9/15/2022 auburn articles

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Opponent Q&A: Penn State Nittany Lions

JackCondon@CollegeAndMag

6-8 minutes

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Auburn and Penn State meet in two days at Jordan-Hare Stadium, and the Tigers will be looking to avenge a 28-20 defeat in Happy Valley last season. There’s a ton that’s changed for both teams, but some of the main components are still around for both sides as well. With the script flipping to the friendly confines of Jordan-Hare Stadium, the folks over at Black Shoe Diaries have given us a little insight on what to expect from PSU on Saturday.

Last year Sean Clifford was 28-32 for 2 touchdowns and no turnovers in the 28-20 win in Happy Valley. Through two games, have you seen something that says he can duplicate that effort?

Duplicate that effort, no. Be good enough to win a game, yes. That game was far and away Clifford’s most complete performance in a Penn State uniform. Even the interception he did throw, there was one, came late in the first half and was worth the downfield risk. Clifford is consistent in his inconsistency, but I think a lot of people overlook games where he’s made a ton of “winning” plays. He was good against Purdue with his stats being hurt some thanks to some drops. The interception was egregious, a play that Penn State won’t be able to overcome on Saturday. But he’s also shown the ability to bounce back and that was never more apparent than with the two-minute drill to beat Purdue.

Like you mentioned to us, Penn State has turned into an aerial team all of a sudden. What happened to the days of Larry Johnson and Saquon Barkley? Is this something that James Franklin wants to do, or has the run game dried up?

It starts up front, right? Penn State’s offensive line wasn’t very good last year - and that’s putting it nicely. The long gain of the 2021 on the ground was about 40 yards and they really struggled in short yardage situations. The offensive line has been in wait and see mode for basically all of James Franklin’s tenure. It’s truly changed his legacy in some ways because a more effective 4-minute offense would mean 8-10 more wins on his ledger and a near sure playoff appearance in 2017.

We think we’ve got ourselves one of those generational backs, however. With the obvious caveat that “it was against Ohio”, freshman and former 5-star recruit Nicholas Singleton broke out last week with 179 yards and two long touchdowns. He has the burst that Penn State’s stagnant running game has missed the last two years. Now…is he ready to do that against an SEC team on the road? That’s why this game is so intriguing for Penn State. We want questions answered.

Aside from Clifford, who are Auburn fans dog-cussing on Saturday if the Nittany Lion offense is having success moving the ball?

I’ve mentioned Singleton. Again, I think it’s a big ask for a freshman to be relied upon so heavily against a good front seven and running behind a…how should we say…still developing offensive line. But if he performs well Saturday, I think the hype train could get started for last year’s Gatorade National High School Player of the Year.

The other guy to watch - WR Parker Washington. He’s off to sort of a quiet start with just 90 yards through two games as everyone looks for him to replace Jahan Dotson. But he had more than 1,200 yards and 10 touchdowns in his first two seasons. He’s not a burner, but he has great body control and is a tough route runner.

Defensively, who should we know about aside from Joey Porter, Jr.?

Defensive end Chop Robinson is emerging as Penn State’s best defensive lineman. He’s a transfer from Maryland who was a touted recruit. He ended the game against Purdue with his pressure and he was very good against Ohio before giving way in the second half to let other guys get work.

Also, so sort of a funny thing - no one is talking about the other starting cornerback, Kalen King. Joey Porter Jr. has all the pass breaks up, while King really didn’t seem to get too much action against Purdue. Were they targeting Porter because he was against their top receivers or was it guys weren’t open on the other side? I think it will be interesting to track that as the season progresses because this secondary is far and away Penn State’s best overall unit.

Manny Diaz comes in after a journeyman career around college football. What differences can we expect to see from the Penn State defense from last year?

More man and more exotic blitzes. Part of this is because it’s just Manny’s style, but also he’s going to have to find ways to generate pressure with limited top tier pass rushers off the edge. I’ve mentioned Robinson and he is turning out to be a huge addition, because some of Penn State’s other defensive ends lack experience or explosiveness. This means that pressure is being generated with blitz packages and Diaz is relying on the depth and quality of the secondary to protect. They were tested throughout the Purdue game. I worry and wonder how Diaz will adapt against a more run-based team on Saturday and I also worry about the secondary’s penchant for getting hit with holding or pass interference calls as Auburn takes shots off of play action.

