No. 8 Auburn (4-1, 1-1 SEC) will tackle its first true road test of the season this Saturday at Mississippi State.
Head coach Joe Moorhead will be looking to get his Bulldogs back on track after back-to-back crushing losses to Kentucky and Florida.
Below is a transcript of Moorhead's Monday press conference, courtesy of Mississippi State Athletics.
From opening statement...
Moving on to Auburn, obviously led by Gus Malzahn, 49-23 in his six years there. Has won or played in the conference championship in seven of his 12 seasons as a head coach. He was a 2013 National Coach of the Year. The prolific offense is led by quarterback coach, Chip Lindsey. They play the spread and use a variety of personnel groupings and some unorthodox formations, which throughout the season, we’ve kind of seen them more and more, formation to sideline, trips and the sideline, so that's something we’re going to have to defend again. Averaging 33 points-per-game, rushing for 179 and throwing for 198. The quarterback Jarrett Stidham is a fantastic player, 963 yards passing this year. Operates the system well. A lot of people have him ranked or graded as a potential first-round prospect. Two running backs, very, very talented – Kam Martin, No. 9 and 28, JaTarvious Whitlow. He's their leading rusher. Then wide receiver, No. 23 Ryan Davis - quick, agile and a veteran senior. Certainly, a guy that we're going to have to pay close attention on the back end.
Defense is led by Kevin Steele, a long-time NFL and college coordinator, does a fantastic job. Once again, like the other teams we've seen, a mix of three and four down. They play one-high, two-high, man-zone coverages. On third down, they do a great job pressuring. They are the third-ranked scoring defense in the country, fifth in third-down conversion percentage, and seventh in turnovers. They’ve given up five touchdowns the entire season, and only one of them on the ground. Interesting to see, looking at the scoring defense rankings from this year, that six of the top 10 scoring defenses are from the SEC, and we've played two of those three already. Now, we’ll have another opportunity to go against one this week.
Special teams is led by Larry Porter, his second year. Kind of a simple scheme that allows his players to play fast. Averaging almost 30 yards on kickoff return with one touchdown. They've blocked two punts, and they have a 14.5-yard average. They have a bunch of guys there. The punter, No. 9 is extremely accurate, averaging almost 45 a kick with five over 50 and six inside the 20. The kicker has 85 percent touchbacks, 6 of 12 on field goals with a long of 53.
Moving forward to the things that we’re going to need to do to be successful. We're going to have to continue to stick together and be able to, like after the first three games, handle prosperity and after the past two, continue to handle adversity and know how to bounce back from it. We are going to continue to need great leadership from our coaches and from our players and continue to be a unit that takes accountability, starting with me pointing a thumb and not a finger. Had a great meeting with our captains and our leadership council on Sunday night, discussing the things that went wrong with the game and the things that we need to continue to do to improve. I think the guy that's not on either of those, but has kind of stepped to the forefront to become a great leader for us is Johnathan Abram. He's a guy after the game when it was very emotional and, obviously, guys weren’t pleased with the outcome, stepped in front of the team before I had the chance to talk. He talked about how the team was in the exact same position as last year after five games, being 3-2 and certainly, coming off a 31-3 loss to Georgia and a 49-10 loss to Auburn that we have the entire season in front of us. Plenty of room to improve. Like I said, being here to elevate the program from good to great. That’s something we’re going to have to do. I was proud of Johnathan for kind of stepping up and taking a great leadership role there and letting the guys know there's plenty to play for and plenty of things we need to do to improve.
We can't worry about our goals, although every single one of them are still achievable for us. We got to continue to play one game at a time, trust the process and do the little things right and know that it doesn't get any easier from here. Certainly, from our schedule here on out is going to be incredibly difficult, but this staff, team and myself, personally, welcome the challenge of playing in the SEC West. While short-term success is imminent, and we want it to occur immediately, it is going to happen. Myself, my staff and this team are also here. We’re not just building a team. We’re building a program here to make sure we have long-term, sustained success in addition to what we're going to accomplish this year. Very fired up for this opportunity. Excited to be back home. Had an electric atmosphere last week with the fans and appreciated everything they did to come out. I know we're going to see the same thing this week against Auburn in another night game under the lights.”
On facing Auburn’s and other SEC defensive fronts…
“Starting with No. 5 this week, he’s a pretty good player. I think I might have skipped over those guys, but No. 5 is a very strong guy. They have very active linebackers – No. 57. They have a bunch of long, defensive backs that can cover and haven’t given up much pass yardage. The interior, the core of our offensive line, has performed a little bit better than the edges in pass protection. Some of that is relative to the players that we’ve seen – No. 99 for Florida and No. 41 for Kentucky were very good players. Once again, I think it’s a combination of things. Mixing up some of the things we're doing, making sure we're changing the launch point. The third-down blitz, as we’ve seen. Making sure we're picking those things up. Make sure we’re doing things schematically to put our kids in position to be successful. Making sure we have the right people in there.”
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.
