The first game for Auburn's defense under new coordinator Kevin Steele was considered a success, as the Tigers limited No. 2 Clemson to 19 points and 399 total yards while consistently frustrating Deshaun Watson.
For Steele, however, the true measure of a defense is simple: it's about holding the other side to one less point.
"Obviously, we're disappointed," Steele said. "A loss is a loss in this business. There's no way to cut it any other way. Our job as a defense is to make sure we keep them to one less point than we've scored. That's what has to happen, and we're not going to accept anything less than that. That's what we challenge them with."
While Steele believes his defense did many things well in the season opener, he's not one to settle for a moral victory. "It's not something we're going to accept," Steele said. "We're going to work very, very hard to build on the positives of the game. There were some very, very good, positive things on there."
There were two aspects of the defense's performance that bothered Steele the most: third-down penalties and defending Watson's back-shoulder throws.
"We've got to eliminate third-down penalties," Steele said. "We were 65 percent successful on third down. Our goal is 70 percent, so we didn't make that. We've got to eliminate those penalties."
As far as the back-shoulder throws go, Steele said that was the one thing he would change about the Tigers performance if he could go back in time, but he also took time to praise Watson's accuracy.
As hard as he is to impress, there were three major aspects of the defense's performance that Steele came away impressed with.
"Looking back, I think the thing that we first would say is that we ask the guys to play with great effort," he said. "We demanded it in practice, they demanded it of each other. It became a habit. I think it showed up in the game."
The second positive aspect for Auburn's defense was their physicality. "We ask them to be physical. We practice that way," Steele said. "We create ways to challenge them physically, and we feel like they responded in that way."
Another major positive for Auburn was that the defense didn't overthink things, but rather took a focused, simple approach. "The last thing that we ask them to do is to make sure that we played the next play," Steele said. "Just play the next play. Every play has a life of its own. When it's over, it's over. Play the next play. We feel like they did that. So we're in the process of things, they're starting to buy in and we're starting to see the reflection of that in a game situation, which was our first time out."
Steele was also happy with the play of the secondary, which picked off Watson once and held the Clemson quarterback to a 55.8 completion percentage.
"There weren't explosive long plays or easy touchdowns over the top of people," Steele said. "We had good tackling on the catch. Every catch was contested, and we tackled it relatively quick."
The defense looks to continue its improvement against Arkansas State, which gained just 266 yards in its season-opening 31-10 loss to Toledo.
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