who definitely had their best day pass blocking as Stidham had time to wait for those long patterns to develop.
Defensively Auburn held a decent State offense to 10 points. This defense just has an energy I really like. There is just a chemistry there you love to see. These guys look like they are playing with reckless abandon and are having fun doing it. Jeff Holland had another big sack. As I said in my preseason post I thought Holland could have a breakout season and so far it looks like he is. The Davis boys came to play. Deshaun Davis led the team with 10 tackles, Javaris Davis had a pick six to seal it and Carlton Davis played his finest game this season with several great plays breaking up passes. You just have to like the way these guys are getting after it.
THE BAD
It is hard to find much wrong with this game but you can look at bad trends over the season. The bad trend I am referring to is not getting wide receivers Kyle Davis and Nate Craig-Myers more involved in the passing game. So far all these guys are doing is blocking for the other guys. Auburn runs plays to get Ryan Davis involved. Why are we not running plays for these guys? They are oozing talent and so far it has been wasted except for trying to get a deep ball to Davis in the first quarter of just about every game. After that he is not seen much and Craig-Myers is not seen at all. Auburn will not have the season it is capable of having without getting these guys much more involved.
THE UGLY
Once again the SEC overall is in this section. Good grief the conference is really down. Every week it is another batch of embarrassing losses or near losses. This week LSU was the ugliest losing to Troy (State) at home. That whole "Death Valley at night" thing really loses its luster when you are losing to Troy there. Next up is Tennessee who was annihilated by Georgia 41-0 in Knoxville. I mean OUCH. I think the Butch Jones watch has officially begun. I do not think he comes back from this one. Finally you have Kentucky just squeaking by Eastern Michigan. The key fact here is that this is not just a fluky bad week for the SEC but again this stuff is happening every week.
THE LAST WORD
It is never as simple as it looks but the seas are parting for Auburn right now. Again it will not be easy and college teams can play great one day and terrible the next but Auburn will now be heavily favored in its next four games against Ole Miss, at LSU, at Arkansas and finally at Texas A&M after a bye week. It is there for the taking to set up a huge Amen Corner end to the season against Georgia and Bama at home. For the moment lets just enjoy this game for a day or so. Auburn played a great game and definitely got the last word on State with freshman Malik Willis taking it to the house on a 67 yard run for Auburn's last touchdown and freshman Markaviest "Big Kat" Bryant ending the game with a sack. I look forward to heading down to the plains next week for my first game in person and seeing if these Tigers can keep it going.
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