Keys and prediction for the game?

Keys are simple and straightforward: turnovers and battle in the trenches. Penn State dropped multiple interceptions in the nighttime opener at Purdue and lived to get a win. They can’t get that lucky twice. They also can’t survive a critical Clifford interception - something that hurt them in losses at Iowa and Ohio State last year. Meanwhile, Auburn’s run game is scary. Purdue ran effectively against Penn State and that was with a marginal back. Tank Bigsby and Jarquez Hunter were both effective at gashing a Penn State team with way better linebackers last year. I think Auburn has the ability to wear down Penn State’s front seven. In the preseason, I predicted Penn State would drop one of their two September road games. They snuck out a win against Purdue, so I guess that makes this the one. If Penn State wins, it’s a huge swing game and they’ll be 5-0 in mid-October. That sounds fun. But I have come to understand Jordan-Hare is a place where weird things happen. That reminds me a lot of Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium. That place wasn’t fun for Penn State last year as Clifford got injured, the Lions blew a lead, and the season came off the tracks. I don’t think this one is quite that dramatic in terms of long term impact, but I see Auburn winning. Let’s say 26-20.

Edited September 15, 2022 by aubiefifty

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#PMARSHONAU: McGlynn seeks to build unity, trust as Auburn's interim AD

Phillip Marshall

4-5 minutes

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On Tuesday, Rich McGlynn got the call he had hoped to get since Allen Greene resigned on Aug. 26. President Chris Roberts wanted him to be Auburn’s interim athletics director.

“It is a dream come true for me,” McGlynn told Auburn Undercover. “I love this place. Love it.”

 McGlynn, who left his job with the NCAA and arrived at Auburn in June of 2006, came to lead Auburn’s compliance department and later became senior associate athletics director. And now he is in charge of all of the far-flung enterprise that is Auburn athletics.

McGlynn, of course, would like to take the next big stop and have the interim tag removed. But as Roberts begins a nationwide search, McGlynn is focused on the job at hand.

“No. 1 is just leading the department,” McGlynn said. “There has been uncertainty and unknowns. A lot of people were taken back by Allen’s resignation. Just stabilizing the ship is important, and I think uniting the Auburn family.

“I talk about focusing on our coaches, our culture and our community. Our coaches are the most impactful people we have for our student-athletes. We are all trying to bake the same cake. Look at Bruce Pearl. You hire the right coach, and look what happens with your program. Butch Thompson, Greg Williams, go down the list.”

But McGlynn sees his job as going further than leading the department. He acknowledges Auburn has been a fractured family. He wants to do his part to change that, to restore unity, trust and a common purpose..

“I think we need to build up our culture,” McGlynn said. “We have to get back to being Auburn, being the Auburn family and treating each other that way, having a little swagger about us, a little chip on our shoulder. Just put our head down and get after it.

“We have to align ourselves as an Auburn family and refocus on who we want to be. That’s when we come back to the Auburn Creed and our culture and who we are.”

McGlynn serves as the sport administrator for basketball and equestrian and has recently added swimming & diving. He was the sport administrator for football in 2013, when the Tigers won the SEC championship and played for the national championship.

His has been quite a journey from the little town of Point Pleasant on the Jersey Shore where he grew up.

After earning a law degree from Seton Hall University, McGlynn soon decided that he wanted something different. He landed a job with the NCAA in 2001. Even then he knew what he wanted for himself and his family.

“I had always said I wanted to find a small town in the Southeast and raise my family,” McGlynn said. “I always wanted to find a town with that kind of school system and big-time college athletics. I had always been describing Auburn. I just didn’t know it.”

McGlynn’s duties with the NCAA included frequently interacting with SEC officials on eligibility and other matters. Beth DeBauche, who had been an associate SEC commissioner and would become commissioner of the Ohio Valley Conference, told him Auburn had an opening and he should apply. He did, and he got the job. For him, his wife Kristen and their four children, it was the move of a lifetime. They had found a home.

