Mr. CFB: What Did We Learn on Week 3? We Learned That Auburn Is Not Very Good

Home loss to Penn State heats up speculation on Harsin's future

Except for the wild finish at Appalachian State, we didn’t have nearly as much drama in Week 3 of college football as we had in Week 2.

Still, here are Five Things We Learned on the third Saturday in September:

1—Auburn is simply not very good. So what now for Coach Bryan Harsin?

Football is really not that complicated.

If you turn the ball over four times and your preseason All-SEC running back is held to 39 yards rushing, you’re not going to win. And so it was for Auburn (2-1) in a 41-12 loss to Penn State at Jordan-Hare Stadium. It was Auburn's worst home loss in a decade. Harsin is now 8-8 in his first 16 games at Auburn with five straight losses to Power Five competition.

I’ll admit it. I picked Auburn to win this game straight up. I thought the Tigers would be jacked up by the home crowd and could control the game with Tank Bigsby, who is a really, really good football player. Instead, it was Penn State (who looked pretty average) that dictated tempo with 245 yards rushing and 6.3 yards per carry.

Now the heat gets turned up even higher Harsin. The Tigers are favored to beat Missouri on Saturday but then comes an unforgiving stretch that includes LSU, Georgia, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Mississippi State and Texas A&M. Then, of course, there is Alabama waiting at the end of that brutal road.

“I can’t control that (talk about his job security),” Harsin said after the game. “But I control what I do each and every day.”

Those Auburn fans who want to make a change sooner later than later will be front and center on Paul Finebaum’s show on Monday.

I thought Auburn would use the Penn State game to build a little momentum, Now the outcome just seems so inevitable. Hope I’m wrong about that.

2—It looks like LSU is starting to figure some things out: After LSU lost to Florida State 24-23 in Brian Kelly’s first game as the Tigers’ head coach, there were negative predictions galore. There were folks on the Bayou who were convinced that Kelly, who has won big every place he’s ever coached, was not ready for prime time in the SEC.

But Saturday night in Baton Rouge LSU held Mississippi State’s vaunted offense to only 16 points on the way to a 31-16 victory.

LSU wiped out a 13-0 deficit with a 21-0 run in the second half.

And with the game on the line, LSU put together a 14-play 85-yard drive.

That, my friends, is SEC football at its best.

Now things should be little calmer in Baton Rouge. After a scrimmage with New Mexico on Saturday, LSU plays at Auburn, Tennessee at home, at Florida, and Ole Miss at home.

Quarterback Jayden Daniels thew for 210 yards and ran for 93 more.

Kelly said he that while there is a long way to go, he likes the fight in this team after watching them battle back from a 13-0 deficit.

“The one thing that I know about this group for certain…is that they are fighters,” Kelly said after the game.

3—Ole Miss looked really good—and really comfortable—at playing smash mouth football.

 I thought the Rebels would win at struggling Georgia Tech but I didn’t think they could run for 316 yards, which is what they did in a thorough 42-0 pounding at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta.

Coach Lane Kiffin said we should not be surprised that he kept it on the ground. In fact, we’d better get used to it.

“Everybody thinks that you throw the ball in this system,” said Kiffin.

“You really don’t. You run the ball a lot in this system when you really have it going.”

Well, Ole Miss really had it going. The Rebels ran the ball 62 times. All six of their touchdowns came on the ground.

Ole Miss (3-0) hosts Tulsa this week and then welcomes Kentucky (3-0) to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Oct. 1. Now that is going to be a line of scrimmage battle.

4—Anthony Richardson is incredibly talented. He’s also incredibly inconsistent. Fans, media need to be patient:

In many ways the treatment of Florida quarterback Anthony Richarson after the opening game with Utah was just so unfair. After the Gators beat the defending Pac-12 champions 29-26 Richardson was being compared to Cam Newton and Vince Young. He was on the express train to the Heisman Trophy ceremonies in New York. He might even win it.

Please.

Saturday night against USF he struggled again, completing 10 of 18 passes for 112 yards and two interceptions. Against Kentucky the week before he completed 14 of 35 for 143 yards and two interceptions in a 26-16 loss.

Florida does not have a touchdown pass in its first three game. Coach Billy Napier called for patience with the young quarterback.

“We put the ball in his hands and ask him to do a lot, said Napier. “He’s going to make mistakes.”

Florida was very fortunate to beat USF: The Gators were a 24 1/2-point favorites but needed several miscues from the Bulls, particularly in the kicking game, to win 31-28.

5—Aggies get to catch their breath—for now: 

You can’t overstate how badly Texas A&M needed to beat Miami Saturday night at Kyle Field.

The Aggies, with new quarterback Max Johnson, jumped out to a 17-3 lead held on to win 17-9 against the No. 13 team in the country.

The Aggies were held to just 264 yards of total offense. Part of that was a conservative game plan where Coach Jimbo Fisher asked Johnson to throw only 20 times.

“We’ve still got to get a heck of a lot better on offense,” said A&M coach Jimbo Fisher. “But I thought that (conservative game plan) was what was best to win the game.”

This win will calm down Texas A&M’s fans, at least until Saturday’s game with No. 10 Arkansas in Arlington, Tex.