The Auburn Tigers picked up a key win last Saturday, defeating Baylor, 17-16, in thrilling fashion.
After being on the losing end of one-score games multiple times last season, it was refreshing to see the Tigers' fate change. Still, there are plenty of things that head coach Alex Golesh and his team need to clean up before it enters a brutal SEC schedule later this month. The offense's knack for turning the football over and its lack of explosive plays are key reasons Auburn is on the low end of this week's "SEC vibes" rankings by The Athletic.
Seth Emerson of The Athletic has debuted his first "SEC Vibes" rankings after a perfect Week 1 of the season and has placed Auburn at No. 9, citing the lack of flashiness from the Tigers' offense in their
win over Baylor.
"The Tigers offense didn’t look too much better with Alex Golesh, Byrum Brown and company. Then again, does everyone remember how these close games went during the Hugh Freeze era?," writes Emerson.
Sure, Auburn's offense did not produce the numbers and points that fans were expecting on Saturday, but the Tigers showed signs of changing their game plan in the 4th quarter, which included more designed runs for quarterback Byrum Brown, including a carry that resulted in Auburn's game-winning touchdown.
Golesh will undoubtedly find the areas through film that need to improve this week, and hopes to see those changes come to life on Saturday against Southern Miss.
“Obviously, offensively, three turnovers, man. Really the entire first half, we took turns of who was going to jack it up worse, and it was like one guy at a time," Golesh said Monday. "I don’t know that I would take back just a ton of what we felt like we could do, but in terms of execution, it was really, really poor. It was somebody different, something different on what felt like, certainly, play to play. That’s on us as coaches more than anything else to put ourselves in positions to be successful. I thought we settled in. Slowly but surely, the fourth quarter, it looked like what you wanted it to look like."
The LSU Tigers hold the No. 1 spot in this week's SEC vibes rankings following the Tigers' 51-10 win over Clemson in Lane Kiffin's debut, while Vanderbilt holds the lowest vibes after true freshman, five-star quarterback Jared Curtis did not win the starting job for the Commodores to begin the season.
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This article originally appeared on Auburn Wire: Sluggish offensive performance gives Auburn low 'SEC vibes'
