Film Room: What went wrong on third-and-long?
Against Arkansas, Auburn consistently failed to get off the field, even in the most ideal situations. The problems on third downs are widespread.
Even though it’s been a nightmare start to the season for Auburn with two turnover-filled losses to teams it beat a year ago, the Tigers don’t have a bad defense.
In those two losses, Auburn allowed an average of 4.33 yards per play. That ranks No. 11 for FBS defenses against power-conference opponents. The scoring defense average of 22.5 points per game ranks in the top 40 nationally, too. The rushing defense is No. 20, and the passing defense is No. 25. That’s a solid start.
Take a quick glance through the stat sheet of Auburn’s 24-14 loss to Arkansas on Saturday, and you would think the Tigers’ defense did enough to win. Arkansas only averaged 5.4 yards per pass attempt and 3.3 yards per carry.
Taylen Green completed less than half of his passes and threw two picks. Ja’Quinden Jackson only averaged 3.4 yards per carry after entering the game at nearly 8.0.
But Arkansas also went 9-19 on third downs. That’s not a great number already. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find that six of those Arkansas conversions came on third-and-10 or longer.
Two more first downs came from Auburn penalties, including one that wiped away a three-and-out and led to a touchdown. (A third-and-10 turned to a fourth-and-3 on that drive.) Three straight third-and-long conversions directly resulted in another touchdown. And a pair of third-and-8s turned into fourth-and-1s that led to Arkansas going up by two scores in the fourth.
On the most important downs of the game, Auburn’s defense couldn’t get off the field. That gave an inconsistent Arkansas offense enough juice to put points on the board and walk out of Jordan-Hare Stadium with a victory.
Between Auburn’s offense turning it over five times (again) and Auburn’s defense allowing an extremely high percentage of third-and-long conversions, Arkansas’ post-game win expectancy was a mere 6.8%, per ESPN’s Bill Connelly.
That means that, given the overall stats for the game, Auburn would be expected to win 93 times out of 100. But all those turnovers and all those third-and-long losses, while statistically extremely improbable, were more than enough for Arkansas to win.
This week’s Film Room could have easily been about the Auburn offense. But there’s a real “just more of the same” feeling, as the Tigers continue to lack efficiency, explosiveness and a true identity in Year 2 under Hugh Freeze.
So let’s break down something different that transpired Saturday: The third-and-long defense. Because, believe it or not, Auburn did quite well against Cal on third-and-longs in Week 2. The majority of Cal’s damage came on early third-and-shorts.
This Film Room will take a look at all 13 third-and-longs that mattered in Auburn’s loss to Arkansas on Saturday and what happened on each of them. It’ll also peek back at the Cal and New Mexico games to help answer one question: What’s wrong?
Is it the scheme? Is it too many three-man rushes? Is it not enough spying? Is it personnel problems? Is it overall execution?
What’s wrong with the Tigers on what should be the most favorable situations for a defense?
Before we begin, a word on sending just three rushers
Let’s start with the question on a lot of Auburn fans’ minds: Why is Auburn rushing just three so much?
Well, on the 13 third-and-longs from the Arkansas game, Auburn sent three rushers to the quarterback four times. One of them worked. One resulted in a first down, and then the next one resulted in a go-ahead 59-yard touchdown. The final one ended with a pass interference call.
Rushing three, while a conservative strategy on third-and-longs, isn’t always guaranteed to fail. In fact, on the four times Auburn did it against Cal two weeks ago, Auburn made the stop three times. Here is an example of it working out:
It just needs to be executed correctly — almost perfectly, given the strategy behind it — and there were several real issues for the Tigers on those plays. We’ll get to those.