Having thoroughly dominated Dan Mullen’s Mississippi State Bulldogs 38-14, Gus Malzahn now has the luxury of an open date to get back to full strength and add some wrinkles for the visiting Arkansas Razorbacks on October 22nd.
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Go ahead and call the Auburn Tigers’ first road trip of 2016 to Starkville to take on Dan Mullen’s Mississippi State Bulldogs a must win. While no one game would typically in and of itself determine a head coach’s standing with his employer, nor the decision to retain him the following season, Gus Malzahn well knows the eyes of Auburn power brokers are focused on what should be a very winnable game for the Tigers. The weight of expectations in this game also go beyond the early season offensive woes of the Clemson and Texas A&M losses, and are due in no small part to Malzahn having lost to Mullen’s Bulldogs back to back years by the score of 17-9 in 2015, and a crushing 38-23 defeat in 2014. With a current 61-26-2 Auburn lead in this series, fans simply will not tolerate losses to Mississippi State on anything but a rare basis.
Join podcast cohosts Coach John Ray and Doug Dean as they deliver a scouting report on this first road test for Auburn, as well as the question of what are reasonable expectations for the Auburn football program long-term given all strategic factors in play. Their conclusion may surprise you.
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Join cohosts Coach John Ray and Doug Dean as they analyze the apparent progress made by the Auburn offense against an undermanned Louisiana-Monroe team in a 58-7 Auburn rout in which the Auburn offense rang up 688 total yards.
As Auburn sits at 3-2 heading into its first 2016 road test in Starkville, Mississippi, the looming question will be whether the Auburn offense’s progress is real, or counterfeit results that were inflated by the inferior quality of the opponent.
Since the Tigers’ defense is ranked 15th nationally in scoring defense, and continues to play swarming, sound ball, if Malzahn’s offense – with play-calling now fully delegated to offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee – can make even incremental improvement in scoring and particularly red zone scoring, the second half to this 2016 season could become very interesting.
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Going into the September 24th Auburn vs LSU matchup, pundits jokingly dubbed it a “loser leaves town” matchup between embattled head coaches Gus Malzahn and Les Miles. After Auburn managed to serve up a relentless defensive effort and six Daniel Carlson field goals to win the game, the game label would prove to be no joke for Les Miles, who was fired over the weekend just four games into the 2016 season.
If there is 00:01 on the game clock in Jordan-Hare Stadium, then you know something wacky is about to happen, and such was the case in the dramatic finish to the defensive struggle which resulted in an 18-13 win by Gus Malzahn’s Auburn Tigers over LSU.
Join show hosts Coach John Ray and Doug Dean as they discuss the latest edition in the wild, nutty, and unpredictable Auburn vs. LSU series.
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Despite much of the typical lustre missing from this Auburn vs LSU game week with Gus Malzahn’s faulty two-loss start to the 2016 season, the game shapes up as very big indeed on several fronts. LSU remains in contention for the SEC West, with only a nonconference loss to Wisconsin. Auburn is mathematically still contending, but realistically, just looking to catch some lightning offensively this week.
Meanwhile, both head coaches entering this contest are painfully aware of the pressure to win, and the growing scrutiny surrounding their future going into 2017.
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Coach John Ray and Doug Dean discuss the impact of Auburn’s tough loss to the Texas A&M Aggies, a game in which the offense again failed to show any real coherence, identity, or results in a game that was winnable deep into the second half.
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Coming into the 2016 season, it is stating the obvious to observe that both Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin and Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn were feeling the temperature rise on the proverbial coaching “hot seat”. This dynamic only adds to the intrigue in the matchup between the Aggies and Tigers this Saturday night in Jordan-Hare Stadium. Both teams enter the game on the rise, as the Aggies won an opening game overtime thriller over UCLA, and the Tigers showed significant promise on the offensive side of the ball their last outing after taking # 2 Clemson to the wire in the opener.
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What a difference one week makes in a team’s performance, as amid sharply negative reactions from his own Auburn fan base about his offensive strategy against Clemson, Gus Malzahn fielded an Auburn offense against Arkansas State Saturday night in Jordan-Hare that exploded for 706 total yards.
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As podcast cohost Coach John Ray put it, Arkansas State is the ideal opponent for the situation that Gus Malzahn finds himself and his Auburn team in coming off the disappointing loss to Clemson, a game which was very winnable with any semblance of a productive offense.
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Gus Malzahn’s Auburn Tigers can be encouraged by taking the # 2 nationally ranked Clemson Tigers to the wire in a 19-13 defensive oriented game. However, programs are not built on moral victories, and the degree of confusion and ineffective production on the Auburn offense was troubling to even the casual Auburn fan despite it being only game one.
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