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Game #1 is in the books, and it was a win for the good guys. It wasn't pretty in the first half, but the Tigers pulled away in the second half. So let's get to some quick thoughts.
The good:
1) The offense is awesome. We have two legit quarterbacks. Jeremy Johnson looked a bit skittish on the final drive of the first half, but before that he was near perfect. Auburn's first punt was partly due to the drop on 1st down by Ricardo Louis that put it 2nd and 10. The offense definitely looks different with Marshall in the game and the running game works better due to Marshall's threat to run himself, but Johnson looked fantastic throwing the football.
2) Cameron Artis-Payne is shifty and excellent and Corey Grant is still just as fast as ever. Our running game is just fine without Tre Mason.
3) Pass rush in the 2nd half. I don't know what adjustments were made at the half, but we went from getting absolute gashed up the middle to only allowing 2 rushing yards in the second half.
4) Wow are we lucky Robenson Therezie was cleared. He had some big plays from the pressure and QB hit that caused the pick-6 and a big hit on a wide open receiver that led to a fumble and loss of yards.
The bad:
1) Whatever that first half defense was. I'll have to defer to our Xs and Os people on that one, but whatever Arkansas was doing or we weren't doing, it was bad.
2) Ummmm... that's it? Maybe? Really, I'm quite happy with the way the game turned out. The defense looked bad in the 1st half and did struggle sometimes in the second half in leaving receivers open (especially #11), but overall they were great at getting off blocks and making tackles.
That was a lot of fun, and I'm glad football is back. The weather delay was a drag, but the fans that came back in were into it, and the team came out strong to finish the game. Credit to Lauren Smith for what may have been the tweet of the night about the rain:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Kanye's gonna let Auburn finish, but wants you to know the West Virginia rain delay was the best rain delay of all time.</p>— Lauren Smith (@LaurnSmith) <a href="https://twitter.com/LaurnSmith/statuses/505874731531517952">August 31, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Next up is San Jose State.
War Eagle!