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Similar to the Mississippi State game, red zone woes were the name of the game, today. Auburn took three trips inside the Ole Miss 20 and came away with 9 points. Touchdowns on two of those drives and it's an Auburn victory.
From the start, it was apparent Sean White was hampered by whatever injury made him a game-time decision. I think Gus Malzahn tried to game plan a way to rotate between Jeremy Johnson, the Wildcat, and Sean White on the first drive or two, but it obviously wasn't working.
Sean White did get his first touchdown pass of his Auburn career with a beautifully thrown ball to Ricard Louis. The 47 yard bomb was the only touchdown on the day for Auburn. He also threw a number of other very good looking balls, but was chased around a decent bit and made some errant throws, as well.
Meanwhile, the defense did enough to win the game. 27 points isn't optimal, but Ole Miss was averaging 40+ per game, so keeping them to less than 30 is pretty good. Carl Lawson was a force whenever he was on the field, causing a number of QB hurries, at least half a sack, and made Ole Miss offensive lineman Laremy Tunsil skittish on a number of plays to where he was either called for false start, was leaning before the snap and not called, or bulldozed by Lawson once or twice.
There were the usual woes on third down, but Auburn did still make some stops. It's not like they allowed Ole Miss to move the ball at will. Lawson didn't play the whole game, either. It appeared to me that he played full-time about every other series, with the exception of subbing in on 3rd downs. I don't know for sure, though. That was just my view from the stands.
The failure to score touchdowns were the ultimate downfall of the Tigers this afternoon, though. The effort by the defense just wasn't enough to overcome field goals rather than touchdowns. I'll have more thoughts on that and the game as a whole tomorrow.
Auburn travels to College Station next weekend to take on the Texas A&M Aggies. The game will be a 6:30pm EST kickoff.