Auburn football improved from 24 missed tackles against Florida to 16 against Vanderbilt, but Alex Golesh says those misses still cost 68 yards. Now DJ Durkin's defense faces a Tennessee offense built to test the Tigers' tackling in space and on the perimeter.
Thankfully, the Auburn Tigers tackling was better against Vanderbilt.
But it still wasn't good enough.
After missing 24 tackles against Florida, Auburn cut that number to 16 against Vanderbilt.
That's improvement, but those 16 missed tackles still resulted in 68 additional yards, according to Alex Golesh when he met with the media on Monday. Now, Auburn gets a Tennessee offense that's going to make the Tigers tackle in space over and over again.
"They will force you to tackle in space," Golesh said. "They will force you to tackle on the perimeter."
So Auburn's biggest defensive weakness through the first four games is about to get tested again, but I thought Golesh provided some really interesting context Monday when talking about the missed tackles.
Because not every missed tackle is the same.
There are situations where Auburn can live with one according to the Tigers head coach.
If a defender is near the sideline, takes his shot and forces the ball carrier out of bounds, the result isn't necessarily damaging. Auburn can also survive a missed tackle if pursuit from the rest of the defense is there to clean it up.
Golesh pointed to several examples against Vanderbilt where Auburn's effort prevented misses from becoming explosive plays.
The ones Auburn can't have are different.
It's a defender losing leverage, allowing the ball carrier to cut back inside, and suddenly there's nobody there to help.
Those are the misses that turn into explosives. If Auburn has an opportunity to bring down a ball carrier in open space, they have to do it.
And for the most part Saturday, I feel like they did that, however they still missed 16 tackles. Plenty of room for improvement as Golesh, who isn't happy about the lack of defensive discipline, is trying to build.
Golesh praised Tennessee's speed on the perimeter and said its freshman quarterback can also create problems with his legs.
That puts even more pressure on Auburn to get people on the ground.
The encouraging part is that Auburn has been disruptive.
And the Volunteers have also been an offense that has allowed some mistakes to happen, and if Auburn can capitalize, it could help them complete an upset. Last week against the Texas Longhorns, Tennessee allowed 10 sacks.
If Auburn can get to the young quarterback in the backfield and create pressure, they could have a big defensive day as long as he doesn't break tackles.
The Tigers have created pressure. They've created negative plays. And Golesh believes that combination can become something really good if Auburn adds consistent perimeter tackling to it.
"If that can be combined with high-level perimeter tackling, you could be dominant," Golesh said.
Going from 24 missed tackles to 16 is a step in the right direction, but it may not be enough fast enough to win a big SEC road game. They will have to get better, faster this week.
