The tenth-ranked Tigers played their homecoming game against Southern Miss, and most were expecting the Tigers to coast to an easy win.
Instead, Auburn played a messy game that had a lengthy weather delay in the middle, and Auburn’s offensive inconsistency reached new heights.
Auburn’s banged-up offensive line was often outmatched. On this play, Auburn quarterback Jarrett Stidham makes a perfect throw and receiver Seth Williams goes up and high-points the ball for an amazing catch. While the result of the play is positive, Stidham still takes a massive hit right after he releases the ball.
Auburn keeps running back JaTarvious Whitlow and fullback Chandler Cox in the backfield to help block. Southern Miss blitzes one linebacker, making five pass rushers and seven pass blockers. The left side of the line does a fine job. The right side of the line seems thoroughly unprepared for dealing with the slightly delayed blitz Southern Miss uses.
The play begins with a double-team by right guard Mike Horton and right tackle Jack Driscoll on the defensive tackle, with Whitlow and Cox blocking the defensive end. This is fine by itself, but the design could be more effective if Driscoll chipped the defensive end before doubling the defensive tackle.
Instead, the defensive end runs untouched and builds up a head of steam, causing Cox to miss and Whitlow to get ran over. It is when Southern Miss linebacker comes in that the play really falls apart. Driscoll attempts to leave the double team in order to block the incoming blitzer, but is not able to do so in time.
Since Whitlow was run over due to the play design, Cox is no longer available to help with any blitz pick up. This results in the linebacker having a near-free lane at the quarterback. To top it all off, Horton then stops blocking the defensive tackle.
It appears that he thinks he is passing the defensive tackle off to another blocker, presumably Driscoll, but there is nobody there to pass him off to. The result is three Southern Miss linemen hitting Stidham at basically the same time. While the result of the play was a positive one; against a team with faster and stronger defensive linemen, it most likely would not be.
This is another positive play that probably should have been a negative play. The play design is odd. It appears to be a pass play with mid- to long-range options. Normally that is fine, but Stidham only performs a three-step drop.
The point behind a three-step drop is to make your first read as soon as you come out of it, throwing the ball if they’re open. However, when Stidham comes out of his three-step drop, the reads he is trying to make have not even completed their routes and are not ready for the ball.
There is one crossing route across the middle, and the running back leaks out to be a dump off, but Stidham does not appear to look at them. Since the timing of the routes and Stidham coming out of his drop back are off, Stidham stands in the pocket for a second, clearly being uncomfortable, before rolling out. He ends up making a great throw and hitting an open man, but why is the play designed so that the timing is off?
There may have been a miscommunication, and either the receivers ran the wrong routes or Stidham performed the wrong drop-back, but this just shows a lack of preparation on the team's part.
There were bright spots for the Auburn offense, and the Tigers need to build from them.
On this play, Auburn sees that Southern Miss has stacked two linebackers on the edge of the line, both showing rush. To counter this, Auburn lines up Cox on that side. When the play starts, Auburn tight end/offensive linemen Tucker Brown chips one defender and then commits to blocking the other. Cox sees this and is able to pick up the other rusher.
The rest of the line also handles their responsibilities and Stidham has a clean pocket to make the throw. Auburn receiver Darius Slayton makes a great catch to get Auburn in to the red zone.
On this red-zone play, Auburn fakes the play-action. However, instead of the running back then being forgotten about, the play is designed to have the running back serve as a blocker right after the play action. This play design works as the initial play-action will help stall the linebackers of the defense, and the running back going and blocking helps cancel out any defenders who were not fooled.
This all results in Cox being wide open for an easy touchdown.
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