In a game like the 34-7 blowout loss at Georgia, where the Bulldogs ran for 289 yards on the Tigers, defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson said it is hard to find positives on the defensive side because the glaring mistakes overshadow any good plays made by the defense.
"It's been sort of like trying to run in quicksand," Johnson said. "We've been doing things as hard as we can do them and as well as we can do them. But every game, if there's 75 snaps, there's about 55-60 really good looking snaps, but it's those other 15 that are killing us."
Johnson said the defense played a lot more physical in the Georgia game than against the Aggies, but its mistakes are what really kept them from being able to dig themselves out of the hole.
Those mistakes create explosive plays and make it easier for opposing offenses to put up points on the scoreboard, which Texas A&M and Georgia did not have a problem doing these past two games. According to head coach Gus Malzahn, the difference between those two losses is that the defense responded to second half adjustments in the Texas A&M game but did not against the Bulldogs.
According to Johnson, the mistakes on Auburn's defense include miscommunication, overrunning the football resulting in missed tackles, busted assignments and even the continuing struggle to force pressure on the quarterback.
"It wasn't the physicality of it, or the nature of their performance, it was a lot of little mistakes [that add up]," Johnson said.
When asked if the defensive struggles are more of a coaching or talent issue, Johnson took ownership and said that it starts with coaching.
"We're going to always think it's coaching, because if you don't then you don't have any solutions," Johnson said. "When you have that issue as a coach, you always take that upon yourself. I either have to teach it better, we've got to rep it more frequently, we're doing too much, or somehow he's not understanding it."
Johnson said if it gets to the point where a player simply cannot perform, then he's got to make a change but the first most important thing is to make sure he is coaching and teaching it correctly.
According to Johnson, this week's game against Samford is a game the starters and rotators need to play well in.
"When I'm standing here next Sunday, we better be a better football team than we are today, or we're not going to be ready to play Alabama," Johnson said.
Johnson said he obviously hears criticism from outsiders, but as someone who has been coaching for 40 years, he is used to that and cannot let it affect him.
"I've got an old buddy who said one day that all Southern men think they know how to win a NASCAR race and coach football," Johnson said. "I've been coaching for 40 years, I've coached at a lot of different places and it's just part of the business. If it bothered me, I wouldn't still be coaching for 40 years. I can understand some of it. We're frustrated, players are frustrated and obviously fans are frustrated."
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