In Auburn's 17-16 win over Baylor in the Aflac Kickoff Game, Eric Winters secured a win for the Tigers, unlike what the program has been used to of late. That game was not pretty, but the Alex Golesh era got started by winning a close game. Under former head coach Hugh Freeze, the Tigers were 2-13 in one-score games. The 1-0 start shows at least that this Auburn team can finish games.
According to Golesh, this team showed on Saturday that they are mentally tough.
"Are we a mentally tough football team? I would tell you we are today. I thought they showed a lot of grit. I thought they never, never put their head down," said Golesh. "I talked about this next-play mentality on both sides of the ball. I thought they did that. I never saw like, oh,
man -- and there was plenty of opportunity offensively for sure to be like, come on, or defensively if like, man, we keep fourth down stop, fourth down, stop, turnover, like where are the points? Never saw it. Didn't see it in the locker room. So I would tell you we took a giant step in terms of our identity. If we are going to stay connected and we're going to go finish football games in the fourth quarter and that's our identity, I'll take it, but I thought it was a step."
While they did take a forward step as a program by showing they can win in the clutch, this team has a lot to work on after one game.
Byrum Brown cannot continue to give the opposing offense the ball back as he did versus Baylor with three interceptions. Two of those throws were bad decisions attempting to make a play down the field. The second one before halftime was a tipped pass, but better decision-making will be a must when the Tigers reach SEC play. Overall, Brown had decent numbers outside of the interceptions, going 26 of 35 for 259 yards. Brown did gain some redemption by scoring the game-winning touchdown on an 11-yard run to go up 17-10 with 3:21 remaining in the game.
In the first half, Auburn seemed dedicated to throwing the football instead of establishing the run game. In the second half, they did show some more patience and committed to the run game. As a team, they rushed for 130 yards, with Jeremiah Cobb leading the way with 53 yards and one touchdown. The offensive line is a question mark with this team once again when it pertains to pass blocking. Auburn gave up five sacks and 11 tackles for loss.
While the defense gave 436 yards to Baylor, they made stops when they needed to prevent the Bears from scoring points. Baylor had chances in the first half to score, but the Tigers forced two turnovers and a missed field goal shut down those opportunities. The hero of the game, Winters, had a big game with 11 tackles, two tackles for loss, and had a forced fumble.
"We gave him the game ball, career high in tackles and finishing the way he finished, a little bit -- inside that locker room, a little bit ironic because we literally just talked about it last night. I said you're going to make a play that makes a difference in this game. I just sense it. He certainly did. Pretty special for a young cat," said Golesh.
All-American linebacker Xavier Atkins made his presence felt early with a sack on Baylor quarterback D.J. Lagway on the first possession of the game. He also added two tackles for loss.
There are a lot of things that need to be cleaned up for this Auburn team to be successful this season, but the important part is that they start the season at 1-0. Next week will be the home opener versus Southern Miss. They will need to get better before the following week's game when they host the Florida Gators in the SEC opener.
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This article originally appeared on Auburn Wire: Jordan's Review: It wasn't pretty, but Alex Golesh is 1-0 at Auburn
