Auburn's defense stands strong as they shock the Gamecocks

Auburn's Michael Dyer was a big factor
in the victory against South Carolina.

   Auburn pulled off a major upset Saturday, beating the nation's #10 ranked team South Carolina 16-13 on the road. Chizik called the win a "landmark victory" for his Auburn Tigers. Auburn showed a big improvement on the defensive side of the football. A unit that gave up 315 yards against lowly FAU last week limited South Carolina's offense to 289 yards. Most importantly, Auburn keyed in on big time back Marcus Lattimore and only allowed him to gain 66 yards on 17 carries. It was clear that shutting Lattimore down was the focus of Auburn's defensive gameplan.

   Both teams featured lackluster quarterback play. South Carolina's Stephen Garcia completed only 9 of 23 passes for 160 yards and a touchdown and threw two interceptions, but also added 62 yards on the ground on 10 attempts. Auburn's Barrett Trotter completed 12 of 23 passes for 112 yards and a touchdown, but also threw two interceptions. The difference came on the ground. Auburn showed no reservations for feeding running back Mike Dyer the ball, and feeding it to him often. Dyer ran it an astounding 41 times for 141 yards and one touchdown. Auburn's game plan was to lean heavily on Dyer, and that's exactly what they did.

   A big difference in Auburn's play on defense seem to come up front, where Auburn's defensive line looked to play much better. The d-line got penetration all night long and the Tigers had a season high 3 sacks in the game as well as providing pressure on Garcia, forcing a couple of interceptions. The defensive line seemed to collapse in on Lattimore all game as well, keeping him and check and causing him to fumble the ball in the first quarter.

   It's difficult to tell what caused the defense to play so much better than they had in the past. They were much more effective on third down than they had been all season, only allowing the Gamecocks to convert 2 of their 10 third down plays. Part of me wants to believe that Gene Chizik was much more involved with this game plan, and Auburn played more like the Chizik defense of the undefeated 2004 team that we all came to know and love. Whatever it was, Roof and Chizik seemed to be on the same page and it resulted in Auburn turning in their best defensive performance of the season.

Will we see Clint
Moseley next week?

   Going forward there are still a few things that would seemingly need to be addressed. Auburn's most impressive touchdown drive came when Kiehl Frazier rushed the ball 3 times for 33 yards on a possession that started towards the end of the first quarter. He looked quick to hit the hole and the read option plays really worked well with him taking the snaps. You have to think that as the season progresses his role will grow more and more. Barrett Trotter turned in a very poor performance, and Gus seemed to lack confidence in his ability to throw the ball downfield as there were a lot of bubble screens and draws called in third down situations. He did not look like a starting SEC quarterback until he connected with Phillip Lutzenkirchen on the game winning drive in the 4th quarter. He hit Lutzenkirchen for a 9 yard TD in the 4th quarter while standing strong in the face of a Melvin Ingram blitz. That was one of the lone bright spots in Trotter's night. If Malzahn does not think Frazier's passing game is ready for the big time, then Auburn has to give back up Clint Moseley a look in practice this week. It would be hard to believe that he could do much worse than Trotter did in this game.

    If Auburn can keep up this defense and find a way to be more effective on offense, then they will surprise a lot of people who wrote them off after struggling in the first four games of the season.  This young team is growing up in front of our very eyes, and Arkansas should consider themselves warned.