Week in and week out, it’s been Auburn’s offense that has simply not been able to make winning plays, and as a result, the Tigers sit at 0-4 in SEC play for the third straight season.
The Tigers’ offense, which hasn’t scored more than 17 points against SEC foes this season, ranks 98th nationally in scoring offense, averaging 23.6 points per game and 107th in total offense with 335 yards per game.
Per Jacob Waters of Opelika-Auburn News, in Auburn’s four losses, it had 10 drives in the fourth quarter or overtime with a chance to tie or take the lead. Nine of them resulted in 24 yards on 35 plays with an average of 0.69 yards per play and zero points scored.
In the most recent loss to Missouri, Auburn totaled five yards on eight plays in two overtime periods.
Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze says the team needs to improve on "the details."
“The details. We have to coach harder, demand more of ourselves and of the kids,” said Freeze on Wednesday.
Quarterback Jackson Arnold has taken much of the criticism throughout the Tigers’ four-game losing streak. Arnold orchestrated opening-drive touchdowns the last two weeks en route to the Tigers posting 359 yards of total offense and 17 points combined in the first halves.
But, obviously, Auburn’s offense hasn’t been able to do enough in crunch time to secure a win, or hold on to a lead.
When asked on Monday if Arnold would continue to take first-team reps on Saturday versus Arkansas, Freeze said he would roll him out to begin. But nothing is off the table as the Tigers are playing to win.
“Not anymore,” Freeze said when asked about plans to redshirt backup quarterback Ashton Daniels. “We are going to play to win. He’s prepared to play the last few (games), but if you go watch the game and you’re watching it live, it’s really hard to complain about Jackson in the first half of the last two games, for sure. That game could have easily been 14-0 after the second drive, and Jackson was playing at a high level. We have to get that consistency throughout the game or we have to go find a spark.”
Freeze followed up on Wednesday during the SEC Coaches Media Teleconference and said that all three scholarship quarterbacks “will be ready to play,” including true freshman Deuce Knight.
The Tigers will have an opportunity to snap their four-game skid against one of the worst defenses in the league on Saturday.
Aransas sits at dead last in the SEC in scoring defense (32.7), rushing defense (188.7) and total defense (443.9). It sits at 15th in the league in passing defense (255.1). The Razorbacks, however, have been under new leadership for the last two weeks after some staff changes following Sam Pittman’s firing.
Freeze says the defense has shown something different in each game they have played.
“They played Tennessee quite differently than they played (Texas) A&M, so I don't know what that means for us,” Freeze said. “So it's kind of hard to really know, until we really kick it off, what their plan is going to be with the small sample size that we have.”
Nonetheless, Auburn is going in with a mindset of controlling what it can control. And that’s improvement on the offensive side of the ball and finding ways to put points on the board.
“Our coaches are very clear on how I feel right now about that, and hopefully we lessen maybe what we’re carrying,” Freeze said. “There’s zero room for excuses.”
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