Defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson and offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee are confident that the Tigers can bounce back in the second half of the regular season after their lone loss to Mississippi State.
Although both coordinators gave the deserved credit to the now No. 1 team in the country, Lashlee said that the offense beat themselves with the turnovers and red zone inefficiency.
"You can't have three turnovers on the road in an environment like that against one of the better teams in the country, and you can't get the ball in the red zone six times and score two touchdowns," Lashee said.
The Mississippi State game is now in the past though and the Tigers are ready to move forward to the second half of the season.
Even though both coordinators think their players will be able to respond positively after the loss, there are plenty of improvements that need to be made before these tough last six regular season games.
For example, Johnson said the defense has played "pretty well" in the first half of the season but the main thing that they need to focus on is putting pressure on the quarterback, since they continue to struggle in that area.
"The one thing that continues to be an issue is we're not getting any pressure on the quarterback with four people," Johnson said. "Right now we're going to have to bring pressure to affect quarterbacks."
The other aspect on defense that the Tigers need to continue to improve on is the secondary play, according to Johnson.
"I think we're improving out back and we're very young [in the secondary]," Johnson said. "This open date is going to help us too and they get more and more experience getting comfortable back there."
Luckily for Auburn their second bye week of the year comes up this weekend prior to the South Carolina game at home on Oct. 25.
According to Lashlee, this bye week is a great opportunity for the team to look at where they're at and focus on where they want to be.
"When you lose, everybody looks at themselves," Lashlee said. "We're halfway through the season and it allows us to slow down and really look at ourselves and try to say, 'here's the direction we need to really try to focus on.' We can try to clean some things up and maybe refocus some things more so than we could if we didn't have the off week."
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
