Long weeks with only practice football are nearly over!
(Photo by Acid Reign.)
War Eagle, everybody! Tonight, SEC football opens up with South Carolina at Vanderbilt, but the main event for us isn’t till late Saturday evening, when Auburn hosts the Clemson Tigers at 8:00 PM. I fully expect tonight’s game to be a snoozer between some good defenses and questionable offenses. Tennessee also opens tonight, hosting Appalachian State.
I have read a lot on the Auburn Clemson matchup, and talked to a lot of folks about it. Expectations from fans run the gamut from expecting Auburn to blow Clemson out, to hoping to keep the game from being a rout in Clemson’s favor. Obviously, in a season-opener one should expect the unexpected. I look for a close game in which a few turnovers decide the outcome. With that said, here are five questions I’ll be looking for answers to during the game.
First question I have will center on offensive play calling. Last season, the team was plagued on 1st down by either calling obvious runs up the middle (with no tight end in the game), or high risk-high reward, long developing pass plays (These did work upon occasion, but more often a bad throw or dropped ball happened). As a result, the team was looking at 2nd and 10 or worse, way too much. The team did a little better down the stretch with some quick wide receiver screens to get the offense off to a good start, but that’s not going to work against Clemson. They will press, and press, and press some more in this game. Auburn will need to hit some quick slants and crossing patterns on first down, to back them off. In short, this staff had better be much improved on 1st down play calls.
Does Auburn really have a prayer of slowing down the Clemson offense? For this game to be close, Auburn will need to force some turnovers and short Clemson drives. Looking at Athlon’s All America team, Clemson has first-team All Americans with Deshaun Watson at quarterback and Jordan Leggett at tight end. Can Auburn cover a tight end this year? The team has been consistently bad at this for about a decade. Not only is Watson a threat to run, but Clemson has third-team All American Wayne Gallman in the backfield who is a threat to break one, or just run hapless linebackers over. If there is a weakness on this offense, it might be with a couple of new starters on the offensive line. Don’t cry for Clemson, though. They’ve still got second team All American Mitch Hyatt leading that line.
What a test for starting Auburn quarterback Sean White, against what surely will be a very aggressive Brent Venables defense! Will White be up to the task? Dodging hits and holding onto the ball will be key. There are weapons on the Auburn offense. White does not have to try to win the game himself. What he must do is successfully distribute the ball to those who can do the most damage.
How much of a factor will the Auburn crowd be? Frankly, I worry a bit about such a late kickoff. The crowd needs to be at peak rowdiness at gametime. This means not going heavy on the beer cooler at lunch! The last thing Auburn needs are sleepy, wooden folks in the stands. Make some noise!
Can Auburn gain an edge on special teams? Clemson had an issue last year giving up big kick returns, and they had a short-ish 39 yard punting average. It will be critical for Auburn’s Kevin Phillips and Daniel Carlson to keep Clemson bottled up with poor field position.
We’ll have an open thread up here at TrackEmTigers.com, Saturday morning. We will be checking in all day, and I’ll be doing a game thread at kickoff. The game will be televised at 8:00 PM Central Time, on ESPN. As always, feel free to join in the fun, and War Eagle!
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