AU displays Heart of a Champion

[DKW 86 7,440]

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AU displays heart of a champion

Sunday, October 15, 2006

AUBURN -- This is why we love college football.

If you weren't entertained by Auburn's 27-17 win over No. 2 Florida Saturday night ... well, there's always the baseball playoffs. Because this is about as good as college football gets.

There will be time later to critique and analyze coaching decisions and player performances -- and there is certainly plenty of second-guessing to go around in a game as competitive as Saturday night's main event featuring two teams that have now had their legitimate national championship hopes dashed at Jordan-Hare Stadium in consecutive weeks.

But to compare Auburn-Florida to Auburn-Arkansas is missing the point. In fact, the best way to describe how good this atmosphere was is by comparing it to Jordan-Hare Stadium just one week earlier. If the Auburn players, coaches and even fans had responded this way a week ago, the Tigers would have entered the showdown against the Gators undefeated and exited it as the favorite to face Ohio State in the national championship game.

As it is, Auburn will have to settle for being the nearest chaser to Arkansas in the SEC West and hope for some help to earn a possible rematch with Florida in the SEC Championship Game.

"Hopefully we earned a little respect back after last week," said Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville, whose team gave a performance that was as energized as the previous week's was lackluster. "It's probably good that we played a game as high-profile as this one right after that game last week."

The reason the Tigers were able to rally in the second half is because they somehow found a way to hang around in the first half. Auburn trailed only 17-11 at the half despite never slowing down the Gators' two-headed-monster of an offense. The Leakbow attack was so effective in the first half that Auburn had just one goal at halftime -- force Florida into second-down plays.

Second and long, second and short, second and medium -- it didn't matter. Just any second down. The Tigers couldn't even do that for the first two quarters.

Florida ran 18 offensive plays in the first half. Fourteen of those snaps were run on first down. There were only three second-down plays and one third-down snap.

Yet Auburn was still in position to turn a couple of second-half special teams plays and defensive stops into game-winning plays.

The Tigers scored 27 points without the offense ever reaching the end zone. The Tigers scored 19 on special teams -- including a career-best-tying four field goals from John Vaughn -- and eight on defense.

Florida had four players with runs of more than 15 yards, including two who averaged more than 13 yards a carry.

But these statistics don't take away from Auburn's win, they enhance it.

The only way to explain how Auburn could struggle in so many areas and still win a game against one of the country's best teams is that the Tigers again found the heart of a champion.

[Dyebama 2]

A Men....The Heart of a Champion WDE!!!!

[Raven_tiger 5]

If the Auburn players, coaches and even fans had responded this way a week ago, the Tigers would have entered the showdown against the Gators undefeated and exited it as the favorite to face Ohio State in the national championship game.

What could have been...

Great win yesterday, but how many times can we count on our defense and special teams to put 19 points on the board.We have (and have been having) redzone scoring issues and the defense gave up 6.1 yds per rush, it was well over 10 yds/rush @ halftime.

Hopefully Tubby will build on the win (we play a few more games this year), it's time to rest injured players and prep for UGA and the bummers.

WDE

[AUloggerhead 2,253]

I am happy the defense finally scored. AU has been lacking that component for years. I hope this is a sign of more defensive scores in future games. WDE