Brown unsatisfied with Auburns defensive perforemance

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Why Derrick Brown was unsatisfied with Auburn’s defensive performance against Ole Miss

Updated Nov 04, 2019;Posted Nov 04, 2019

4-6 minutes

Auburn Football

AP

In the wake of Auburn’s closer-than-expected win against Ole Miss last weekend, Gus Malzahn seemed overall pleased with his team’s defensive performance against the Rebels.

After all, the Tigers limited them to 266 yards of total offense, 14 points and 3.86 yards per play — all of which were the Rebels’ second-worst marks of the season and their worst since a season-opening loss to Memphis. Derrick Brown painted a different picture of Auburn’s defensive performance, however.

“We didn’t play up to our standard,” Brown said. “… I feel like LSU, we kind of let that carry onto us throughout this week and hold onto us through the weekend. So, I mean, we got to get our swag back and do things how we do them."

Brown has a high standard for Auburn’s performance on defense; it’s a reflection of his coaches on that side of the ball, as Kevin Steele has long preached relentless effort and maintained a strict standard for his unit. Despite the aforementioned numbers the Tigers contained the Rebels to, Brown feels like those standards weren’t reached on Saturday night in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Specifically, Brown believes the defense needs to do a better job of getting off the field — even though Auburn’s offense held a considerable advantage in time of possession (36:03 to 23:57), which marked the team’s largest of the season by a wide margin.

“We need to get off the field, man,” Brown said. “We were out there all day. We've got to be able to get off the field more. We've got to be able to get more three-and-outs. I mean we say we want — we want to be the best team in the country on third down, defensively. So, I mean, we've got to be able to do those things and get off the field. We had too many penalties and stuff like that.”

Auburn forced a trio of three-and-outs and made Ole Miss punt on eight of its 12 drives; the other four ended in a turnover on downs, a pair of touchdowns and a game-ending interception. Auburn’s defense also limited Ole Miss to 3-of-15 on third-down opportunities, which was also the Rebels’ worst third-down performance since that season-opening loss to Memphis (1-of-10).

Auburn held Ole Miss to 0-of-4 on third-and-long situations (9-plus yards to go) but just 2-of-6 on third-and-shorts (1-4 yards). Of the Rebels’ three conversions, only one came on an Ole Miss scoring drive.

That was in the fourth quarter, with Auburn holding a 20-7 lead—and it’s the drive that certainly led to Brown’s disappointment with the Tigers’ defensive performance. Ole Miss converted a third-and-6 early in the drive on a 25-yard pass from John Rhys Plumlee to Snoop Conner. The Rebels then converted a pair of fourth-downs on what wound up being a 15-play, 91-yard drive that took 5:35 off the clock and was capped by a 1-yard touchdown run by Conner that made it a one-score game with 5:45 to play.

“We just got to get off the field,” Brown said. “Stop letting them convert as many times as they did. We just got to be able to capitalize on the things that we were lacking on.”

The defense was able to come up with a stop when it needed it most. After Anders Carlson’s third missed field goal of the night gave Ole Miss the ball back with a chance to try to drive for the win, Christian Tutt made a game-sealing interception (after a near-sack by Owen Pappoe) and ran out the clock.

Although Brown believes there’s plenty of room for improvement and that the defense needs to “get back down to basics and work on fundamentals” during the bye week, the senior defensive lineman thinks the Ole Miss game was somewhat of a wake-up call for the unit heading into the final three weeks — a stretch that includes home games against No. 6 Georgia and No. 2 Alabama.

“I think we're a hungry team,” Brown said. “I think tonight just gave us that kick in the butt that we need to go ahead and get back focused. Like I said, tough loss last week, but we were able to come out and win versus Ole Miss tonight. And we got the bye week to go and recover, get everybody back and healthy. That's the biggest thing. And then we'll get ready to face UGA in two weeks.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.