“I truly do love this place,” McGlynn said.

McGlynn oversaw Auburn’s handling of accusations against Cam Newton, the FBI college basketball investigation and much more. Always, he says, his mission was to protect student-athletes and do all he could to help coaches win championships.

Along the way, McGlynn  made decisions that made people unhappy. Some thought he was overly  strict.

“Perception is not reality,” McGlynn said. “The coaches will tell you I come to work every day trying to find ways to help them win championships. That may be the perception on the outside, but the inner circle people know that is not true.

27COMMENTS

“There are so many situations that no one knows about, shouldn’t know about and never will. They just don’t know. It’s perception versus reality.”

McGlynn has a big job with an uncertain future. And he is proud to have it for the school and program he long ago adopted as his own.

">247Sports

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Bryan Harsin challenges Auburn offense amid slow start for WRs

Published: Sep. 14, 2022, 7:05 a.m.

5-6 minutes

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The questions that surrounded Auburn’s young and relatively inexperienced wide receiver corps entering the season have yet to be answered in full through two weeks of action.

Instead, they may have been amplified during the team’s too-close-for-comfort win against San Jose State in Week 2 — a game in which Auburn’s receivers finished with a combined 93 yards and didn’t record a catch until the final minute of the first half.

“Yeah, we were mad at them,” Auburn coach Bryan Harsin joked Monday.

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Harsin’s quip didn’t do much to allay the concerns about Auburn’s wide receiver production so far this season, but the second-year head coach acknowledged that the Tigers need to get more out of the group moving forward.

Through two games, Auburn’s wideouts have combined for just 15 of the team’s 27 completed passes, totaling 265 yards. The position group has yet to catch a touchdown; the team’s lone receiving score so far was courtesy of tight end John Samuel Shenker, whose opening-week touchdown was his first in nearly three years.

Much of that production has come from Ja’Varrius Johnson, who is responsible for seven receptions for 158 yards, leading the SEC in yards per catch (22.57) through the first two weeks of the season. Johnson had a career-best 117 yards on four catches in the opener — with two of them nearly resulting in touchdowns on deep balls — but he was limited to three catches for 41 yards last weekend against SJSU. That still wound up being the most among Auburn’s receivers in a game that saw Tank Bigsby lead the team in receptions (four for 29 yards).

The first three times Auburn’s wide receivers were targeted in the passing game in Week 2, the results were an incompletion and two interceptions—one each from T.J. Finley and Robby Ashford. Finley’s was a great play by the defender to come up with the turnover, while Ashford’s was a poor decision and an underthrown ball that produced an easy takeaway for SJSU.

It wasn’t until Finley found fellow LSU transfer Koy Moore for a 13-yard pass with 50 seconds to go in the half that Auburn’s receiving corps registered its first reception of the night.

“You’ve got to get the ball to the receivers,” Harsin said. “It wasn’t their fault. We threw to the other guys. That’s part of it. You’ve got to throw to our guys, and you’ve got to give those guys a chance. We’re trying to get them the ball. It wasn’t that we were not. Simple as that. And those guys have got to get open, too. You’ve got to have time to do that. Those things are all, if you look at the film and you go back and study it, the opportunities are there. We’ve got to make them count. We really do.”

The strength of Auburn’s offense is going to continue to be its ground game, behind the tandem of Tank Bigsby and Jarquez Hunter (and, thus far, Ashford), but the Tigers will need to do more to grow the passing attack. Johnson’s emergence is a good start, but Auburn needs more from the rest of the room—both from veterans like Shedrick Jackson and newer faces like Moore and Tar’Varish Dawson Jr. (two catches for 30 yards), as well as guys like Landen King (who was the intended receiver on Ashford’s interception) and freshmen Camden Brown and Omari Kelly.

The group should get a bit of a boost Saturday against No. 22 Penn State, with starting receiver Malcolm Johnson Jr. expected to return after missing last weekend’s game against San Jose State. The junior receiver did not have a catch in the opener, but he’s still one of the most experienced and dynamic options the Tigers have in the room, and he earned a starting job this fall for a reason.

