challenge of facing a hot team on the road

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Dye-Gest Column: AU's challenge of facing a hot team on the road

ByMark Murphy

4-5 minutes

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Editor’s Note: Pat Dye, a College Football Hall of Fame member and former Auburn athletic director and head coach, writes a weekly column for Inside the Auburn Tigers.

LSU is having a magical football season and it is going to take a special effort for Auburn to win this week at Baton Rouge. Not only has no opponent LSU has faced this year stopped that team’s passing game, nobody has even managed to slow the group led by senior quarterback Joe Burrow and an impressive bunch of receivers.

From what I have seen it is fair to say that LSU is playing as well as any team in the country at this stage of the season. That doesn’t mean Coach Ed Orgeron’s team can’t be beat by Auburn or some other team left on LSU’s schedule, but it isn’t going to be easy.

That assignment will be nearly impossible if the opponent doesn’t get a strong pass rush on Burrow. If he is allowed to stand in the pocket with little or no pressure, he will pick apart a secondary with his accuracy.

He is completing right at 80 percent of his throws with a lot of big plays included in his numbers. Burrow has also shown the ability to escape from a pass rush and buy extra time for his receivers or run the ball in a scramble situation.

In the past we have seen a lot of LSU teams that have had to play great defense to win games vs. good competition. The 2019 LSU Tigers are so good on offense they have taken the pressure off their defense.

On the plus side for Auburn for this game the visiting Tigers will be taking an experienced defensive group to Baton Rouge. Auburn’s defense includes a lot of players performing at a high level, including linemen Marlon Davidson and Derrick Brown, who are having wonderful senior seasons. As someone who has seen a lot of Southeastern Conference football over the years as a player, as an assistant coach and as a head coach in the league, those two are about as good as it gets for a duo of linemen on the same defensive front.

If those two big guys and their teammates can consistently get to the quarterback and produce some sacks or hurries, the odds are pretty good that Burrow’s completion percentage will be below his season average.

The challenge for teams facing LSU includes dealing with an athletic defense and an opponent that is also solid in the kicking game.