Oct. 23, 2016
By Charles Goldberg
AuburnTigers.com
AUBURN, Ala. - Kevin Steele was reviewing his defensive game plan.
"Stop the run."
Check.
"Affect the passer."
Check.
Beat Arkansas. Done. Auburn's defensive coordinator said his line played exceptionally well from "start to finish" in Auburn's 56-3 win over the weekend in Jordan-Hare Stadium. Auburn held Arkansas to 25 yards rushing and 215 total yards on the way to its next challenge, a game at Ole Miss on Saturday.
Auburn will be looking for more of the same after a dominating defensive performance against Arkansas.
"On every single play, we had the front four either knocking people back or affecting the rusher and we did that playing good technique, had good gap control so it started up front and ended up front," Steele said after Sunday's practice. "I thought our linebacker group did a good job feeding off that. The secondary did a good job in terms of not getting the top knocked off the coverage."
Steele had the inside scoop: Arkansas had 26 called run plays and gained 40 yards. Arkansas called 38 pass plays, and the quarterback was knocked down 15 times with four sacks. Carl Lawson chipped in with seven quarterback hurries and a sack. There were 11 tackles for a loss.
"All in all, it was a very good complete game."
Auburn was 1-2 after three games, but has now won four straight, including three SEC games, and is ranked as high as 15th nationally. Steele said the Tigers can't let that success go to their heads.
"The process is now how do you put things behind you and go back to work knowing the success you had is because of the work you had," he said. "They have been pretty mature because of our leadership in the room. It became more evident in the open week where there was all the reason in the world to lose a little bit of edge in practice. To not understand we have to work as hard this week as we've worked all year long and you don't have a game. They came out and did that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and really did it because of the leadership on the team."
Then they beat Arkansas 56-3.
"The thing that was probably the most encouraging thing that it had been such a complete game, and then we made wholesale substitutions. I thought our young guys responded and went out there and I think they had a five-and-out, three-and-out and a three-and-out," Steele said.
Alas, it's time for Auburn to move past Arkansas.
"It's over. It's done with. Henceforth, until the banquet occurs and they show the highlight tape, they're not allowed to talk about Arkansas except to say thank you," Steele said. "We've moved on to Ole Miss. We've got a football team that started out in the Top 10 at the beginning in the year. They've played a tough schedule. Make no mistake about it, the record is no indication of how talented they are. In their losses, 34, 43, 30 and 21. That's a lot of points. and it was against some very good defensive football teams."
Charles Goldberg is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: Follow @AUGoldMine