“We missed him last week,” Shenker said. “He’s a key part to the offense and how things run on the offensive side of the ball. He’s a huge component to that. We’re happy to have him back.”

It will take more than just a full complement of receivers, though. Auburn’s quarterbacks still need to get those guys the ball, the coaching staff needs to get them involved in the gameplan, and the receivers have to produce when the opportunity presents itself.

That’s the challenge Harsin has presented to his offense this week: When the opportunity arises to make a play, seize it.

“That’s really what it comes down to at the end of the day,” Harsin said. “We can design all these things up and all that and they look pretty and they’re going to work and all that, but you’ve got to execute them, and that’s really what it comes down to. So, no different than any other game I’ve ever coached. You’ve got to execute. You’ve got to find ways to get yourself open and you’ve got to complete passes. You’ve got to protect. All that stuff goes into the pass game.

“And we’ve challenged our guys on that the last couple of weeks. We’ll challenge them again this week to make that happen.”

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

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Auburn offers first look at alternate helmets for Penn State; Fans have spoken on orange jerseys

• Published: Sep. 14, 2022, 12:29 p.m.

Auburn will rock the orange facemasks Saturday when it hosts Penn State at Jordan-Hare Stadium. (Photo courtesy of Auburn athletics.)

 

• Mark Heim | mheim@al.com

Auburn fans have spoken.

They agree with Owen Pappoe and Derick Hall. They want their Tigers in throwback orange jerseys for Saturday’s nonconference showdown with No. 22 Penn State for the “All Auburn, All Orange” game at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

According to an AL.com poll posted to Instagram, 72 percent of fans (or 283 of the 395 fans who took the poll) want to see the throwback orange jerseys over the classic blue.

On Monday, Pappoe and Hall - the team captains - made it known they wanted to go old school with the jerseys that debuted for the first time in the modern era in 1978.

“We’ve talked about it a lot, but obviously Auburn’s very traditional and, you know, we can’t compete with that, but that’s definitely something that I would like to see,” Hall said Monday. “You know, just a little bit of changeup.”

Whether Pappoe, Hall and the fans get their wish remains to be seen, but it does appear the Tigers will add a little orange to their helmets on Saturday.

 

 

 

Auburn’s going with orange facemasks Saturday in the spirit of the “Orange Out,” something Hall revealed Monday, too.

The Tigers donned the orange facemasks for last season’s home win against Ole Miss, a game played the day before Halloween. It was the first time since the 1980s that Auburn wore the orange facemasks. The facemasks were also worn again in the Iron Bowl against Alabama last season.

 

Mark Heim is a sports reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim.

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Can TJ Finley reprogram himself to save Auburn football again?

Bennett Durando, Montgomery Advertiser

Thu, September 15, 2022 at 9:18 AM

 

 

AUBURN — When they were kids, T.J. and Kody Finley had a late-night routine. T.J., the quarterback, threw a football as hard as possible for his younger brother, the receiver. The cost of a dropped pass for Kody was a water bottle perched on top of his head for indoor target practice.

T.J. would back up several yards in the living room and attempt to knock the empty plastic bottle off Kody's head.

"Real country like," Kody says.

That display of brotherly love was the extent of T.J. Finley's accuracy training outside of organized football. Auburn's quarterback differs from most college gunslingers in that he didn't use a personal QB trainer until college.

 

"T.J. taught me routes," Kody said. "I taught him where to place the ball."

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So as T.J. pushed himself outside of his comfort zone throughout the offseason between 2021 and 2022, he needed Kody by his side. An inkling of familiarity as he attempted to reprogram himself.

Why? He didn't have much of a choice. Auburn coach Bryan Harsin imported two Power Five transfers to compete with Finley, adding a new layer of pressure for the 0-3 starting quarterback who turned 20 in March. When he was 18, Finley started for a flailing 2020 LSU team that was one year removed from Joe Burrow's historic season. ("He graduated high school early and was a freshman at LSU trying to play 'save the team,'" Kody says. "I mean, now that it’s over, we can be honest. Come on. That’s not fair.")

