The Ole Miss Rebels have the one thing the ailing Auburn Tigers don't need to see as they attempt to rectify the issues that have helped plummet Auburn from an exhilarating 5-0 start to the confounding 5-3 record the team sports today: a strong defense.
On second thought make that a defense of any kind.
Over the last three weeks Auburn's offense has regressed. It flopped on the road at Arkansas, failed to generate any pop against a nondescript Kentucky defense and then went into a shell at LSU.
In the last eight quarters of football, Auburn has scored two offensive touchdowns and one of those was a meaningless garbage-time score in the waning seconds against LSU.
The Ole Miss defense the Tigers will face on Saturday is better than Kentucky's. It's better than LSU's. It's better than Arkansas'.
That's bad news for an offense that's lost its identity.
How far gone is the Auburn offense? It was pictured on milk cartons last week.
The Tiger defense, porous from the outset in 2009, continues to leak profusely.
Auburn's defense made struggling LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson look like a Heisman contender. By the time last season's media darling Jevan Snead of Ole Miss is through Saturday he'll be back in the Heisman conversation, too.
Auburn doesn't have the defense to shut down an improving Ole Miss offense. If the last three weeks are any indication, the Tigers don't have the offensive chutzpah to overpower the Rebel defense.
If the Tiger offense can yank its head out of its collective, well, you know what, then Auburn will have a puncher's chance against Ole Miss. That chance will still rest largely on the defense being able to unnerve Snead and force him into mistakes.
Based on prior experience, neither is likely.
Snead will have a career day picking apart the Auburn defense as it lays back in near prevent mode. He'll have enough time in the pocket to send a few Tweets, check his Facebook status, grill some hamburger,s and wait for the children of his receivers to grow up, graduate from high school, get recruited, get signed, and suit up for the Rebels.
Meanwhile the Auburn offense will complete nearly 70 percent of its passes if you count balls that are launched into the sidelines, balls that bounce eight feet in front of receivers, balls that sail into wide expanses of grass where no human is with in 20 yards and balls that are thrown to the opposition as completions.
Auburn's defensive issues are not new. They have been evident since the first game of the season if anyone had taken the time to look.
The Tigers' offensive decline is a fairly recent phenomenon.
The reasons behind Auburn's offensive implosion over the last three games have been hashed and rehashed ad nauseum.
Thousands of hours and gallons of virtual ink have been wasted as observers and analysts attempted to make sense of the complete reversal in offensive effectiveness.
How is it possible for the same team that abused a stout Tennessee defense for more than 400 yards to only manage 42 in the first half against a less accomplished LSU stopping unit?
The problem is that when you start trying to point fingers at the possible causes, you run out of hands pretty quickly.
Ineffective quarterback play? Check.
Tiger signal caller Chris Todd could hardly have played worse in the last three games. A blind marsupial would have been just as effective.
He's resurrected the hesitant, unsure mistake-prone Todd from 2008 and left the confident, accurate and effective Todd that emerged through five games in 2009 behind.
Not only has he failed to make the throws he routinely made over the first five weeks, but his decision-making has been questionable at best. He's contributed to fumbles and delay of game penalties. He's gone from being calm under pressure to panicking at the first sign of a rush.
There is rampant speculation that Todd re-injured his rehabilitated shoulder, but there has been no official or unofficial confirmation that he is, in fact, injured.
If Todd is ailing physically and unable to perform, he shouldn't be on the field. It's difficult to believe that backup Neil Caudle could perform any worse than Todd has to this point.
Fatigue? Check.
Auburn plays eleven straight weeks without a break. The fatigue justification loses some steam when you consider that over the last three weeks Auburn played better in the second half than it did the first.
Injury? Check.
In addition to the widely-rumored injury to Todd's throwing shoulder tailback Onterrio McCalebb tweaked an ankle in a poorly designed, poorly executed and poorly timed fake punt attempt.
We're going to send you the most entertaining Auburn Football articles, videos, and podcasts from around the web.
10 Comments
Loading more comments...
This comment and all replies have been deleted This comment has been deleted Undo delete