Auburn's defense had a lot of issues trying to stop the Florida offense in Saturday's 44-39 loss to the Gators. One of those was a lack of tackling.
According to Pro Football Focus, Auburn had 22 missed tackles against the Gators, with Da'Shawn Womack with five and Xavier Atkins with three. Atkins had a solid game with nine tackles, one sack, and two tackles for loss with a missed tackle rate of 27.3%. Womack, on the other hand, missed 71.7% of his tackles.
Auburn defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin addressed the tackling issues in Week 3 with the media on Monday.
“That was a huge part of the game," Durkin said. "We say it all of the time, explosive plays are created in two ways. It's by missed assignments and missed tackles, for the most part. You
have some plays where somebody makes a great throw and catch on a contested ball. That happens, but for the most part, when there’s an explosive play, someone wasn’t where they were supposed to be, or there was a tackle missed or several. Both of those things, we harp on those a lot, and they showed up big time in that game."
A player that took the most advantage of the bad tackling was Florida running back Jaden Baugh. He carried the ball 26 times for 162 yards and three touchdowns. He proved to be a tough player for the Tigers to take down. While he is a great player, Auburn will play other great players this season, and the fundamentals of tackling will need to improve for the Tigers to have a successful season.
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This article originally appeared on Auburn Wire: Missed tackles were a 'huge part' of Auburn's to Florida says Durkin
