Coffee And Magnolia: September 19, 2014

The game is over and Auburn is 3-0 with a homecoming date with Louisiana Tech on the horizon. It will be a much needed rest prior to conference play really beginning on October 4th against LSU. So let's find out what people around the country are saying about the game.

Bill Snyder believes Auburn had their signals in the first half, though Gus Malzahn denies that. NBCSports' Kevin McGuire says that if it's true, then Kansas State only has themselves to blame for it. I don't know if Auburn was reading KSU's signals or not, but as pointed out on Twitter by many, it really appeared the Auburn defense had a better 2nd half than 1st half, anyway.

Kevin Scarbinsky calls this Auburn's "gut-check" game for the season similar to other early-season games of year's past.

Also on al.com there are some good articles about Josh Holsey's fantastic performance playing in a position he's very familiar with. along with a discussion of how Auburn's rushing defense propelled the Tigers to victory. The defense has been maligned by many this season, but the run defense has been outstanding, as Joel Erickson pointed out on Twitter, last night:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Forgot to tweet this earlier, but Auburn’s given up 107 rushing yards in the past 10 quarters, I believe.</p>&mdash; Joel A. Erickson (@JoelAEricksonAU) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoelAEricksonAU/status/512826932660932608">September 19, 2014</a></blockquote>

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Granted, Arkansas didn't run much in the 2nd half, and SJSU is not much of a rushing team anyway, but Kansas State does like to run the football. Jake Waters was a beast for KSU two weeks ago against Iowa State, rushing for north of 130 yards, and Auburn held him to negative yardage.

Charles Goldberg of Auburn's official athletics site has his usual thorough round-up of the game. Quotes from the coaches praising the efforts of the defense abound. I think my favorite quote of all is one Malzahn made about that final pass play: "It was one of those deals that you run the football, take away 40 seconds and give them a chance to win the game. Or you can go ahead and try to win the game yourself." I love that attitude, personally. Contrary to Jesse Palmer's horrendous opinion, that final pass was not a perfect throw. If it was perfect, Duke continues on into the endzone with ease rather than jumping up and being tackled. Speaking of...

In his excellent "Three things we learned" column, SB Nation's Jason Kirk points out that this is the first time in 13 games that Auburn failed to cover the spread. How many people in Vegas got a sudden moment of hope when that ball was let go and their hopes dashed when the pass was just a bit too high for Duke to haul in and sprint to the endzone? Score there, and Auburn covers the spread at the last second.

Elsewhere on the Mothership, Brandon Larrabee of our SEC Blog "Team Speed Kills" is thinking Bill Snyder played the part of the man leaning over Caesar Gustav's shoulder saying "Remember, Gustav, thou art mortal." Ok, that one was a bit forced and doesn't really apply to his article, but he does make excellent points about how some weaknesses were exposed.

Some Bama fans went to this game just so they could pull for K-State. Ummm... ok.

BringOnTheCats says that opportunity knocked, but no one for Kansas State could answer. Meanwhile, Bill Connelly says avoiding mistakes and taking advantages of others' mistakes is what football is all about, and therefore the better team won.

And that about wraps it up. There are plenty of other articles out there, but I wanted to link to some of my favorites and keep as much within the SB Nation network as I could. We'll have one or two more articles for you today, an open thread for tomorrow, and the usual stuff will resume on Sunday as we prepare for the LaTech game.

War Eagle, everyone. 3-0.