Jackson Arnold Sounds off on Auburn Offense Not Carrying Weight

AUBURN, Ala.- Back-to-back games of poor offensive showings have handed the Auburn Tigers two straight road losses against the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas A&M Aggies. Both teams have used their matchups against Auburn to bump themselves into the top-10, showing that a similar standing was within reach. 

In both of those outings, the defense kept the Tigers in the game until the very end. However, the offense has not been able to keep its end of the bargain. 

In a post-game press conference, Auburn quarterback Jackson Arnold was asked about how frustrating it is that the defense is giving the offense plenty of golden opportunities that are failing to be capitalized on in the last two outings for Auburn. 

“Yeah, it sucks. Obviously, we’ll have to go back and look over the game and see what we can improve on, what I can improve on, little things we can do,” Arnold said. “I know there is a lot of (inaudible) to that too that we gotta go back and fix, but we have two weeks to go and get it right. So I'm hoping we’ll use that time wisely.”

The Auburn offense punted the ball away nine times in Saturday’s 16-10 loss to now No.6 Texas A&M. In total, the Auburn offense had 177 total yards to the Aggies’ 414 total yards and in embarrassing fashion, the Tigers were 0-13 on third down for the entire game. 

Arnold did not have his best outing either, with a now recurring problem of holding the ball too long and not trusting his wide receivers in one-on-one situations. Arnold was sacked five times in the matchup against the Aggies, bringing the total over the last two games to 14.

The blame is not fully on him, however. The offensive line for the Tigers has not been performing at the level that Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze spoke very highly of throughout the offseason, even stating that six of the offensive linemen were NFL draft-ready. Transfer offensive lineman Xavier Chaplin has five false starts all by himself in the previous two games alone. 

The Tigers have the opportunity to get healthy with a bye week and prepare for their next matchup in two weeks, against the Georgia Bulldogs. The clock has started on the Tigers to clean up their mistakes and offensive woes, or Hugh Freeze could find himself out of a job by the end of the season. 

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