Auburn Football: 3 Up, 3 Down After Arkansas State Game

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 12:47 p.m. ET

foxsports

Sep 10, 2016; Auburn, AL, USA; Auburn Tigers head coach Gus Malzahn watches his team warm up before the game against the Arkansas State Red Wolves at Jordan Hare Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John Reed-USA TODAY Sports

There were a lot of good things that happened for Auburn football Saturday night, but here we give our 3 up and 3 down from the 51-14 win over Arkansas State.

Auburn football played one of their best football games in a long time on Saturday against Arkansas State.

I don’t care if it was a lesser opponent, they still came out and played nearly flawless on both sides of the football.

I thought the offensive game plan and execution was 10 times better than what we saw against Clemson.

The defense fell asleep at times, but overall they looked solid once again.

Last week we had the Auburn defense, the secondary and Kerryon Johnson trending up. We had the offensive play calling, lack of sacks and depth of running back trending down.

It’s amazing how things can change in one week as Auburn was much better in all three of the downs from last week.

I think it goes to show that our coaching staff still knows what they’re doing as it’s clear they focused on all of those areas during practice last week.

It’s also good to know that our players can adjust that quickly from week-to-week.

You’re never going to be perfect, but the team’s performance on Saturday night was about as close as you can get.

It’s hard to find much to be down about in this one, but we’ll attempt to do so in this week’s 3 Up, 3 Down.

Sep 3, 2016; Auburn, AL, USA; Auburn Tigers quarterback Sean White (13) takes a snap during warm-ups prior to the game against the Clemson Tigers at Jordan Hare Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports

3 Up

Sean White

We saw a totally different Sean White at quarterback Saturday night. He looked cool and confident with the football.

You could almost sense the relief in him knowing he wouldn’t have to look over his shoulder for the next quarterback coming in.

He threw for three touchdowns passes, which was two more than he had before the game on Saturday night.

White made a lot of good decisions with the football, completing short passes that the defense was giving him. He also showed his ability to run the ball when everyone was covered up rushing for 60 yards on 10 carries.

Again, it was Arkansas State, but this is the best I’ve seen Sean White play at Auburn.

Kamryn Pettway

After not receiving a single carry against Clemson, the big running back rumbled his way for a game-high 152 yards rushing on 15 carries for an average of 10.1 yards per carry.

Right before the end of the first half he broke through the middle of the line and ran 64 yards before he was tripped up at the one yard line.

He missed out on a couple of chances to get a touchdown, but it was a great debut at running back for the sophomore.

He had another big run of 29 yards in the second half that helped boost the average.

A lot of his runs came on short yardage situations, which is what I wanted to see from the former fullback. He was able to pick up four or five yards a pop running up the middle against a big Arkansas State defensive front.

This performance gives me a lot of hope going forward that Auburn has some solid depth at running back.

Tre’ Williams

I could probably name five guys on offense for our 3 Up section, but I need to sneak a defensive guy in here.

My main focus at the game on Saturday was to watch the linebackers. I wanted to see who really stood out.

It didn’t take me long to realize that Tre’ Williams is the man at linebacker. He was flying all over the field and seemed to be in on every tackled.

He finished the game with 8 tackles, 1.5 tackles for a loss and a sack.

At a position that many thought was a question mark going into the season, it looks like Auburn has a star in the making at linebacker in Tre’ Williams.

To me, the best linebacker duo on Saturday night was Tre’ Williams and Darrell Williams. Those two looked really well together out there.

Sep 10, 2016; Auburn, AL, USA; Arkansas State Red Wolves quarterback Chad Voytik (9) throws a pass during the third quarter against the Auburn Tigers at Jordan Hare Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John Reed-USA TODAY Sports

3 Down

Auburn Secondary

I’m going to name two more downs, but really the secondary was the only unit that showed a weakness on Saturday.

Twice they let a receiver run up the middle of the field uncovered for big gains. Both of those passes setup Arkansas State’s two touchdowns.

You could easily say that had the secondary not had those two breakdowns in coverage, the Auburn defense would have pitched a shutout Saturday night.

Keep in mind this is an experienced group because of injuries, so you expect some hiccups along the way. You just hope this doesn’t become a constant issue going forward.

If we run into teams – like Texas A&M – that can stretch the ball down the field we could be in trouble.

Hopefully the secondary will get that issue resolved this week.

Marcus Davis