Who Are We???

[keesler 5,925]

One thing we are is a team that gave up 38 points last Saturday. Our defense was not stout enough to stop MSU and make them settle for field goals after turnovers. Our offensive deficiencies are repairable and not that bad to begin with. I don't know what to say about how to fix the defense.

35, 41, 38, 28, 42, 34, 14, 38. Those are the number of points we've given up to our eight most recent toughest opponents, starting with the LSU game last year. That averages out to 34 points a game. Only one of those opponents, K-State, was held to less than 28 points.

Nobody can give up 34 points a game to their best opponents and expect to win many of those games. It's not as much fun to evaluate the defense as it is the offense, but if we're going to operate on the premise that we should fix the biggest problem first, then we need to be discussing the defense because that's where the big trouble is located.

We have let at least one team put a lot of points on us every single year in recent memory. You would have to go all the way back to the late 80's before you found an Auburn defense that throttled every opponent defensively. I'm not sure anyone is capable of doing that today with how good offenses have become. However, if we look at our overall record in all that time, we win far more than we lose. That has to be the best measuring stick to look at rather than the points.

I agree with a lot of this, Kev. But then you get games like Bama's against aTm last weekend, which looks like a counterexample.

IMO aTm gave up in that game - it was pretty obvious that they just laid down and didn't even try to play defense, Danielson even said as much during the game. aTm got man-handled on the lines.