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Shivers Excited About Opportunity


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ByJason Caldwell

3-4 minutes

Pat Dye (Photo: Inside the Auburn Tigers/AUTigers.com)

I enjoyed watching the way the Tigers played in their win last Saturday at Ole Miss. I have been in the same place Coach Malzahn was in taking a football team on the road that had been struggling.

 

The head coach has to be the one to get the turn-around started and give his team the confidence it needs. Whatever Coach Malzahn did it worked. His guys played well and did it with plenty of passion. He deserves all of the credit in the world for getting his coaches ready to coach and his players ready to play. It was obvious that team was ready to win a football game on Saturday.

There were some things the Tigers did well on both offense and defense in Oxford that they have been consistent with throughout the year. However, one thing that really stood out to me as an improvement was the effort from the offensive line. There were players sprinting downfield to block for JaTarvious Whitlow on his long runs. It was an entirely different feeling watching them play against Ole Miss.

During the game it was obvious that Whitlow has become “the guy” as the primary ball carrier, but it was also obvious that he is too valuable and too vulnerable to keep pounding and pounding him into the defense with him being beat-up to start with going into that game. I thought the Tigers did a good job of substituting the little freshman into the game, Shaun Shivers, and getting production out of him.

If Auburn’s offensive line can take another step in the next two weeks and gain a little confidence from what happened in Mississippi, that will allow the Tigers to take advantage of their weapons at the skill positions. I think the offensive line is going to need to improve for the Tigers to win their next game vs. Texas A&M.

If Jarrett Stidham is given time he can get the football to a bunch of talented receivers. He was on target with some beautiful passes vs. the Rebels. Darius Slayton can get open. Seth Williams can get open. Ryan Davis can get open. Anthony Schwartz will get open and he is a major threat every time he touches the ball.

With a clean pocket Stidham is very accurate. When he is under pressure he isn’t as good because he has to make a decision on whether or not to throw a pass into a tight window, throw the ball away or tuck it and try to run for yardage.

Defensively, Auburn’s first team group didn’t give up a touchdown vs. the Rebels, which is pretty good against an offense that was averaging 42 points per game. I know that Ole Miss was supposed to have one of the better offensive lines the Tigers will face this season, but it was obvious the defensive front had a big impact on the Rebels’ quarterback.

If you put it all together it was a good day for the Auburn football Tigers in Oxford, Mississippi. I feel good about this team moving forward. I am not expecting any miracles, but it looks like this bunch will fight for 60 minutes to win a football game and that is all I can ask for as a former coach and a fan.

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Nice little piece. Offensive line definitely has to keep improving. It all starts up front. Once they come along it'll do nothing but help both Stidham and our RBs.

But.. I'm not holding my breath. A "decent" game against Ole Miss might help with some confidence but they still have a lot of work to do.

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46 minutes ago, Linayus said:

Nice little piece. Offensive line definitely has to keep improving. It all starts up front. Once they come along it'll do nothing but help both Stidham and our RBs.

But.. I'm not holding my breath. A "decent" game against Ole Miss might help with some confidence but they still have a lot of work to do.

Unfortunately, this improvement should have been going on from the 1st game to be prepared for the LSU, MSU, UT losses. It shouldn't have come after game 7 to start the improvement...

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