I have faith in our team. We may not be looking explosive against teams like Towson, but we have had a lot of our best players out. They were held out against Towson because Dan wanted to make sure they would be good to go for Auburn. Getting Hendo and Zuniga back will make a big difference in getting stops and taking the other team off the field on 3rd downs, which is the only real problem we had against Towson.
I also am taking solace in the fact that our rush defense is much better this year than usual, take into consideration of the opposition of course. That gives me hope against the jortgias and the barns of the world who rely 99.9997% on their running games to produce their offense. As long as we can keep containment and don't give up those flat out long plays to any quick barn runners like MSU did all night, we can work this game. For all the faults of our O line and the running game, they have held up great against opposing team's pass rush. Only 8 sacks given up in 5 games so far this year which has us near the top of the SEC. You can easily say that half of those sacks were on the QB holding it too long too, such as the 2 or 3 against Towson where Trask held the ball FAR too long trying to hope a receiver opened up. Young QBs make those mistakes. Auburn's D up front is no more nasty than Miami's was, and we were fine against Miami in week 0.
So everyone holding their heads in their hands going into this week just because the barn blew the doors off an MSU team that is basically gutted, needs to get on board and believe that we can step up the intensity this week. For crying out loud, a mediocre Pac10 team nearly beat Auburn at a neutral site and we get them at home.
