Tank Bigsby, Auburn football's rushing attack MIA vs Penn State
There are few things more important than establishing an offensive identity when it comes to winning football games.
More specifically, winning football games in the SEC.
The Auburn Tigers were humiliated on Saturday afternoon at the hands of No. 22 Penn State. The 41-12 loss was the worst home loss for the Tigers since 2012 - a dreadful 3-9 season that featured rotating quarterbacks, poor coaching, and a middle of the road defense that struggled to create turnovers.
Sound familiar?
Throughout the contest with the Nittany Lions, something that has become increasingly more clear as Bryan Harsin's time at Auburn has gone by was revealed and on full display.
The Tigers don't have an offensive identity.
Use whatever explanation you may, whether it be lack of a proper offensive line, a quarterback, or a scheme that is dependent on traits, skills, and execution that is difficult to come by with the talent roster that Auburn currently possesses.
Or, use all of them. They are all applicable.
Bryan Harsin spoke about the Tigers' offensive gameplan the week leading up to the season opener against Mercer.
"We want to come out and establish things on our offense where we are doing some of the stuff that we've been practicing," Harsin said. "Running the football, throwing the ball, being balanced, and our guys are executing is what it is we're trying to get done on the offensive side."
At other points during the offseason, both Harsin and offensive coordinator Eric Kiesau harped on establishing the ground game first - a run first, pro-style offense with some balance to it. That's what the Tigers wanted.
Auburn had five designed run plays in the second half against Penn State. According to Harsin in the post game press conference, "when the score starts to get to what it is, you're not running the ball as much, you gotta throw it, you gotta put it in the air."
Makes sense. It's not uncommon to see teams start to throw more when losing, especially when the scoring gap continues to widen.
However, if that is the case in this game, then why were there 14 designed runs to 24 drop backs in the first half? Harsin said it himself, the score was only 14-6 at the break.
"We ran the ball fairly well, they did some things - and we knew they would - their d-line moved, they hit us in the backfield a couple of times, and created some penetration, created some negative plays."
Two questions here.
First, does 119 rushing yards (Auburn's total vs PSU) count as running the ball fairly well? Most would argue no - Take out the sack yardage, and the Tigers are still only sitting at 160 rushing yards - that's seven yards below the national average (65th out of 131 FBS teams).
Second, why exactly did those negative run plays happen? Harsin answered:
"I don't know all of the answers and the reasons why that happened, but that's what I saw on the field today."
Well... no revelation there. That's what the ninety thousand fans saw, too. If anyone is going to have answers as to why a football team performed the way they did, it would be the head coach... right?
Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that just like the fans, he also saw how the offensive line played.
Even if Harsin does not want to admit it, it was a new low for the trenches. Four of Auburn's five starting offensive linemen finished with a PFF grade of 48.6 or lower. If you played offensive line for the Tigers on Saturday and your name was not Kilian Zierer (80.5 PFF grade, highest on the team), you failed to finish with a grade higher that 64.
Auburn running back Tank Bigsby finished the game with nine carries. That's the lowest total he has had since his nine carries at LSU last season.
The lack of touches for the best player on offense starts to make a little more sense when breaking down the situation up front. Why waste plays on the run game when the offensive line can't block? It doesn't matter how good Bigsby is, he's not breaking every tackle in the backfield.
Even if he was, would it make sense to keep running the ball?
What's even worse for the Tigers is the flip side of the script - the pass blocking is even worse than the run blocking.
Could a switch to an option running game make more sense for Auburn, despite the rushing attack proving to be relatively ineffective thus far this season?
Whatever Bryan Harsin does, he better do it fast, before things start to roll down hill quickly.
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