Mailbag 181: Through 3 games, what have we learned about Auburn?

This week: Win-loss records, unpredictability, Kaleb Harris, Petrino vs. Durkin, color schemes, guard play and "Manning Fireworks"

QB Hank Brown and HC Hugh Freeze (Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)

Don’t be alarmed. Today isn’t Friday. It’s Thursday. You didn’t miss whatever you were supposed to do before the weekend.

I’m running the mailbag a day early this week! The reason for that is a good one: I got a record number amount of emailed questions this week, and by the time I collected the few I got from Twitter and started writing Wednesday afternoon, I was already out of room.

So, instead of waiting another day for questions that won’t even fit in this email, let’s just post this sucker on Thursday. The preview podcast for the Arkansas game will be in your inboxes Friday morning at 6 a.m. CT.

This week, you asked a lot about where Auburn sits a quarter of the way through the regular season, this specific matchup against Arkansas and what to expect from the Tigers moving forward. We also got a couple of good basketball questions and a few fun ones toward the end.

Thanks to everyone, as always, for reading and subscribing. Football season is already flying by, and I put in several important credential requests for basketball this week. All of you make all of this possible.

Let’s go.

Self-Eval at the quarter mark of the season! Now that non-con is (effectively) over, what is one thing you’ve learned about this team that you were right about before the season, and one thing you’ve learned that you were wrong about before the season.

Ryan

A little over a month ago, during the middle of what was a fall camp filled with a lot of optimism for Auburn football, Dan and I recorded a “Brake Check” podcast for subscribers. In that, we went through several areas that could be concerns for the Tigers in the regular season.

Early in that episode, I talked about how it was far from guaranteed that Payton Thorne and Auburn’s offense would be much improved this season. Revamping the wide receiver room and having a full offseason to prepare in the offense were both positives, yes. But Thorne had posted less-than-stellar numbers against quality competition over his last two seasons, and that breakout 2021 season at Michigan State was starting to feel like a long time ago.

Cal was going to be the only legitimate defensive test Auburn faced in the first quarter of the season, so there was a lot riding on that for Thorne and the passing game. And, as you all know by now, Thorne struggled through the air and lost yet another game against a bowl-caliber FBS opponent. I wouldn’t have necessarily expected Thorne to be benched for Hank Brown this quickly, but it didn’t shock me that he would continue to have a hard time — even if the woes against Cal weren’t all his fault.

Thorne might still get another chance to be the starting quarterback, depending on how Brown handles a major step up in competition with SEC play. But the sample size is large enough at this point to wonder if he’ll be able to get back to what he was early in his Michigan State career. While I have zero problem with fans being optimistic in the preseason, I personally felt like there should have been more caution about the passing offense. The same goes with Brown under center, since he’s quite unproven.

The thing I’ve been the most wrong about so far this season is the production of Auburn’s edge rushers not named Keldric Faulk. While Faulk is leading the SEC in quarterback pressures and is one of the top 10 in the nation, I was expecting more plays out of the combo of Jalen McLeod and Keyron Crawford. They haven’t been bad, but I just thought Auburn was going to be able to tee off on teams like Alabama A&M and New Mexico for sacks.

That didn’t happen. Auburn dropped McLeod and Crawford in coverage a good bit against New Mexico, likely wanting to guard against the scramble threat. Against a more traditional type of offense, I would expect to see them try to get after the quarterback more frequently. Arkansas this weekend presents a great opportunity for that, as I wrote in the Wednesday newsletter.

I had high hopes for Auburn’s pass rush this season. They’re still affecting the quarterback at a decent rate, and sacks aren’t the be-all, end-all stats that some people consider them to be. But I thought they were going to be more effective to this point. Maybe the Arkansas and Oklahoma games, with matchups against new-look offensive lines and quarterbacks in front of their home fans, could spark something.

After Cal and New Mexico, I am very uneasy about the season outlook. I was feeling pretty good about 8 wins. Now I am seeing 7 wins as the top end of the win number. Has your outlook changed for the season? The interior defensive line is my major positional concern.

Mark