Auburn 1st 2015 Team to Show It's a Playoff Pretender

There's an old cliche in football that a team improves most between Weeks 1 and 2 of the season.

That's bad news for Auburn, because it didn't improve at all during its second game—a 27-20 overtime win over FCS Jacksonville State on Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

The same problems Auburn found out about itself in the 31-24 season-opening win over Louisville were present in the home opener on the Plains. Those issues nearly cost the No. 6 Tigers a loss and surely will knock them way down the Top 25 rankings—if they're even included at all.

As head coach Gus Malzahn noted, per James Crepea of AL.com, Auburn has a perfect sense of self now.

That's a bad thing.

Auburn is a team that has a quarterback in Jeremy Johnson who throws into coverage far too much, especially when he comes off his primary receiver and looks to option Nos. 2 and 3. He finished the afternoon 21-of-32 for 236 yards and two touchdowns. But his incompletions were awful, and the two interceptions he tossed were two of the worst decisions a quarterback can make.

Did Malzahn think about going to backup quarterback Sean White? No, according to Crepea:

Whether that was the right call during the game is up for debate, but there's no doubt it's the right call heading into the road trip to Baton Rouge next Saturday.

How much of a chance would White stand if he took his first career snaps in Death Valley in front of all of those raucous LSU fans?

Not much, especially since Johnson has been receiving first-team snaps since the conclusion of spring practice. If Malzahn is going to make a change, his best option is to wait until Auburn faces San Jose State on Oct. 3.

Michael Chang/Getty Images

Defensively, Gamecock quarterback Eli Jenkins gashed the Tigers on the zone read. And they let him throw for 277 yards and a score after he threw for just 113 last week in a win over Chattanooga. 

Sure, the absence of starting safety Tray Matthews due to a shoulder injury and early ejection of starting nickel Blake Countess on a targeting call didn't help matters, and neither did the absence of starting "Buck" linebacker Carl Lawson.

But these Tigers looked exactly like they did last year at the back end of the defense. They weren't physical, didn't get their heads turned around when the ball was in the air and routinely gave up passing plays in chunks.

Michael Chang/Getty Images

Auburn is a playoff pretender, plain and simple.

The defense should get better when some of its stars return to 100 percent, and that could happen as early as next week.

That won't be enough, though.

The beauty of the marriage between Malzahn and defensive coordinator Will Muschamp existed—yes, past tense—because Muschamp was supposed to be able to at least get Auburn's defense back on a competitive level with the rest of the SEC and provide a nice margin for error for Malzahn's typically potent offense.

The ingredients to that recipe simply aren't there right now.

Johnson is a liability, not a strength. The defense is banged up and can't stop even the most obvious zone-read plays when everybody knows what's coming. The secondary is susceptible to quarterbacks who aren't known as downfield threats.

That's not going to cut it in the push for the College Football Playoff, especially with a road trip to LSU and a home tilt with Mississippi State looming.

Until further notice, Auburn is the nation's first to prove that it's a playoff pretender.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Recruiting information is courtesy of 247Sports. Statistics are courtesy of CFBstats.com.

Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and national college football video analyst for Bleacher Report, as well as a host on Bleacher Report Radio on SiriusXM 83. Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.