Tigers focus on Iron Bowl

Auburn’s players and coaches will have plenty of time to think about last Saturday’s 45-20 loss at Georgia.
The Tigers have two weeks of practice before their next game, the Nov. 24 Iron Bowl at Jordan-Hare Stadium. But head coach Tommy Tuberville vows the Tigers will spend that time looking forward, not backward.
“We won’t talk anything about the previous 11 games,” Tuberville said. “We talk to them all year long about Alabama and the importance of it.”
Apparently, that’s in contrast to the Southeast’s oldest rivalry. In the days leading up to the Georgia game, Tuberville repeatedly talked about the game’s importance for every Auburn player and fan.
After the loss, the coach had a different take, calling the Georgia game “just another ballgame.”
Regardless of its importance, the Georgia game is behind the Tigers now. But AU will spend the next two weeks working on the lessons it learned in the blowout, Georgia’s most lopsided win against AU since 1976.
Auburn needs to make plenty of corrections in the next two weeks to be prepared for the Tide — and, Tuberville hopes, ease the sting of the Georgia loss.
“This one coming up isn’t just another ballgame,” Tuberville said. “This is the one that counts for Auburn.”
The offense and defense each have huge question marks based on their performance against UGA. Almost all of those questions are rooted in Auburn’s second-half collapse.
Up to the point when AU took a 20-17 lead in the third quarter, the game was more or less typical of the season: Auburn overcame early struggles, established the run and made a few plays in the passing game, while the defense bounced back after allowing a few early big plays.
But after Wes Byrum’s field goal put Auburn ahead 20-17 with 6:47 left in the third, the game changed.
Georgia scored touchdowns on its next four possessions, racking up 256 yards of offense and embarrassing AU’s defense with deep pass plays and long runs.
Meanwhile, Auburn’s offense floundered, totaling minus-7 yards during that stretch.
The defense has gotten most of the scrutiny: After all, AU has relied on its defense all season to carry an often inconsistent offense.
But Georgia’s onslaught revealed a major flaw in Auburn’s offense, namely that it just isn’t designed for big comebacks. Saturday, the Tigers stuck to their typical offense, heavy on runs and play-action passes and short on deep shots downfield.
It wasn’t nearly enough to stay within striking range of the big-play Bulldogs.
“We’ve won on defense most of the year, most of the last few years, and offensively we’ve done just enough to get by,” Tuberville said. “When our defense collapsed, we just didn’t make anything happen and things started snowballing on us.”
The lack of a big-play dimension is nothing new. In five games against opponents that currently have winning records, Auburn’s offense has averaged 18.3 points and 290 yards per game.
The last time Auburn topped 200 yards passing against a Southeastern Conference team was Sept. 29 at Florida.
Still, Tuberville said the offense is improving.
“We’ve gotten better. … I thought we looked like a pretty good offense at times,” he said.
“This is big-time college football. You’ve got to get better. We’ve gotten better in some areas, and in some areas we haven’t.”

Iron Bowl set for late kickoff
ESPN will televise the Nov. 24 Iron Bowl, the network announced Monday. The game will begin at 7 p.m.
It’s the first nighttime Iron Bowl since 2003, when Alabama and Auburn kicked off at 6:45.
Auburn has played four games on ESPN this season and is 3-1 on the network. ESPN televised AU’s wins against Kansas State, Florida and Arkansas and the Tigers’ loss at LSU.

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