First thoughts: Auburn starts slow, never recovers in blowout loss at LSU

BATON ROUGE, La. — It was a horrific start for Auburn, going down 17-0 in the first quarter and being out-gained 216-45 in the opening frame. While the team settled in and fought back at times, the early deficit was far too much to overcome on the road inside Tiger Stadium.

The final: LSU 48, Auburn 18.

Here’s some quick thoughts from Auburn’s third straight loss of the season.

— What a disastrous start to the football game. Auburn had two weeks to prepare and on both sides of the ball, it was an unmitigated disaster. LSU scored a touchdown on their opening drive in less than two minutes. Auburn’s offense answered with a false start, nearly a delay of game, and a bad snap on third down on their first drive. LSU tacked on another 10 points in the opening frame, going up 17-0 before Auburn was even into positive yardage for the game.

— I don’t know who is calling plays, but Auburn’s third drive of the game looked and felt completely different than the first two. RPOs, pace, it felt like another game plan entirely. I think we could take some guesses, but Auburn’s first touchdown drive makes the first two abysmal drives of the game that much more frustrating.

— LSU’s offense is the real deal. There’s so many weapons that even when you call the right defense or put yourself in position, Jayden Daniels can still make you pay with his scrambling ability. Auburn’s defense started horrifically, but did settle in and start to sprinkle in more pressure as the game went on. Ron Roberts seemed to decide they can’t sit back. Bring pressure and if you get beat, so be it. Letting LSU dictate is just a bad idea. The defense had to try to create negative plays, even if it risked greatly giving up big ones. There were also some good contain moments and decent coverage on the back end.

— The Auburn offense, whether it was Payton Thorne or called plays, started taking some shots downfield along the sideline during the second quarter. I understand wanting to try and pick up chunk plays when you are struggling to put drives together, but given Auburn’s passing struggles, those are so, so low percentage. They put pressure to create first downs on just two plays, and with this offense, that isn’t happening right now.

— Jaylin Simpson continues to play fantastic football. His break on the ball during the second quarter that resulted in a PBU that DJ James intercepted off the deflection was a phenomenal play. Let’s just go ahead and credit Simpson with 4.5 interceptions on the season, instead of just four.

— The offensive line didn’t play all that well. The group committed four first-half penalties on their way to xxx penalties in the game. They committed a critical holding call on a Thorne scramble that would have resulted in a first down late in the second quarter. Fortunately for Auburn, the defense forced a turnover and got the offense the ball back.

— The rotation of quarterbacks seemed to bite Auburn again on the final drive of the first half. Robby Ashford entered and ran twice for 16 yards. After a Jeremiah Cobb 13-yard run, Auburn was at midfield. Then in came Thorne who threw two incompletions and was sacked, forcing an Auburn punt. Bringing in Ashford created yards for Auburn, but Thorne wasn’t able to complete the drive coming back off the sideline. There’s good moments for each at times, but rarely doesn’t it come together for both quarterbacks on the same drive.

— Auburn continues to perform really poorly on third down recently. Against Texas A&M, Georgia and LSU, the Auburn offense is now 7-38 on third down combined.

— Ashford started the second half at QB and honestly, it didn’t seem like a bad decision. First, with one of the least efficient passing attacks in college football, there’s just nothing to lose at this point in giving Ashford some extended playing time and seeing what happens. Second, Auburn really, really needed points coming out of halftime and certainly didn’t need to come out and go three-and-out. At least by starting Ashford coming out of the locker room, you could toss some things out there that LSU hasn’t seen yet and possibly get points. That’s what happened.

— Brutal defensive series for Auburn after cutting the lead to 10 points. Twice, the defense had LSU facing 3rd-and-7 and twice LSU converted, the second time for a touchdown. There’s just no good answers when it comes to defending Daniels and LSU in those situations. Sit back and contain Daniels and he connects. Blitz and don’t get home, and Daniels scrambles for huge gains. Auburn simply can’t create pressure with four and it’s killing them in many situations. The game was truly over after those two conversions and third LSU touchdown of the night.

— Auburn passed 100 yards through the air against a Power 5 opponent for the first time since October 29, 2022, a blowout loss to Arkansas that ended Bryan Harsin’s tenure as head coach.

— Who could have predicted Brandon Frazier with three catches for 52 yards and a score on the night?

— Auburn has scored touchdowns on 87.5 percent of its red zone opportunities this season against Power 5 competition. The problem? Getting into the red zone. Auburn’s only made it inside the 20 nine times in four Power 5 games.

— Thorne went 4-for-5 for 57 yards on Auburn’s second touchdown drive of the game. Better than nothing!

— That’s 10 more tackles for Eugene Asante, who extends his team lead in tackles in a big way. At one point in the fourth quarter, injured teammate Keionte Scott tweeted “9” in support of Asante’s big game.

— 563 yards of offense are the most Auburn has allowed in a game against LSU since at least 2000.

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