Film Room: The real reason why Auburn threw the ball so much in Week 1

It wasn't a case of running up the score or even forcing the ball to the new receivers. It was a sign that this offense might have true balance.

WR KeAndre Lambert-Smith (Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)

The easy thing to do in a paycheck game that’s turning into a blowout is to stick to the ground game, keep the clock moving and not show too much through the air. Just lean on the advantage at the line of scrimmage and be as vanilla as possible.

Auburn has had a history of doing that in these lopsided matchups. The Tigers ran the ball 41 times and threw it 21 times to open 2022 against Mercer. The run/pass split was 39/19 in a 2021 blowout of Alabama State. Auburn ran the ball 53 times against Samford in 2019, 59 times against Alabama State in 2018, 61 times against a pre-Hugh Freeze Liberty in 2018 and 53 times against Georgia Southern in 2017.

No one would have been surprised if Auburn elected to do the exact same thing against Alabama A&M in Week 1. Even with all the hype surrounding the new wide receivers and the preseason pressure on Payton Thorne to improve, the Tigers could have kept it simple and cruised to the win on a run-heavy game plan.

But, in the first half on Saturday night, Auburn threw the ball nearly twice as many times (21) as it ran the ball (11) — even though it entered the locker room with a gigantic 52-3 lead.

Auburn gave the people inside Jordan-Hare Stadium what they wanted to see. That continued into the second half of the historic blowout, with Hank Brown and Holden Geriner throwing the ball just as many times as the Tigers ran it.

It wasn’t a case of Auburn passing it around the yard for the sake of the highlight reel, though. Most nights, Freeze wants to run the ball more than he throws it.

“I’d like to be the exact opposite, truthfully,” Freeze said Saturday night. “But you guys that have listened to me, I don’t really get hung up on the rushing (splits). I get hung up on what we average per run. Because, I mean, we can sit here and say, ‘Hey, we rushed it 60% of the time — and only averaged 2 yards, because we’re running into bad boxes and stuff.’

“That’s not who we are. I believe we averaged almost 10 yards a rush tonight, and that’s really good. But there were a lot of runs called where they gave us the RPOs, and that’s who we are.”

The core principle behind an RPO (run-pass option) is to take what the defense gives you. If the defense lines up a certain way pre-snap, know where you want to go with the ball. If the defense reacts a certain way post-snap, read it and go with the open option. They’re simple, but they can be lethal.

And, with Freeze taking more ownership of an offense now coordinated by former assistant Derrick Nix, Auburn plans to lean more into that RPO game in 2024.

Thorne has played more quarterback at the power-conference level than the vast majority of players across the country, so his decision-making and processing should be strong. Additionally, college football’s new adoption of NFL-style, in-helmet communication systems should only help with the critical pre-snap reads. Until there is 15 seconds left on the play clock, a coach can talk directly to his quarterback.

Even though Auburn could have ran whatever it wanted Saturday night and put up points against a massively overmatched Alabama A&M team, the offense didn’t shy away from its philosophy.

“It's a big deal,” Thorne said. “You hate to get into a game and just run your face into a wall for a quarter and a half. That's no good, and you're risking possible injury doing that. Just run your offense. Coach was calling RPOs, and if they give us the look, then make the right decision as a quarterback. It's just working on execution and taking practice to the game. If they give us that look, then you're going to throw the ball.”

The Tigers just took what the Bulldogs gave them — and that was obvious from the very first drive of the game.

On Auburn’s opening snap, the Tigers ran a RPO slip concept out of a typical formation — two receivers split out on either side, with tight end Rivaldo Fairweather lining up like a big slot on the right.

True freshman Malcolm Simmons came in motion from the slot across the formation. At the snap, Auburn’s offensive line blocked the play like a typical zone handoff. Thorne read what Alabama A&M’s outside linebacker (No. 7) was going to do as the unblocked defender on the right.