ATLANTA – All week, the Auburn coaches have been telling their players that adversity would strike Saturday against Washington. How are you going to respond?
For the defense, that adversity struck late in the first half when the Huskies went 75 yards on four plays and scored a late touchdown to cut the Auburn lead to 15-13. Still, the Tigers had a lead. Two points might not seem like much, but for the defense, it was more than enough. They went into the second half fully intent on keeping Washington off the scoreboard.
"The whole emphasis was 'If we lose this game, it's all on the defense,'" senior defensive lineman Dontavius Russell said. "I feel like we took that challenge and we were able to keep them out of the end zone. Bend but not break. That was kind of our motto."
The Huskies moved the ball in the second half. Their first play from scrimmage went 20 yards. But every time they got down close, the Auburn defense stood tall.
First, it was a missed field-goal attempt. Then it was a fumble caused when Nick Coe blew up quarterback Jake Browning on an option play and knocked the ball loose. Darrell Williams jumped on the loose football. Then, the Tigers made yet another stand late in the third quarter, holding Washington to a field goal. Three straight red-zone attempts. Three points surrendered by the defense.
"Our mindset is 'Yeah, they made a big play, it's a little adversity,' but we're going to stop them," Coe said. "There's no choice because we're the Auburn defense. That's what we do. We stop people from scoring."
"You've got to understand your backs are against the wall," added fellow defensive lineman Derrick Brown. "There's not much room for error back there."
Though the field goal gave Washington its first lead of the game at 16-15, the Auburn offense answered back two drives later when JaTarvious Whitlow capped off a 10-play, 76-yard drive with a 10-yard touchdown run that put the Tigers back in front.
The offense did its part. It was then up to the defense to finish the job.
"The game is on us," safety Daniel Thomas said. "We kept telling each other that. Just stick together and finish strong."
The Huskies moved the ball all the way to the Auburn 37-yard line, but that's as far as they would get. After an incomplete pass on first down, Coe stuffed running back Myles Gaskin on second down for a three-yard loss. Then Big Kat Bryant chased down Browning for a sack and another three-yard loss. On fourth down, it felt like the whole defense converged on Browning, who was lucky to get rid of the football before going down.
It wound up being intentional grounding, which all but sealed the game.
"It was to the point where we scored a touchdown, and we've really got to buckle down," Russell said. "If we do our job, we win the game. So that's kind of why I think we were able to get so much more pressure than on previous downs."
As a unit, the Auburn defense finished with nine tackles for loss, five sacks and two turnovers – the fumble recovery and an interception by Jamel Dean, the first of his career. Though the Tigers gave up nearly 400 yards of total offense and committed a number of uncharacteristic penalties, they made stops at critical points in the game and kept Washington out of the end zone in the second half.
Adversity did strike Saturday. Auburn's defense responded.
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @greg_ostendorf