All Big Kat Bryant wanted was a sack.
With Auburn narrowly leading Washington 15-13 in the third quarter, he had a shot. Bryant came unblocked from defensive end right at Washington quarterback Jake Browning, but instead of driving Browning to the ground, Bryant broke the cardinal rule of pass rushing: Never jump at the quarterback.
All 6 feet 5, 254 pounds of the sophomore flew into the air, allowing Browning to scramble out of the pressure for a first down. The Huskies extended that drive into the fourth quarter, scoring a go-ahead field goal behind the leg of Peyton Henry.
Bryant was obviously frustrated on the sidelines.
“He said, ‘I’ve got to get one before the game is over,” Auburn defensive tackle Dontavius Russell said postgame.
Bryant exacted his revenge on the Huskies’ final possession of the contest, slamming Browning to the turf on 3rd and 13. A play later, Kevin Steele sent the house on Washington for a 10-yard sack, sealing the deal on the Tigers’ 21-16 victory over UW on Saturday in Atlanta.
“You’re never supposed to jump at the quarterback,” Russell said. “But I’m pretty sure he learned from that. We just tried to encourage him for the next time to put it behind him … Big Kat, he played a little last year, but now his role has increased. I think he’s living up to his expectations.”
“I was encouraging him and everything: ‘Yeah, we all want to get a sack,’ Auburn defensive lineman Nick Coe said. “He wanted to get a sack real bad because on one play, Big Kat was there in like a second. That’s all he talked about. He was like ‘I’m gonna get me a sack.’ And I was like ‘you’re gonna get one, bro.’”
Before that drive, Auburn’s offense took the lead with a 10-yard score from redshirt freshman back JaTarvious Whitlow, sending the orange and blue faithful inside the dome into a frenzy. But the go-ahead score left just over six minutes on the clock — plenty of time for a Chris Petersen scheme to work in some last-minute magic.
And, to Washington’s credit, Browning had been crisp against the Tigers’ violent front seven all game long. Sans an errant pass that led to an interception in the first quarter, Browning connected on several precise passes downfield and had worked his way up to 17 of 29 passing for 277 yards and a score and was downright surgical against one-on-one coverage from the Auburn defensive backs.
The Auburn defense was happy to shoulder the conceivable calamity of a do-or-die drive.
“We always want that pressure,” Russell said. “To have the game on us, and not put (the offense) in that situation … A lot of people like to put it on the defensive line, but it was the whole defense, collectively, that really had to focus up and win the game. It wasn’t just a defensive line thing.”
Steele illustrated that collective mentality by sending more than just the front four late against Browning. Safety Jeremiah Dinson kick-started the scheme by recording a sack on the first play of the fourth quarter. True freshman safety Smoke Monday, who was on the field for most the Huskies’ final drive, came crashing into the Browning on the 4th-down sack.
Despite having four sacks to its name before Washington’s final offensive play, Auburn’s defense didn’t exactly have Browning all figured out as a runner. The senior QB stood tall in the pocket throughout the top-10 showdown, in one instance sustaining a vicious hit from Bryant to complete a pass to Aaron Fuller.
Not to mention the clinic Browning had been putting on against smaller coverage numbers in the Auburn secondary. On the ground, Auburn was holding UW rushers to 3.1 yards a carry. Over the top, Browning was averaging 16.4 yards a pop. In short, sending extra men was risky.
Steele never thought twice about it.
“It’s the confidence in us, secondary, everything,” Russell said. “Whenever you blitz, you’ve got to have the guys that are able to hold up. I just appreciate (Kevin Steele) having that confidence in us to show our skillsets.”
All through the offseason, the nation heard of Auburn’s elite defensive front and how it was going to smother offensive lines in the Southeastern Conference and beyond. The Tigers never bought into the hype. They let their work do the talking.
“Coach Steele has so much confidence in us because we show so much work ethic in practice every day,” Coe said. “We don’t let up; we just keep going after the ball, all of that before we got out on the field.”
Coe added that the front seven may have appeared conservative at times because Steele was weary of Washington attempting any of Petersen’s signature trick plays. The Huskies (0-1) ran the playbook most expected with a heavy reliance on running back Myles Gaskin, but his 75 yards on 17 carries wasn’t enough to pace an offense against Steele’s unit.
The Tigers (1-0) likely won’t need an encore against Alabama State next week, but when conference play rolls around, they’ll need to duplicate their showing from their season-opening splash.
“We’ve still got to go watch film on the game and see what we did wrong and try to improve,” Russell said. “I think we can be as good as we want to be.”
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Nathan King, senior in journalism with a minor in business, is The Plainsman's sports editor.
