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AUBURN, Ala.- After Auburn's defense struggled with tackling last week against Baylor, the Tigers are placing extra emphasis on the trait as its home opener against Ball State approaches.
After Thursday morning's practice, head coach Hugh Freeze detailed what the team is doing to improve, saying the team did extra tackling drills this week.
“As much as you can on dummies,” Freeze said. “And those donuts and the new apparatuses we have for that. But yes, we had to. We missed 30 tackles. But at this point in the season, it is really hard to tackle live on your guys. We need everybody, even the scout team guys. You know, you just don't have enough. But yes, we made an emphasis on that in every indo (individual).”
Another issue the Tigers were tackling in practice were penalties.
During an individual period of practice, the Auburn defensive backs did a drill where they had mitts on their hands, not allowing them to use their fingers.
“Well it's two-fold," Freeze explained. "One, we had two holding penalties on a critical third down and a critical fourth down, they were legit, I mean they were there. We gotta get our hands off of them and the second part in one-on-ones is we don’t want to pull one of our receivers down, you know and get somebody injured… I don't think anything ever hurts with that, because it forces them to play with good technique.”
The Auburn defense has a chance to redeem themselves in tackling this week, when they take on the Ball State Cardinals. The Auburn defense ranked 31st in total defense last season, giving up an average of 330.8 yards per game last season. Although it has only been one game, the Tigers have already given up 483 total yards, with a lot of those yards coming either after the catch, or after contact.
Until Auburn hits the road again, they will also host South Alabama next weekend, giving the Tigers plenty of opportunities to correct the little mistakes made on the field before SEC play begins on Sept. 20 at Oklahoma.
Kickoff in Auburn’s home opener against Ball State is set for 6:30 p.m. CT on ESPNU.
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