New Offense, Great Defense Equals Victory For Auburn Tigers

Nine days. That's all it took.

Nine days for new offensive coordinator Tony Franklin to install the offense of the future for the Auburn Tigers. The scary part about it—they installed all of it.

"We put everything in,'' said Franklin. "You can change about 8,000 things with simple verbiage. We didn't make it too difficult, but we put it all in.''

The Tigers, averaging just over 300 yards per game (not good enough to even break into the top 100 offenses in the nation this past season), threw up an amazing 423 yards on one of the nations premiere defenses.

Auburn fans also got a look into the future as Kodi Burns took over in most of the second half, set up mostly by Brandon Cox's cool hand in the overtime session. Cox, playing his final game as an Auburn Tiger, was only caught once in a bad throw and it proved costly as Clemson took a Cox interception in for a touchdown.

However, Cox turned the game around late in the game as Auburn pushed to get the game winning score late in the fourth quarter. On a third down and five, Franklin called for a QB draw, except Cox would be running it. The play resulted in a seven-yard gain in the most brilliant call of the night.

The Auburn defense was also stellar, except for one missed tackle that turned into an 83 yard TD run for ACC track star CJ Spiller. The Tigers limited the ACC's most efficient offense to just 293 yards total offense, just 104 passing. Clemson QB Cullen Harper began forcing throws in the third quarter and never really looked comfortable as he was pressured all night long by defensive MVP Pat Sims among others.

Looking ahead to next season, the Tigers will open at home with Louisiana-Monroe before going on the road to Morgantown, WV to take on West Virginia. Also in the month of September comes a road trip to Mississippi State and home dates with LSU and Tennessee.

It will be a huge month for the Tigers, but if the offense can do enough to beat a very good Clemson team in nine days, imagine what nine months of work can do.