reestablish downhill identity, find better balance

[aubiefifty 18,236]

Auburn looks to reestablish downhill identity, find better balance

By Tom Green | tgreen@al.com

5-7 minutes

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The scales have tipped for Auburn’s offense in recent weeks, and now the Tigers are searching for balance as they head into the second half of their schedule.

Throughout the offseason, Auburn expressed the desire to base its new wide-open, pro-style offense around a downhill rushing attack led by one of the nation’s top returning running backs, Tank Bigsby. Over the last three games, though, the team’s run-pass balance has skewed in the opposite direction — and not by design.

“We’ve been trying to do (establish the run) every single week, and that’s something I think most teams want to do,” Auburn coach Bryan Harsin said. “They want to establish the run. We’d like to do that; we’d like to run the football. We’ve got to be balanced, though.”

In games against Georgia State, LSU and Georgia, Auburn has run the ball a combined 92 times while attempting 134 passes. The Tigers have thrown the ball at least 43 times in each of those games, while they’ve run it fewer than 30 times in each of the last two contests.

It has been a drastic swing from the first three weeks of the season, when Auburn had a 111-85 run-pass split and boasted an FBS-best 7.77 yards per carry while ranking seventh in the country in rushing offense (287.3 yards per game). The difference has been a byproduct of how Auburn’s last three games have shaken out, with the team playing from behind and trailing by double digits in the first half each of the last three weeks.

Auburn has leaned more heavily on its passing attack in recent weeks, as it has tried to claw back into games. It did so successfully against Georgia State and LSU, but not against Georgia. As a result, Auburn has seen not just its rushing attempts decrease but its output on the ground as well. That included a season-low 46 rushing yards in last weekend’s loss to the Bulldogs, which marked the team’s worst rushing total since last year’s loss to Georgia.

“Well, ideally you want to run the football,” Harsin said. “One way to do that is stop losing early; that’s a way to do that. So, don’t get behind and stay in a position where you can’t run the football. Some of those, you start kind of looking at the end of the game, you got to throw it because you’re losing. We got to keep the ballgame closer so that you can run the ball more effectively. When we say what we want to do, that’s the identity that we’re working toward, is being a team that can run the ball, that can be physical — yes, we want to be downhill in all those things, but we have to actually do that.”

After opening the season with three straight 100-yard performances, Bigsby has rushed for just 115 yards total on 37 carries (3.11 yards per carry). Auburn, as a team, has averaged just 4.03 yards per carry during that span, including just 1.59 yards per carry against Georgia’s stout defensive front.

Getting Bigsby back on track would be beneficial to Auburn, but it’s not just on the star sophomore to get the ground game going again.

“Everybody on the offensive side of the ball that has to be able to do that: O-line, tight ends, wide receivers, running backs — everybody’s got a piece of the pie when it comes to the run game,” Harsin said. “That continues to be something that we’ve got to focus on and doing the things we know we’re capable of doing but doing it consistently.”

At the midway point of the season, Auburn’s rushing attack has slipped to No. 30 in the nation (206.17 yards per game), though it still touts the fourth-most yards per carry (6.06) among FBS teams. The recent troubles establishing the run are a concern, but Auburn has shown it’s capable of being an effective downhill team.

Now, it will have a chance to get back on track against No. 17 Arkansas, which ranks 98th nationally in run defense (181.5 yards allowed per game) and 94th in yards allowed per rush attempt (4.48). The Razorbacks have allowed nearly 600 yards and eight touchdowns combined on the ground the last two weeks in losses to Georgia and Ole Miss.

That means Saturday’s 11 a.m. kick from Razorback Stadium could provide Auburn with a welcome remedy for its recent run game struggles and an opportunity to reestablish its downhill identity.

“We’ve got opportunities to do that; we’re just going to have to keep working on it and keep getting better at it,” Harsin said. “It doesn’t change who we want to be. It doesn’t change the fact that that’s a goal of ours in the identity of what this offense should look like. At the end of the day, we got to do it.”

Though Auburn wants to find its groove in the run game, Harsin stressed the need to not just run it for the sake of running it or throwing it just to get the numbers up. It’s about finding balance while still establishing that downhill identity on offense.

“At the end of the day, I think it’s a little bit skewed when you look at the games that we’re behind, especially in the Georgia game,” Harsin said. “We felt like we had to throw it a little bit more to get back into it. They’re good up front. That obviously didn’t work for us, but it doesn’t change the identity of who we want to be and how we want to have balance.”

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

[DAG 34,758]

These guys say the same stuff in ten different ways . Of course you want to run but if you have no vertical game , it doesn’t matter.