For nearly a year, Auburn players have thought about the aftermath of last season’s game at Penn State. While the fabled ‘white out’ and raucous atmosphere stood out to the Tigers that played, there was something in particular that remained with them.
“We think we should have won the football game. That's left a sour taste in our mouth for a year now. So we've had this circled for a while,” said senior tight end John Samuel Shenker.
With the hostile sea of white becoming a more friendly shade of orange, head coach Bryan Harsin and several players addressed the home leg of the series with Penn State during media availability at the Auburn Athletics Complex on Monday.
A major key in Saturday’s game against the Nittany Lions will be the turnover battle. In last year’s bitterly-fought contest, both teams recorded a turnover in a game that featured few discernible differences.
So far this season, Penn State has an even turnover margin having forced one turnover while giving one away themselves. With a minus-four turnover margin on the year, turnovers will be key to Saturday’s game.
“We've had four turnovers and we've gotten zero. We've lost the turnover battle in each game, and that's not a good formula that's going to be sustainable,” Harsin said. “So defensively, you know, we got to build to create some takeaways, somehow, someway.”
According to senior linebacker Owen Pappoe, the team has been working hard to reverse this trend in practice.
“We just got to execute better, man. That's something we exercise every practice, to have at least three turnovers every practice. A goal for us this offseason was to have 30 turnovers in total this season,” said Pappoe. “We haven't done too good with that in these first two games, but we just keep working at it, punching the ball out at practice, working ball drills to break on balls, things like that.”
Following a physical contest against San Jose State last week, Auburn will face yet another old-school team from a conference known for its hard-nosed play in the Big Ten. Based on what Harsin has seen so far from Penn State, not much has changed from last year’s contest.
“I saw a good football team, a well-coached football team, a football team that plays hard,” Harsin said. “You know they're gonna be well coached and they're gonna come in here and be ready to play. And so it really comes back to us, we’ve got to do the same thing.”
While the Nittany Lions are expected to be a step up from what the Tigers have faced thus far, Shenker believed they will be similar to teams Auburn faces year in and year out in conference play.
"A lot of (their) guys got drafted but the overall scheme is pretty much the same, a lot of man-to-man (coverage). And that's what really the SEC is, it's all man-to-man, four down (linemen), two (linebacker) box most of the time,” said Shenker. “They're a very physical bunch, the Big 10 is pretty physical football, so that's what we expect and we're not necessarily not used to that in the SEC."
That physicality begins at the line of scrimmage, and with the Tigers facing veteran Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford, they know disrupting the passing game could go a long way in determining the outcome.
While the Tiger’s pass rush has recorded four sacks so far this season, there is still a feeling of having not done quite enough to affect the pocket. Based on Monday’s assessment from Harsin, that has had a lot to do with opponents’ game plans.
“Quarterbacks have played a factor, and you know pass rush-wise those guys getting the ball out makes it hard to get pass rush when they throw it on one step,” Harsin said. “The trade-off is on some of those plays you can break on the ball and have a chance to make a play on some of those quick passes.”
While edge rushers like Derick Hall have been frustrated with opposing signal callers’ quick draws, he and his fellow linemen have stayed committed to playing their roles to help the rest of the defense.
“The first two weeks, we saw a lot of quick game, and obviously (that’s) because there's a matchup up front; they didn't feel like they could block us so they threw the ball a lot,” said Hall. “Obviously for the defensive front it gets frustrating because you consistently rush, consistently rush and you have to just continue to do your job and be consistent in what you do every single day because teams are going to do that now.”
The Tigers will take on the Nittany Lions at 2:30 p.m. CST at Jordan-Hare Stadium. The game will be broadcast on CBS.
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Daniel Schmidt, senior in journalism, is the assistant news editor for the Auburn Plainsman.
