Following a 44-39 loss to the Florida Gators on Sept. 19 in their SEC opener, the Auburn Tigers are searching to find their way back into the win column as they take on the Vanderbilt Commodores in their final game of September at home.
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However, the team is taking on a true learning curve this week after having taken on its first loss of the season.
The defensive side of the football is one place where the Tigers are having to adjust, as DJ Durkin’s unit has taken a hit in the first three games of the season compared to where it was last season.
“We have seen the response, Golesh said. “We have seen a sense of urgency. That’s the part that hopefully there’s a sense of honesty all the time. It’s what gets drilled over and over. Then you go to a game like Saturday and you don’t see it. Whose fault is that? As coaches we’re obviously not hitting it home hard enough or not emphasizing it enough because if you’re not seeing it on Saturday then what are we doing?”
Through the games that Auburn has played so far, the Tigers defense currently ranks 13th in the conference in points given up per game, 12th in rush defense and dead last in both passing defense and yards given up per game.
On Tuesday, defensive lineman Chris Murray said that the concept of urgency and detail has been touched on over and over again throughout practice since the Florida game.
For Golesh, he knows that Murray’s feeling has to be spread across the entirety of the defensive unit, as if just one guy does not reciprocate that, then it has not been drilled enough.
“For (Murray) to say that it has been drilled into his head. We need all 11,” Golesh said. “It’s everybody. It’s the group on the field and the subs, everybody.”
In terms of the game against the Gators, Golesh felt that his team got beat in a lot of situations that it should not have overall.
He knows that will happen at some points in the game of football, but if the defense gets beat due to misalignment and miscommunication, that is something that is unacceptable in his point of view.
“To get beat because we’re not aligned or to get beat because we’re still communicating, if I lost sleep, which I have, that’s what I would lose sleep over,” Golesh said. “To me that’s a lack of detail and a lack of urgency that, up until that point, we had not seen. That’s the part that is eating at me. I’m not saying we lost because of that. We lost the game because we lost the game, but you wish you didn’t need a wakeup call like that to be more urgent.”
As the weeks go on though, Golesh is adamant that those regressions do not need to take place if Auburn wants to get where it wants to be.
“Year one right now, we are where we are,” Golesh said. “We needed that. If we grow from that and continue to improve then you say ‘fine, learning moment and let’s go.’ We just can’t take a step back or revert back to that.”
Auburn Undercover is an independent Auburn sports media company covering Auburn athletics, recruiting and insider news.
