Auburn defense impresses when given a chance

AUBURN — The scoreboard doesn’t tell the whole story.

It might not even be a good introduction.

Just because the Auburn offense beat the defense 57-31 in Saturday’s A-Day game, the defense didn’t really “lose,” according to both head coach Gene Chizik
and defensive coordinator Ted Roof.

With a modified scoring system in place that allows both the offense and the defense to score points for performance — such as sacks, three-and-outs, as
well as touchdowns and field goals — the final score doesn’t mean as much.

But the last week does.

“In the last week, we have made some tremendous strides defensively,” Chizik said after Saturday’s game. “Today, we mixed and matched people. We played
a lot of people. I am really proud in the last week of how far our defense has come.

“Today wasn’t necessarily indicative of defensively of where we are at simply because we had so much mix-and-match going on with players.”

The defense was missing five starting or impact players due to injury, including defensive backs Aairon Savage and Mike Slade, safeties Zac Etheridge and
Mike McNeil and defensive end Antoine Carter.

“We rested a lot of people today,” Roof said. “It was good for a lot of guys to get reps. It gives us a better look of where we were.”

And where the defense is, is a lot better than where they were at the beginning of spring practice, Roof said.

“We had a good spring,” the first-year DC said. “We’ve come a long way. It’s been a real good spring. We made a lot of strides. I’m pleased with that.

“I think we established an effort level that we want them to play with. We started to mix it up pretty good. It was a very, very physical spring but one that we
needed bad.”

And of the starting defenders who did get in, a handful didn’t play very long. Defensive end Antonio Coleman only played a few plays, collecting one
quarterback hurry. Michael Goggans played just a little more, and racked up one sack and two tackles for loss. That meant a lot of action for the backups and
walk-ons.

Freshman walk-on defensive back Matthew Sample led the Tigers with six tackles, all solo. Linebacker Ashton Richardson was next in line with three tackles.