Now there's a case to be made that Finley's job is to save Auburn. And Harsin.

He already has once. Finley's crunch-time debut was replacing Bo Nix when the Tigers trailed Georgia State 24-12 last season. If he hadn't eluded pressure on fourth-and-goal to throw the game-winning touchdown, there's no telling if Harsin would have survived the offseason.

All to say this isn't new for Finley. His first two games this season were shaky as he alternated with Robby Ashford. But he has solidified his hold on the QB1 job entering the first high-stakes game, Saturday (2:30 p.m. CT, CBS) vs. Penn State (2-0). "People improve," Harsin said before the season, "and that does include quarterbacks at Auburn."

So what did Finley set out to improve?

The search for answers led him to New Orleans, where Albert Brock specializes in the body mechanics of speed at every position. Finley had trained at Brock's gym before, but never this rigorously.

“The crazy thing is T.J. is an hour away from us," Brock said. "He drove here four times a week. He's been more locked in than usual."

A workout squad assembled, featuring local guys playing for Georgia (center Sedric Van Pran), Notre Dame (running back Logan Diggs), Florida State (receiver Ja'Khi Douglas), Texas A&M (Jacoby Mathews), Michigan (Amorion Walker). And Kody. Kody was essential.

Sessions lasted almost three hours, starting with 30 minutes in physical therapy. One test was applying pressure to his hip muscles while he was lying down. "They pushed his hip down to see if he’s strong or not, and it just went straight down," Kody said. "He hadn’t been working that muscle out ever in his life. He didn’t realize how many little things he was bad at."

Brock worked with Finley on hip flexibility, change of direction and the mechanics of Finley's stride. "At that size, you naturally have some speed," Brock said, "but he never really maximized it." The goal was to make Finley more confident and nimble in his body – less reluctant to use his legs. In junior high, before a growth spurt, he had been a dual-threat QB.

"T.J. is a rhythm guy," Kody said. "When he's in a rhythm and not being yanked in and out of the game, he's a good quarterback."

Maybe if he could reprogram himself as a runner and an on-the-run passer, he could minimize the need for an alternating system.

In order to achieve that, he also needed to separate himself as the best thrower. He increased his repetition more than ever.

"I'd be running out a deep out route to the field, and I'm looking up and it almost hit me in my face," Florida State's Douglas said. "He throws a fast ball. He's got the strength to do it."

For the most fitting microcosm of the consistency Finley seeks, though, look to the corner of the end zone. His favorite route to throw to his brother is a fade. In a high school rivalry game, an opposing cornerback trash-talked both Finleys while trying to make a goal-line stand. T.J. could throw a nasty fastball, but his finesse wasn't as pinpoint. Suddenly he started yelling in the direction of the cornerback: "Butterfly! Butterfly! Butterfly!" He received the snap and floated a perfect ball over the trash-talker to Kody.

"I’ve never actually asked him why he said butterfly," Kody said. "My dad used to tell him about how Peyton Manning used to say random stuff, so I guess he was just trying that out."

And he had tried out a new throw with precision. It was spontaneous but calculated – like the pocket awareness and movement he hopes to implement this season. So he rehearsed scramble drills over and over. He practiced fades to his brother over and over. He sought to reestablish the speed in his lower body. The accuracy in his arm.

"No more wasted movements," Brock said. "I feel like this kind of removed his ceiling."

The goal was to remove Auburn's ceiling. First, he needed to consistently remove a bottle from his brother's head again.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Can TJ Finley reprogram himself to save Auburn football again?

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Bryan Harsin ‘felt for’ former colleague Manny Diaz after Miami ouster

Published: Sep. 15, 2022, 7:04 a.m.

