In depth post game stats

Auburn had 40 running plays against Ole Miss not counting sacks
11 of the 40 plays went for zero or negative yardage
So looking at this number we see 27.5% of our rush plays went for zero or negative yards.

Auburn had 29 plays that went for positive yards
So we had 72.5% of our rush plays go for positive yardage.

When we look at the plays that went for positive yards they break down into two categories:

Short yardage plays ranging between 1-5 yards
Big plays that are 8+ yards gained

Auburn had 17 of the short yardage plays ranging from 1-5 yards
Auburn had 12 plays that were large gains of 8+ yards
Of the short yardage plays Auburn’s most consistent number was 2 yards, we had 6 plays of 2 yards. The next most common was 3 yards being gained of which we had 4 plays for this distance.

Of the big plays most of those plays were for 10+ yards, we had 8 of these plays, then two plays for 9 yards and two plays for 8 yards.

So when we break down the positive plays ~59% of our positive plays were for 1-5 yards in our rushing game. This obviously leaves the remaining 41% for big plays of 8+ yards.

While the offense performed very well we still have room for improvement, as hard to believe as that is. You will always have tackles for a loss but it is obvious we do need to work on this some more as nearly 28% of our offensive rushing plays are for zero or negative yards.

Good news is that we should have Onterio back soon at what we hope will be full speed. This will open up our outside running game and help Tate move that most common number of 2 yards to 3 or 4. Also this will help us out on the negative yardage as many of these were from attempts to get to the outside or on slow developing reverse plays. Gus can prevent some of this by using the built in bubble screen he has on his reverse plays to keep the defense from over perusing, Onterio had one of these catches against UT where he was wide open.

Our next big game is against UGA, whose rush defense is ranked one spot higher than Ole Miss.UGA is allowing 3.85 YPC with an average of 137 rushing yards allowed per game so far. It will be interesting to see if the offense with its newly found confidence and the passing game coming back can keep UGA on its heels and start running for 200+ yards per game again. One thing going for Auburn is that it just came off a big win and the offense is showing signs of life again, one bad thing for UGA is they are having a poor season and just came off a crushing defeat at the hands of Florida.