Auburn DC DJ Durkin Explains Defensive Issues Against Florida

Though the Auburn Tigers’ offense may have opened their Florida matchup with one of the weaker showings in recent memory, the Tigers’ defense seemingly fell apart at the hands of Jon Sumrall, Aaron Philo and, of course, Jadan Baugh.

The Gators could seemingly score at will against the Tigers on Saturday, scoring points on all but two of their full-length drives throughout the matchup. Jadan Baugh, the Gators’ running back, put up a season-high total in rushing yards, while tying his season record for total touchdowns with three.

So, what went wrong for the Tigers’ defense, which, up until that game, was viewed as one of the stronger units in the country? On Monday, Auburn defensive coordinator DJ Durkin took to the stand to explain.

“Playing with emotion is good, but you can't get emotional,” he said. “I think we were amped up in that game a lot, and it led to some basic mistakes from guys who don't normally do that either. Credit to Florida… With our guys, we kept waiting for them to just settle in and play, settle in and play, and it didn't happen that way. We talked about it during halftime, but it just didn't materialize.”

Buster Faulkner, Florida’s offensive coordinator, is quite famous for his pre-snap ‘eye candy’ that is designed to keep defenses guessing, and it seems as if he kept Durkin’s unit thinking hard throughout the entire matchup, leading to miscommunications that resulted in chunk plays.

However, there was another issue that haunted the Tigers’ defense throughout the matchup: missed tackles. Admittedly, it is hard to blame the scheming or the players outright for this issue, as the Tigers’ offensive struggles kept the defense on the field with little rest, resulting in fatigued efforts to stop one of the stronger offenses in the country.

Durkin, however, was not so kind to his unit on Monday.

“We say it all of the time, explosive plays are created in two ways,” he said. “It's by missed assignments and missed tackles… For the most part, when there’s an explosive play, someone wasn’t where they were supposed to be, or there was a tackle missed or several. Both of those things, we harp on those a lot, and they showed up big time in that game.”

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