Last Saturday night's victory against the Mississippi State Bulldogs was a great victory for the Tigers.
It showed something that has been talked about since the first game against Washington State, and that was improvement.
Auburn showed more improvement against the Bulldogs than they have all season.
The biggest area of improvement was in the passing game.
Nick Marshall finished the game going 23-for-34 for 339 yards and two interceptions. Minus the interceptions, this was by far Marshall's best game, so far, in his Auburn career, and he showed poise and resiliency in the face of adversity.
Marshall was not the only one who made improvements in the passing game. Marshall had more help from his receivers than he has had all season. A total of eight different receivers had receptions against Mississippi State, and two of those receivers had not been very productive in the first two games. However, true freshman Marcus Davis and C.J. Uzomah, both played a big role in the final game-winning drive.
Statistically the defense still has work to do after giving up 427 yards to Mississippi State, but they are still making it tough for offenses to score points. Defense kept Auburn in the game by not allowing Mississippi State to get points when they had good field position in the fourth quarter.
This is a big improvement from last year.
This tendency needs to continue as conference play gets tougher each week.
The team should feel encouraged by their performance last week it could be short lived with them hav- ing to travel to Baton Rouge this week to take on the mighty bayou Bengals of LSU.
This will be the first bump in the road for the Tigers this season.
Going into the game, they will be overmatched at just about every position. The key will be if the Auburn coaches can come up with a good game plan to keep them in the game.
An advantage for Auburn is they have had to play two competitive games so far this season against Washington State and Mississippi State. LSU has only played one against TCU.
Auburn will go into this game expecting to compete, while LSU may not. They may overlook Auburn like last year, and if they do then Auburn will have an advantage.
The key will be how does Auburn respond to adversity in this game. If they make a mistake can they bounce back and act like it never happened?
They showed they can do that last week, but it was also in front of their home crowd. It will not be as easy to bounce back in Death Valley on Saturday night.
Although I think Auburn will go into Tiger Stadium and play a competitive game I don't think they have enough of an identity to beat LSU yet.
Marshall is still missing on big-play opportunities and the defense has shown holes in defending the run.
I think Auburn will stay in this game, but I see LSU puling away to a 35-21 win late in the fourth quarter.
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