AU FOOTBALL: Mixed feelings on defense after win over WVU

Defensive coordinator Ted Roof watched West Virginia’s Jarrett Brown and Noel Devine wiggle through a number of his defenders’ arms time after time with the rest of the 87,451 fans in attendance Saturday.

He also saw that same group get the best of Brown, picking off passes on four consecutive drives in the fourth quarter to help account for six takeaways on the day.

So what is there to make after one of the prettiest and ugliest showings by the Auburn defense this season?

“I rate it good enough to win,” Roof said bluntly less than 24 hours after the Tigers’ 41-30 feel-good win over the Mountaineers.

Roof’s evaluation of the defense three weeks into the season followed a similar angle that a number of Auburn’s coaches have taken when discussing their respective groups.

Happy with the win. Long way to go if they want to maintain those same happy feelings.

“We did enough to win, but in order for us to continue to win, that’s not our goal with how we opened up the game,” Roof said. “We missed too many tackles, we didn’t get off the field enough on third down and the quarterback kept plays alive.

“But at the same time, it’s six takeaways.”

The tackling, especially at the beginning of Saturday’s game when West Virginia stormed out to 14 points and racked up 219 yards of offense in the first quarter, appeared to be the biggest setback for the notoriously tough Auburn defense.

Brown and Devine, two of the fastest at quarterback and running back, respectively, that the Tigers will see all season, broke multiple tackles on a number of plays. Brown’s ability to escape trouble allowed him to complete a 58-yard pass play on the Mountaineers’ first drive, while Devine slipped by a handful of Tigers on his way to a 71-yard touchdown run.

It’s not as if Auburn was the first team the duo had done that to, but it was an excuse Roof and coach Gene Chizik quickly eliminated from consideration.

“A lot of the yardage last night was just simply missed tackles,” Chizik said. “We would blitz a guy and come off the edge. They were very athletic. We’d come off the edge and take poor angles.”

Fixing the problem might be easier said than done, considering that most Auburn players have been doing the same drills since their pee-wee days.

But Chizik said it all comes back to basics: “Tackling 101,” as he called it Sunday.

The problem stems from Auburn’s defenders making the field bigger than they have to, Chizik said. If the players are aware of where their help is coming from, it makes the actual tackle a simpler task.

“If you tell a guy right now that you’ve got a 100-yard field, and that guy can go within the box of 100 yards anywhere he wants right now and you’ve got to tackle him … your percentage of tackling him has gone way down,” Chizik said. “If you give him the parameters of how he tackles … now you’ve increased my chances.”

Bad tackling coupled with a lack of execution has contributed to the Tigers’ woes on third down, Roof said.

After allowing the Mountaineers to convert 10 of 15 third downs — at one point, it was 7-of-9 — the Tigers rank 104th in the nation (worst in the SEC) in third-down conversion defense.

“Sometimes it’s a pass rush issue. Sometimes it’s a free blitzer who misses. Sometimes it’s a guy getting beat one-on-one in coverage. Or the offense just executing well,” Chizik said. “But we certainly haven’t been good at that.”

Regardless, the six takeaways — two more than the goal Roof set heading into Saturday’s game — created the silver lining on Auburn’s third consecutive win to start the season.

The Tigers rank third in the nation with 10 takeaways on the season.

“It’s good to know that they see that these drills that we’re doing and the emphasis isn’t busy work or something coaches do to take up time at practice,” Roof said. “It’s no coincidence and it’s something we’ve got to continue to do.”

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