Gus Malzahn knows the season hasn’t started how he, the team or anyone else has wanted.
“The last two losses have probably hurt me worse than any of the others,” Malzahn said. “I fully understand our fan base is disappointed, and they should be. The bottom line is we've got to coach our players better, and that starts with me. The fact is, we're close. As a matter of fact, we're real close to being a good team and we're going to get this thing turned around.”
He accepted the blame for a struggling offense, saying “we’ve got to coach them better, and that starts with me.”
The Tigers are 94th in the country in passing and 84th in scoring offense after scoring 13 and 16 points in games that weren’t against Arkansas State. Auburn hasn’t topped 16 points against a Power 5 team in four games, and the Tigers are mired in the midst of a six-game home losing streak to SEC opponents.
Malzahn said he and the rest of the coaching staff weren’t quick enough to make adjustments against Texas A&M, which Malzahn said threw something new at Auburn that they hadn’t seen before.
Mesh charging, which is when a defensive end attacks the exchange point between a quarterback and running back, disrupted Auburn’s offensive gameplan early, and Malzahn acknowledged he didn’t make the necessary adjustments.
“We've just got to make better adjustments,” Malzahn said. “Defensive guys, when something works, they're all going to do it. I don't care if you're a guy that's been in the league 20 years and you've never done it. That's just the way it works. Just charging the mesh with the quarterback and the running back. If you take out the four negative plays, you feel a little bit better about the performance. And we would have had a better likelihood of scoring points.”
The team may have dropped a pair of frustrating games, but they haven’t affected the team’s chemistry. Malzahn shouldered the blame himself, and assured that the players understand how near they are to winning games.
“We've got an extremely close group,” Malzahn said. “We have great leadership, which helps with that. There'll be no friction within this team. The big thing is our players are playing their guts out. They're playing hard. We've got to coach them better and that starts with me, and that's what's going to get done. We're close.
“When you really look at everything, we've played two very good teams, had opportunities. We've got to take that next step. We're going to get this thing turned around. There's no doubt in my mind, and we're going to get this thing going.”
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