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Grading Auburn’s 48-18 loss to No. 22 LSU: Freeze, staff get failing mark
Updated: Oct. 15, 2023, 8:34 a.m.|Published: Oct. 15, 2023, 6:10 a.m.
8–10 minutes
Saturday night in Death Valley was not kind to Auburn as it lost 48-18 to No. 22 LSU. It was another dismal display on the road and another incomplete showing in SEC play.
Auburn dropped to 3-3 overall with the loss and is 0-3 in conference play with another difficult team looming next week against Ole Miss.
Let’s get right into this week’s report card in the aftermath of this loss:
Offense: D
Of Auburn’s three bad days from the offense in its three road games, this was certainly the best of them. But that’s a backhanded compliment, because the bar is quite low, especially coming off the Texas A&M loss in September.
Here’s what Auburn accomplished positively, first. Auburn passed for 100 yards against a Power 5 opponent this season and the first time Auburn’s done it in nearly a year. Originally, Auburn only crossed that 100-yard mark as a team combining quarterbacks Payton Thorne and Robby Ashford before Thorne got to 100 yards on his own later in the game. Second, Auburn showed balance offensively over the course of the whole game. Auburn was better, but not quite good, in terms of penalties on the road. Jeremiah Cobb had a really solid showing, especially in the second half. Head coach Hugh Freeze said after the game he thinks Cobb is going to be a great player eventually.
Okay, now here’s what went wrong.
Auburn still doesn’t have a playmaking pass catcher and that showed up on a day when Auburn tried very hard early on to establish a passing offense and failed to do so.
Auburn looked like its typical self in the first half with completely ineffective passing and poor play on third downs. Auburn went 3-12 on third downs in this game. It averaged fewer than 5 yards per game and roughly half of LSU’s yards per play total. Auburn also had the ball for about nine fewer minutes than LSU’s offense.
The quarterback rotation seemed stubborn again as Auburn tried so hard to make things work with Thorne in the first half before eventually having the hand forced to give the show to Ashford, who played well enough to start the second half and lead one full drive before Auburn went back to Thorne.
It appeared Thorne had been benched, but he hadn’t been.
When Thorne came back, Auburn eventually found some consistency when it ran a more up-tempo offense with Thorne. After a first half of virtually trying nothing new, Auburn experimented far more in the second to limited success.
Outside of Cobb in the second half, Auburn didn’t have a particularly efficient runner, quarterback or running back.
Auburn has played three games on the road and the offense has been bad in all of them. But this was, by four points, the most Auburn has scored on the road. Auburn had 293 yards of offense — the most of all three road games. Though none of those stats are exactly ones to be proud of.
It came against possibly the worst defense statistically Auburn has played all year. But Auburn’s bad offense may have given the LSU defense something to build on.
Freeze said he knows Auburn’s offense can’t score like LSU and Ole Miss can. He’s right. And he’s stuck with it.
Defense: D
Both linebacker Eugene Asante and jack linebacker Elijah McAllister spoke to reporters post-game and post said Auburn’s defensive effort was poor.
It would be easy to blame that on being out on the field for so much time because Auburn’s offense struggled so much. Or it could be blamed on the injuries.
But that lack of effort and energy started right from the start of the game. Auburn knew it couldn’t stop LSU, it could only slow down, but the defense was just being gashed for a big gain every time you could look up. At one point in the second quarter, LSU was legitimately on pace for 900 total yards in the game and instead finished the “lowly” total of 563 yards.
That is a ton of yards. And Auburn had no resistance or hardly any fight. Auburn also allowed 48 points. Both are historic totals for bad defense within the program.
LSU rushed for more than 200 yards averaging just over six yards per carry and star quarterback Jayden Daniels threw for 325 yards. It’s easy to tell why LSU’s offense is regarded so highly.
But this defense had absolutely zero answers and certainly appeared like it had given up at times.
Special Teams: Pass
The special teams took a pass/fail class in this game, and they passed. Largely it’s because the special teams’ elements required from this game were fairly limited and not consequential.
Running backs Brian Battie and Jarquez Hunter combined to return four kicks and average 23 yards per return. Auburn didn’t return LSU’s one and only punt of the game.
Oscar Chapman was called on six times and averaged just over 45 yards per punt. Solid day.
Alex McPherson made his one-field goal.
Everyone did their job. It’s a pass.
Coaching: F
Auburn had two weeks to prepare for this game. It had two weeks to study the film, two weeks to fix all the things Freeze had talked about going into the bye week and make tweaks to find solutions to key problems. The idea was to leave what Freeze called “season one” — the first five games — in the past and move forward.
And yet Auburn had the same issues it’s had over and over again.
The first drive for the offense really encapsulated it. Auburn had a bad penalty, had to burn a timeout because it couldn’t get lined up right and then a totally botched snap. Two weeks to prepare for that drive and not being able to line up correctly is a problem.
Then Auburn continued to pass the ball in the first half heavily in an attempt to get a passing offense that has been bad all season some momentum against a bad secondary. It didn’t work. Auburn’s offense was worse than LSU’s poorly-ranked defense. But Auburn kept trying to pass anyway until it finally began to find some balance. Auburn was already down by two scores at that point.
Auburn tried to find an identity over the bye week, and it still hasn’t found one. It reverted back to what appeared some haphazard quarterback rotation, especially with regard to giving Ashford a second-half start because he played well in the first half just to roll right back away from him on the next drive. Thorne was successful in the second half at times, but that came when Auburn used a more up-tempo offense which Freeze said Auburn had discussed but hadn’t planned to use. And he is questioning if maybe he should use it more going forward.
Losing to LSU is not the issue. Auburn was expected to lose the game and doing so by such a margin was certainly not the goal, but the margin of the loss feels less notable than the recurrence of issues that had been discussed and Auburn had time to fix. All the while doing this against a defense that had been ranked in the bottom 10 nationally for total defense.
And, again, defensively, Auburn had a lack of effort.
The team looked unprepared. The first half play of the offense appeared stubborn. This was a failure.
Overall: D
Losing 48-18 is not a good look on the season schedule. But 3-3 is where reasonable expectations would have had Auburn to this point in the season. Auburn has won every game it was supposed to win and lost every game it was supposed to lose. It’s met expectations.
But this performance both on and off the field raised a lot of questions about what Auburn will be able to do when it inevitably will be favored to win against an SEC team. Auburn will likely be expected by the oddsmakers to beat Vanderbilt and Mississippi State.
But while Freeze knows his offense isn’t good enough to score with the likes of LSU or Ole Miss, Auburn also hasn’t proven it has the capability to compete with the bottom of the SEC.
This was Auburn’s first all-around bad performance on both sides of the ball this season. That was furthered by the failing coaching grade.
Auburn thought it had something to build on after Georgia. It is now back to searching.
Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at mcohen@al.com