5-6 minutes

If there’s any coach in college football who can relate to what Manny Diaz went through at Miami late last year, it might be the guy whose offense the first-year Penn State defensive coordinator will be tasked with slowing this weekend at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Diaz spent three years as head coach at Miami before joining James Franklin’s staff at Penn State this offseason. His tenure with the Hurricanes ended unceremoniously in December, when the program poached Mario Cristobal from Oregon after weeks of flirtation that left Diaz handing in the wind. Diaz was Miami’s coach until he wasn’t, with the program announcing Diaz’s ouster on the same day it named Cristobal as head coach.

“I felt for him and how Miami handled the whole situation, and I didn’t like that,” Auburn coach Bryan Harsin said. “I mean, he’s a guy I worked with and had respect for. But I know he’s a good coach.”

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Harsin, whose relationship with Diaz dates to 2011 when the two were hired as coordinators at Texas by Mack Brown, experienced a similarly unorthodox situation at Auburn in February. The university launched an internal inquiry into his handling of the program after a 6-7 campaign in his first season. For a while, it seemed as though Harsin’s time on the Plains was going to be short-lived. Ultimately, though, Harsin emerged from the investigation unscathed and lived to see a second season as head coach, even if his job security and long-term status with the program remain in question.

Both Diaz’s situation at Miami, where he went 21-15 in three seasons, and Harsin’s situation at Auburn this offseason played out very publicly. After Diaz was fired, he released a statement lamenting the way Miami handled the entire ordeal. Harsin, upon the university’s launching of the inquiry, dug in his feet and defended himself. At SEC Media Days in July, he called the whole internal investigation uncomfortable, unfounded and ultimately unsuccessful.

Now Harsin and Diaz will square off Saturday, when Auburn (2-0) hosts No. 22 Penn State (2-0) at Jordan-Hare Stadium. It will mark the first time their paths have crossed since their final season together at Texas in 2012.

“He’s definitely evolved,” Harsin said. “I enjoyed my time with Manny; I think he’s really smart. I felt like he and I, when we came in together, I mean, we were both coordinators at Texas and we had to work together to try to help that football team improve. You know, that was the reason why we came in there. We had our challenges, but I said I loved working with Mack, and then to watch Manny—when I left, to watch him get back into being a D-coordinator and eventually to a head coach, I was very proud of him.”

Harsin used his two seasons on staff at Texas to springboard him into his first head coaching gig at Arkansas State in 2013 before taking over at Boise State the following year. He remained there until he accepted the job at Auburn in December 2020. Diaz, on the other hand, was fired at Texas early in the 2013 season after the Longhorns gave up 550 rushing yards against BYU. He wound up at Louisiana Tech as defensive coordinator for a season in 2014 and then moved on to the same role at Mississippi State in 2015 before taking on the DC job at Miami in 2016.

He held that position for three years before a brief, 18-day stint as head coach at Temple that ended when he accepted the same job back at Miami after Mark Richt’s retirement.

Now Diaz is back as a defensive coordinator at Penn State, where his defense has allowed 20.5 points per game through the first two weeks, ranks top-25 nationally against the run (80 yards per game) and 22nd among FBS teams in pass efficiency defense (95.69).

“I know he prepares his guys well and he cares from just working with him,” Harsin said. “I think he’s a very well-respected coach in this profession, and the reason why he was a head coach is because he’s very good at what he does. He’s evolved; I think we all have. It’s been a while, but at the same time, I see what he’s been able to do in those first two games, and that’s going to be a challenge for us.

“We got to evolve, too. We got to show we’re better than we were the first two games. I think that’s a challenge for both teams heading into this contest.”

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

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Can Auburn cut back on ‘bonehead’ mistakes against No. 22 Penn State?

Published: Sep. 15, 2022, 11:00 a.m.

5-7 minutes

Auburn’s best chance at securing a signature nonconference win — one that could propel the team into its SEC slate, no less — will require Bryan Harsin’s team to do something it has yet to accomplish through the first two weeks of the season: play a clean game.

Auburn’s first two games this season, a 42-16 win against Mercer and a 24-16 win against San Jose State, were littered with self-inflicted miscues. The Tigers committed two turnovers in each of those contests against lower-level competition, and in the closer-than-expected victory against the Spartans, Harsin’s team committed nine penalties for 86 yards.

