Auburn Tigers' Effort on Football Field Not Reflected in Results

The Auburn Tigers have shown little improvement in the win column this season, but it's not without trying

Even with the effort on the field, the Auburn Tigers are far from contending in the SEC / Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

 With six games in the books, the Auburn Tigers are far from where they hoped to be.

Auburn is sitting at 2-4, winless in the SEC, and is set to play back-to-back road games, one of them against a top 20 opponent in Missouri this week. It’s not even an improvement from last season, they were 3-3 at the halfway point last season.

They’ve lost their first three SEC games for the second straight season under head coach Hugh Freeze.

Things appear to be spiral further out of control each time it takes the field. Freeze doesn’t think it has anything to do with his team’s effort. He blames the coaching.

“I think our kids' effort is really, really good,” Freeze said. “We put up some decent numbers, but the bottom line is we didn’t coach well enough for our kids or execute well enough in a combination of critical moments to win the very difficult games in this conference.”

The effort is starting to show up on the field, particularly on the defensive side of the ball, as the Tigers performed better than anticipated against challenging opponents such as Georgia and Oklahoma.

However, they haven’t been progressing with each game.  

“I do think we’re getting better each week,” Freeze said. “I think we’ve done a decent job the last few weeks against the run. Our front has matched up pretty well with the likes of Georgia and Oklahoma. Unfortunately, we are still giving up too many explosive plays and not playing extremely well on critical downs.”

With the defense continuing to come together as a unit, Freeze hopes the bye week gave Auburn gave them a chance to reset the offense and special teams.

“I do see improvements and I’m really happy with the job the staff is doing and the way they go to work every day to get our kids improved,” Freeze said. “Hopefully after this open week, we see more consistency in all three phases.”

Auburn’s offensive line is an area that improvement could make a noticeable difference for the team.

“Got to protect better,” Freeze said. “I think we’re doing a decent job in the run game, the run average is better than most. We’re inconsistent in protecting the passer in a couple spots and that has shown its head at times. Hopefully we can find ways to improve that.”

Auburn and Missouri are set to kick-off at 11 a.m. CT on Saturday. ESPN will carry the television broadcast