‘Mission accomplished’:!st shutout of season

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‘Mission accomplished’: Auburn defense relishes 1st shutout of season

Posted Nov 23, 2019

5-7 minutes

Auburn Football

AP

Samford quarterback Liam Welch (7) fumbles the ball as Auburn defensive tackle DaQuan Newkirk (44) delivers a hit during the first half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2019, in Auburn, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)

Kevin Steele gathered his defense in the locker room during halftime of Auburn’s penultimate game of the season and posed a question to his starting unit: Did they want to go back into the game to start the second half?

At that point, Auburn already staked a 31-point lead, and the defense had suffocated Samford, allowing just 35 first-half yards and forcing a trio of turnovers, apparently well on its way to its first shutout of the season. As Steele looked around the room, only one voice spoke up from the group wanting another series on the field.

It was starting nickelback Christian Tutt, who’d narrowly missed out on a potential pick-six in the first half.

“Nobody wanted to go back in but me, because I knew I had dropped that first pick, and I really wanted it back, so I just told him I wanted to go back in for at least three plays.”

Tutt got his wish, even if the rest of the Tigers’ starting defense begrudged his request, and the sophomore made the most of it. On Samford’s third play of the second half, Tutt picked off Bulldogs quarterback Liam Welch on a tipped pass and returned it 26 yards to the 9-yard line, setting up another touchdown for the Tigers’ offense.

It was one of four turnovers Auburn forced during a dominant defensive performance in a 52-0 shutout of Samford—the first time the Bulldogs have been blanked in more than 19 years. The last time Samford was kept off the scoreboard was Nov. 9, 2000, a span of 213 consecutive games with points on the board.

Auburn’s defense, which has been hunting a shutout throughout the season, wasn’t having any of that on Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium under gloomy conditions.

“It meant a lot,” said Tutt, who also recovered a fumble on Samford’s opening drive of the game. “Coach (Wes) McGriff, Coach Steele been harping on us all year about getting a shutout, and we haven’t got a shutout yet. Getting a shutout, you know, not even against them — against any team is big for us, because we play to a standard. We don’t care who we play, where we play, what time; we’re going to play our football. We’re going to play Auburn football. We’re going to play to our standard, no matter what and no matter who we play.”

Against Samford, Auburn’s defense felt it finally reached that standard, even if it was against FCS competition. The Tigers have had stout defensive performances throughout the year, including against some of the nation’s top offenses in LSU and Oregon. Although Auburn played well in each of its previous 10 games defensively, the Tigers were rarely satisfied with what they accomplished.

That is, until Saturday, when they were downright unfair against a vastly overmatched opponent.

“That’s what we were aiming for, just to play that Auburn standard on defense and get a shutout,” said cornerback Roger McCreary, who also had a fumble recovery. “We did what we love to do.”

It was Auburn’s first defensive shutout since this time last year, when the Tigers blanked Liberty, 53-0, the week before the Iron Bowl. This performance was even more dominant, however, as Auburn limited Samford to 114 total yards, with just 45 of those coming against the Tigers’ first-team defense — including 35 first-half yards. It was the fewest yards allowed by Auburn’s defense since the 2017 season opener against Georgia Southern, which mustered a paltry 78 yards in that meeting.

Auburn limited Samford to 2 yards per play on Saturday, which was the fewest allowed by Auburn since that 2017 opener, when it limited Georgia Southern to 1.39 yards per play.

Add to that the 13 tackles for loss, which was the team’s most since 2013 against Ole Miss, as well as five three-and-outs, and it was a suffocating performance from Steele’s defense.

“Obviously, anytime you shut an opponent out that’s really something in college football,” Malzahn said. “Our defense did that.”

The only thing missing for Auburn was a defensive score, which linebacker Owen Pappoe noted was on the defense’s checklist heading into the game. A defensive touchdown may have eluded the Tigers, but its dismantling of Samford still marked, statistically, not only the second-best all-around effort of the Steele era, but the second-best performance since Malzahn has been head coach.

“Mission accomplished,” Pappoe sad. “Yeah. We held them to under 150 yards of offense and that was our goal, and we got the shutout on top of that. So, yeah, we’re really pumped about it.”

It was just the kind of performance the defense felt it needed heading into next week’s season finale against Alabama, which entered Week 13 with the nation’s fourth-ranked scoring offense—a number that likely improved after the Tide’s 66-3 win against Western Carolina.

“It does give us a lot of confidence, but I mean, we’re just playing to our standard.” Tutt said. “We’re playing our football. Like I said, we don’t care who we play, we don’t care if we playing — shoot, the Saints, we’re going to play Auburn football. We’re going to play to our standards. We don’t care who we play — we don’t care if we play them at 3 o’clock in the morning; we’re going to play Auburn football. That’s what we’re going to do every Saturday.”

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

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Maybe the D can get another one next week.  That would be special.