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Auburn football: 4 questions as Tigers return to action against Tennessee
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What a month it’s been for Auburn, or perhaps more accurately, what a month it hasn’t been for the No. 23 Tigers, who haven’t played a game since the final afternoon of October.
Following the postponement of Auburn’s game against Mississippi State, the Tigers are scheduled next to take the field against a struggling Tennessee team that has seen its season come unglued after a promising 2-0 start. Auburn has made strides in recent games, but the competition was necessarily always up to snuff.
The Volunteers provide another opportunity for the Tigers to evaluate their progress before gearing up for the Iron Bowl. If things go as planned, Auburn should pick up its 5th victory, but these 4 questions are worthy of monitoring:
1. Is the passing game actually improved?
It will have been 21 days since Bo Nix engineered a 48-11 rout over LSU, recording his second straight game of the season completing at least 75% of his passes. In his 2 games against Ole Miss and LSU, Nix averaged just under 10.0 yards an attempt, up from 6.5 yards, which would rank 11th among qualified passers in the SEC.
Chad Morris’ offense at Auburn has never looked better, albeit with one major caveat: the Ole Miss and LSU passing defenses are the 2 worst in the league. That obviously is a major factor in the recent success, but even given the glaring weaknesses in the opposing secondaries, Nix has looked much more composed and polished in the pocket. He still pulls the ball down a little more frequently than you’d like, but there have been less throws across his body and his footwork has improved.
Tennessee is no juggernaut on defense, but its passing defense is a marked step up in degree of difficulty from the last two games for the Tigers. The Vols’ secondary allows almost 50 fewer yards through the air than Ole Miss and 90 fewer than LSU.
UT’s run defense is near the bottom of the league, so a heavy dose of Tank Bigsby again could be the best recipe for success, but Tennessee marks a nice little litmus test of how much Nix has actually improved before going into the 2 biggest games of the year.
2. Should the secondary be concerned?
If Tennessee sticks with Jarrett Guarantano, the short answer is no. Guarantano ranks near the bottom of the league in just about every passing metric, and the Vols haven’t mustered over 165 passing yards in a game since early October.
Despite being 2-4 and Tennessee quarterbacks throwing just 2 touchdowns in the last 3 games, Jeremy Pruitt has been rather stubborn when it comes to pulling Guarantano and turning to the future in Harrison Bailey.
Bailey has thrown just 13 passes in 2 games and was the 3rd-string QB against Arkansas. Bailey was a heralded recruit in the Class of 2020, ranked as the 3rd-best pro style quarterback by 247Sports and has now had an extra week of preparation, so if there ever was a time for Pruitt to move on from Guarantano, it would be this week.
Auburn’s secondary has been pretty sound this season and just held a similarly inexperienced freshman, TJ Finley of LSU, to 143 yards and 2 interceptions, but a lack of much film on the Tennessee QB could pose a bit of challenge for a Volunteers team looking to play spoiler at this point of their season.
3. What does Brandon Frazier add?
When Morris was introduced as OC this offseason, one of the larger questions was how he would increase tight end usage at Auburn. Tight ends had accounted for just 3% of receptions under Gus Malzahn’s first 7 seasons and made just 3 catches all of 2019.
The numbers haven’t been flashy this season with just 7 receptions for 54 yards, but that’s already double the production through 6 games as it was through 13 in 2019. The 6-2, 300-pound freshman J.J. Pegues has been the early star of the group, but the position still may have an ace up its sleeve in fellow 4-star freshman Brandon Frazier.
Frazier, who missed the first 6 games after suffering an undisclosed injury late in preseason, measures in at 6-7, 270 pounds and will be used as more of a receiving target than Pegues, who is used in gadget plays and the run game.
Nix needs another target in the red zone outside of throwing a jump ball up to Seth Williams. Frazier could quickly emerge as a 4th receiving weapon. Frazier finally returned to the practice field last week and could be just the piece Auburn needs to propel its passing game into the top-half of the SEC.
4. Who’s available?
Just because the game is still on doesn’t mean Auburn will be trotting out a full roster. While Auburn’s game against Mississippi State was officially postponed on the Bulldogs’ end due to COVID-19 roster limitations, Gus Malzahn expressed concerns earlier in the week that Auburn was growing close to having to postpone the game for virus issues of its own.
Ten players tested positive last week, and while practice resumed on Friday, contact tracing may be an issue.
“I think it’s about 50/50 that we have as far as positives and contact tracing, as far as total numbers,” Malzahn said.
If that’s true, Auburn could be without as many as 20 players on Saturday against Tennessee. Just who those players are and to what extent their value is may be the decisive factor as Auburn returns to the playing field.