They were mistakes that Harsin categorized as “bonehead” — and ones Auburn (2-0) can ill afford to incur this weekend when it welcomes No. 22 Penn State (2-0) to Jordan-Hare Stadium (2:30 p.m. on CBS).

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“You chalk it up just some of the stuff that we have to do a better job fundamentally,” Harsin said. “… And then just being disciplined. I think there was some things in there on some of those penalties, we’ve got to be more disciplined on what happened to us. The turnovers are what hurts. We pride ourselves on not turning the ball over, and we’ve done that in the last two games, so we’ve got to figure out a way not to do that.”

The turnovers have been an issue that have directly impacted the scoreboard for Auburn in its first two games. T.J. Finley threw two interceptions in the season opener against Mercer, with the first leading to the Bears’ first touchdown of the night. His interception at the end of the first quarter against SJSU led to the Spartans’ opening field goal to go up 3-0 early in the second quarter after a goal-line stand by the Tigers’ defense.

Auburn is also sixth worst in the nation this season in turnover margin, averaging minus-two per game. The Tigers have thrown the four interceptions — three from Finley and one from Robby Ashford — and have yet to produce a takeaway defensively.

“We’ve got to find some ways to get some takeaways,” Harsin said. “When the ball’s in the air, we’ve got to compete for it. Those things are what we’re going to emphasize again this week.”

The turnovers have been addressed; Finley recognized immediately after each game what happened on each throw, and he responded well after his pick against San Jose State last weekend, completing 12 of his final 15 pass attempts. The penalties, however, are a different story.

After playing a relatively clean game from that perspective in Week 1, when Auburn committed just three penalties totaling 20 yards—and, as Harsin noted after the opener, none of the flags were “stupid” miscues for Auburn/

That wasn’t the case against San Jose State, particularly in the first half. Auburn committed eight of its nine penalties in the first half, totaling 76 yards. The Tigers had more penalty yardage (33) than total yardage (31) in the first quarter, and in the second quarter they committed two costly defensive pass interference penalties that aided the Spartans’ touchdown drive right before halftime, as the visitors took a 10-7 lead into the break.

The game marked just the second time under Harsin that Auburn has had that many penalty yards, matching the team’s season-high against Mississippi State last fall. The Tigers’ nine penalties were also the most since that game against the Bulldogs and the second-most under Harsin (the team committed 10 in last year’s win against Alabama State).

“I don’t know what it was this week,” said tight end John Samuel Shenker, who was called for three of those flags. “It was like everyone did it. I think Alabama had 15 or something. I don’t know why that is. It was pretty sloppy play on our part. Some of them are hit or miss. You can argue them back and forth, but if they’re going to make the calls, you’ve got to live with it and play to the standard that the referees are going to call.

“It’s really just knowledge of the game and knowing what you can and can’t do in certain things and not letting yourself get in trouble with certain things like holding and blocking in the back.”

Auburn will need to correct those errors and mental lapses against Penn State on Saturday if the Tigers hope to not let another opportunity slip through their fingers, like they felt happened in last year’s 28-20 loss in Happy Valley.

“We’re still in that growth phase,” Harsin said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got a long ways to go with everybody on this football team…. But we’ve got to be a whole lot better. The opponent’s much better than what we’ve played. We’ve said that; every single week we’re going to keep getting better and better. Our football team has to lock into that. We’ve got to go out there and do the things that we’re coached to do at the end of the day.

“And that’s really what it comes down to. We’ve got to coach better. And I said that. So, it’s every single one of us that sits in this room, we’ve got to improve.”

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

[AUGoo 2,703]

Hey Fitty,

I like how you are putting all these in one place.

Thank you

[aubiefifty 18,248]

4 minutes ago, AUGoo said:

Hey Fitty,

I like how you are putting all these in one place.

Thank you

one of the mods asked me to do this. it is easier to post and makes posting much quicker. but when i posted articles separately i got thousands of clicks. yesterday when i signed off there was like 146. it seems like it would hurt the site but i think it might save on band width. got any suggestions i will try but my puter skills are lacking. but thanx for the shout out!