Auburn’s offense keeps putting itself behind the eight ball, and the Tigers know it.
Through five games, the pattern has been hard to miss: against quality opponents, Auburn has started painfully slow, and those sluggish openings have left them with two narrow, low-scoring wins and two ugly SEC losses. Strip out the blowout against Southern Miss, and the first quarter numbers tell the story all by themselves.
Auburn has run 50 plays for 170 yards in the opening frame, a 3.4-yard average per snap. The Tigers have scored just 13 points in those first quarters, and they’ve had 13 drives that started and ended in that same stretch.
That’s not just a bad trend. It’s a warning sign.
“It goes back to the same thing: Not to sound like a broken record, but can’t start slow,” center Cole Best said after Auburn’s loss to Tennessee two Saturdays ago. “Just can’t.
And I thought maybe part of it is just settling in. Maybe part of it’s just getting warm.
But whatever it is, man, we just can’t do it in this league.”
The concern only gets sharper with Georgia up next. Auburn goes to Sanford Stadium on Saturday, and another sluggish start there could be fatal.
The Bulldogs are No. 12 nationally in rushing yards per play and No. 4 nationally in passing efficiency in first quarters, a sign that they’re not one of those Georgia teams that ease into the game. They come out ready.
Auburn, by contrast, has not scored multiple touchdowns inside Sanford Stadium since 2009. That backdrop makes the Tigers’ slow starts feel even more dangerous. This isn’t a place where teams are usually given time to find their footing.
“Getting started fast - I think that’s obviously been a problem for us,” right tackle Stanton Ramil said earlier this week. “We gotta get going, we gotta get rolling.”
Auburn has shown some fight after those poor openings, even if the results haven’t always followed. The Tigers rallied to tie Florida before halftime in one loss, and against Tennessee they actually went into the break with a lead, though that had far more to do with Tennessee’s own issues.
Still, the bigger issue hangs over everything: if Auburn had simply started better, one of those losses might have flipped. The two wins might have come easier, too. The Tigers keep climbing out of their own hole, and in a league this unforgiving, that’s no way to live.
In Other News...
Auburn Suddenly Has A Real Opening In Athens Saturday
Georgias injury report is giving Auburn a little extra life heading into Saturdays trip to Athens. The Bulldogs may be without safety KJ Bolden, while safety Tyriq Green and outside linebacker Darren Ikinnagbon have already been ruled out, and that comes on top of several offensive absences as well, including receiver Isiah Canion and multiple running backs. For an Auburn team trying to find any edge in a difficult road setting, the availability chart has suddenly become part of the conversation.
Auburn has its own issue to sort through, with linebacker Xavier Atkins unavailable because of suspension, but the overall picture still leaves the Tigers looking at a Georgia roster that is not at full strength. Those kinds of misses can matter in a game where margins are already thin, especially when a defense is shuffling pieces and an offense may have to adjust on the fly. For Auburn, the opening is there now, and the challenge is making sure it does not close quickly on Saturday. [Read more 🡒]
Auburn Fans Suddenly Have A Bigger Program Concern Than One Bad Week
Auburn has had plenty to sort through in a rough stretch, and the latest headline to land on campus has nothing to do with the basketball floor. Banana Ball announced Auburn as the site for its opening weekend, an eye-catching choice that immediately stirred up mixed reactions among fans trying to make sense of the schools latest news cycle.
All of it is arriving while the basketball program is already under a brighter spotlight after an exhibition loss to Florida State, with questions lingering about how the team is playing and where the coaching staff fits into the picture. And with Benko also in the mix in connection to Auburns business operations and NIL efforts, there is a lot more than one bad night pushing the conversation around the program right now. [Read more 🡒]
Ole Miss Fans Have Every Right To Be Furious About Week 7
Week 7 is setting up as one of those Saturdays SEC fans circle on the calendar, only to realize they may spend most of it flipping between screens. Auburns trip to Georgia is in the same kickoff window as Alabama at Tennessee and Missouri at Ole Miss, creating a crowded slate of high-profile games that will all get going at once. For viewers, its the kind of scheduling jam that turns a big day into a constant compromise.
The loudest complaints have centered on Missouri at Ole Miss, which many around the league felt deserved a bigger national stage than the SEC Network. For Auburn fans, the overlap matters too, because their game at Georgia is part of the same traffic jam of attention, and there will be no easy way to keep up with everything else happening elsewhere in the conference. It is the sort of weekend that leaves fans arguing less about matchups and more about who decided they should all be watched at the same time. [Read more 🡒]