Arkansas dispatched Auburn on the road on Saturday, beating the Tigers for the first time since 2015 and the first time in Auburn since 2012. There were a lot of encouraging signs.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Let’s recap the game by talking about what we saw.
The Good
A healthy defense. The defense wasn’t great, as we’ll see in the advanced stats below. But it was good enough. As we expected, Barry Odom’s unit mostly played 4-2-5 with a lot of man, which is what Odom wants to do long-term. That’s been torched plenty of times before, but with guys like Myles Slusher and Jayden Johnson back in the lineup, the secondary held up. The extra defensive lineman helped the Hogs control the run, get consistent pressure, and be just good enough in coverage. The man coverage was left vulnerable to scrambles by Auburn’s running quarterback, but that’s basically all Auburn was able to do before garbage time.
Rocket Sanders. Last two games for Rocket: 31 carries, 346 yards. Kendal Briles has come out of the gate going pass-heavy on early downs to force the safeties back, and it’s opening up huge opportunities for the run game. The Hogs’ offense is humming on a high gear right now.
The Bad
Penalties. This was the only knock against the offense, as the Hogs were bogged down with a mix of penalties that cost them several good plays.
The Ugly
The situation at Auburn. Bryan Harsin was snippy with reporters after the game. This charade is getting tiresome. Auburn really needs to let this guy go. There’s zero reason for Auburn to be this bad at football.
Advanced Stats
Confused by any of the advanced stats you see here? Be sure to check out the glossary.
We have completely overhauled our stat presentation, starting with this post!
Recaps now start with a look at total EPA accumulated:
Auburn racked up a lot of points in garbage time to make this game appear closer than it actually was. Ultimately, penalties cost the Hogs, but the offense looked fantastic.
Here’s the story of the game: both teams gained about the same amount of available yards (50%… Arkansas’ final kneeldown skews this number a bit) and both teams had seven drives get inside the opponent 40. Arkansas cashed in all seven for its 41 points (five touchdowns and two field goals), while the Tigers had three touchdowns, two field goals, and two failures. Auburn’s last two touchdowns helped make that 3.9 points per scoring opportunity figure just a little less bad.
So why did Auburn struggle to finish drives? Check out the only red number below:
Auburn did well overall, but the Tigers spent too much of the game behind the chains, which gave the Hogs enough chances to get stops.
Arkansas’ offense did everything right. The Hogs both ran and passed well, were fairly efficient, created a ton of big plays, stayed on schedule, and got back on schedule when knocked off. Penalties are the only complaint.
Arkansas did a great job against the run, allowing little in the designed run game outside of Tank Bigsby’s 41-yard touchdown run. Take out that one play, and about two-thirds of Auburn’s rushing yards was just Ashford scrambling. The Hogs played a lot of man, and Ashford is a runner, so that makes sense. Auburn’s two running backs combined for 17 carries for 81 yards, so the 41-yarder made up about half of their rushing total.
The Hogs got a huge 76-yard run from Rocket Sanders but were pretty efficient overall beyond that one play. Auburn’s run defense is obviously pretty bad, but it was a good day for the offensive line.
Auburn picked up a ton of yards in garbage time, as Robby Ashford wasn’t great outside of a couple good throws at the end of the first half. The Hogs had a solid 17% explosive play rate (for passes, that’s plays that gain 20+ yards) which served to back up the safeties in the first half so the run game could take over in the second.
Sanders was the all-purpose yards leader, with his 16 touches (all rushes) generating 171 yards and +7.2 EPA. Ten of his 16 rushes were successful. Jefferson was the all-purpose EPA leader, with his seven non-sack rushes generating 63 yards and two touchdowns.
Auburn tried to force-feed Bigsby, but outside of his touchdown, he did nothing. His 17 intended touches (11 carries and six passing targets) created 100 yards, but only five of them were successful. Auburn’s actual run game success was mostly due to Ashford scrambling, as you can see here.
Up Next
Liberty is in the top-25, coming in at 23rd. The Flames are a solid team, especially on defense, but they lack SEC-caliber athletes at several positions. Still, it will be an interesting matchup that the Hogs cannot overlook.
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