AUBURN, Ala. – Take one look at the final box score, and it would seem that the Auburn defense dominated once again Saturday. The Tigers had 12 tackles for loss, forced three turnovers and held Southern Miss to 2 of 13 on third down in a 24-13 victory at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Ask the players after the game, though, and they'll tell you a different story.
"I feel like we need to get better," defensive lineman Derrick Brown said.
"We came in wanting a shutout, and they got 13 points," added linebacker Deshaun Davis. "That's not the standard we want to play to, but we got a win."
Through the first three quarters of the game, it looked as if the Auburn defense was going to keep the opponent out of the end zone for the second straight week and live up to its billing as the top scoring defense in the SEC coming into Saturday. But early in the fourth quarter, Southern Miss finally broke through and scored a touchdown to make it a one-score game.
It was obviously a letdown, but it also served as a wake-up call. The leaders got together on the sideline, and from that point forward, the intensity ramped back up.
"We just wanted to go out and execute, especially after letting them score," linebacker Darrell Williams said. "We're a prideful defense and we don't like when people score on us. So coming out after that, we just wanted to hold them and get three-and-outs."
The Tigers did force three-and-outs on the next two Southern Miss drives, and then on the drive after that, true freshman cornerback Christian Tutt made the play of the game defensively when he hauled in an interception that all but sealed the win for Auburn.
For Tutt, it was his first career interception.
"That was huge," said safety Jeremiah Dinson, who had the game's other interception. "It's nothing but trust. He was in the game late when they had the drive. It's big for him. We trust all the freshmen. Like I said a couple of weeks ago, we trust anybody that's on the field with us."
"If you ask Tutt, he was kind of down on himself because he missed a tackle on the play before," added Davis. "I was telling him, 'You've got to drop that. I miss tackles. Everybody misses tackles. Drop that and go make a play. You're here for a reason. Go make a play.' Low and behold, look what happened. It was big for our unit. It was big for our team. It gave us good field position to go get three points and put the game away."
On the three drives after the touchdown, Southern Miss ran eight plays – the interception came on the second play of the third drive – and lost nine yards.
It would have been easy to lose focus Saturday after a two-and-a-half hour weather delay just before halftime. It would have been easy to start looking ahead to Mississippi State the following week. But when the score got close and the game was on the line, the Auburn defense rose to the challenge.
"As a team, it was a challenge," Williams said. "Any time if you get a weather delay like that, a couple hours, it's a challenge to get back warmed up and come out hot. We struggled a little with that, but I feel like we did a pretty good job just getting the W."
Williams and Davis combined to make 19 tackles, including 4.5 tackles for loss Saturday. Brown added two tackles for loss and a sack. Still, there's work to be done before the Tigers travel to Starkville next week. Even for a defense that has now given up only five touchdowns in five games.
"We have to get better," Brown said. "Every week, our goal is to improve. We're not happy unless we get a shutout, and we haven't done that yet. So that's what we need to do."
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @greg_ostendorf