The first loss of Bryan Harsin’s tenure as Auburn’s coach is one that he said “should burn” for he and his players.
No. 22 Auburn fell to No. 10 Penn State, 28-20, on Saturday night in Beaver Stadium. The Tigers squandered some key opportunities and made a couple of costly mistakes against the Nittany Lions, and it resulted in a stinging road loss in a national spotlight.
Harsin met with the media via Zoom after the game to discuss the loss. Here’s everything he had to say:
BRYAN HARSIN, Auburn coach
Opening statement…
“There are things we have to fix moving forward. It’s always that -- it’s all about the work and the time spent preparing and getting yourself ready to play so you can go out there and just do, really, the basic things, consistently throughout the game. We will do that and get ourselves back tomorrow. But I felt like we put ourselves in a position to win, and we didn’t. So that hurts. It should. Now we have to take that and learn from it and apply the things we can control and do a much better job of and focus on -- and actually go and do those things as we move into this next week, starting with tomorrow. So, questions.”
On the fourth-and-2 play call near the goal line late in the fourth quarter…
“We talked about it; everybody kind of gives their input. Those plays are pre-planned and scripted in those areas, so, you know, those are things you work on. I have to go back and look at it -- exactly what happened. Obviously we didn’t execute it and it didn’t play out how we wanted. So those are things that you go through in the game plan. Believe it or not, we actually spend time on it, working through it and working through the different scenarios and getting to that moment. That’s the play selection that you had and that you choose, so. We went to that play and it didn’t hit like we wanted it to.”
On the failed trick play to open the second half…
“Well, we thought we had something throughout the week watching film that was going to be a good call for us. We came out of it, and part of that was it’s not there and, you know, you get what you can out of it -- and he fumbled. So that was one of the plays -- anytime there’s a turnover in the game, that becomes a major factor. For us, our goal is always plus-one, so we’ve got to figure out a way to get it back and create that on the defensive side if the offense gives it up. We were trying to be aggressive. I thought we didn’t see it was there, and we were trying to go do exactly what we talked about, and the ball got put on the ground; they recovered it and it became a big turnover at the start of the third quarter. So that did not get us out to the fast start we wanted coming out.”
On Auburn’s pass rush…
“There was one he stood back there for what seemed like 10 seconds early in the game; I thought we had a better pass rush after that. But you’ve got to find ways to get after the quarterback, and you’ve got to find ways to get the ball out of his hands. He escaped a couple times from what I remember and made some throws on the perimeter. That goes back to coverage, so we’ve got to be able to plaster long enough with guys out of the pocket. So ultimately, yeah, if you can get after the passer and create some of those lanes, then he’s got to work through it. He’s good and he’s mobile and he’s able to do those things, so I didn’t think that we would keep him in the pocket the entire time. But we’ve got to do a better job of that. If guys are scrambling, we’ve got to continue to keep covering our man and not getting a throw downfield -- or at least make it a contested catch and try to get a hand on the ball.”
On Auburn’s passing offense…
“Um, well, we had 185 yards. Yeah, not good enough. That’s really -- we needed to hit some, some explosive plays. We got opportunities to do that. We need to catch the ball, and we need to be in the right areas in the pass concepts.
“That just goes back to those are things that we have to work on on this team, and those are things that have to be continually focused on. They’ve got to become priorities for everybody involved in order for us to go out there and execute those concepts that we have in there.
“But ultimately, we’ve got to come down with the ball. We’ve got to make some plays. You know, there are opportunities to do that. You know, we needed to hit some of those. We’ll go back on Sunday and we’ll work on it when we get better at it. There will be other opportunities in games moving forward as well, but explosive plays become a difference in any game, not just this game. But, if you can hit some of those explosives in the pass game -- and we did. We hit a few of them. You know, we want to create more of those and give ourselves some opportunities to do that. We’ve just got to go finish on those plays, and with that we’ll continue to be a work in progress as we go through this season.”
More on the fourth-and-goal call from the 2 late in the fourth quarter…
“Well, it’s a little more calculated than that, but there are four options on it -- there’s really five. Kobe was one of them.
“I just saw, you know, kind of the first of the play and the ball went up and [Kobe] was out of phase with where the throw was. But to answer your question, yes: there’s five possibilities on that play right there to give ourselves the best chance to get somebody in the end zone. I’ve got to go back -- before I make any comment on, you know, was that the right decision? I’ve got to go back and watch and see where the progression starts.
“And that’s really the one thing with the quarterback position: sometimes those plays don’t work out, and the main question is, ‘Well, he made the wrong read.’ Not necessarily; sometimes either it’s a route, it’s the defense doing a good job in their coverage. And so, we’ll access that tonight as we watch the film on the plane. We’ll work at it and make corrections tomorrow. But ultimately, you know, you want to give yourself a better chance in that situation right there. I don’t know if that was a decision -- we’ve run that thing quite a few times and we’ve had some really good plays on it. So, I trust that what he saw out there, we’ll look at it, we’ll learn from it and we’ll go from there.”
On how he used Auburn’s timeouts in the second half…
“Which one in particular?”
On the timeout before the fourth-and-goal play in the fourth quarter…
“Yeah, well we did that to see what was happening on that play there, so that was going to be used in that situation there. And as the game went on, we would have to use them -- really with the two-minute mark, right? We did do a good job because I think we had maybe 40 seconds left. We got the ball back, so, where they were and what we had a chance to do, I thought we managed that to where we could get the ball back and have a chance to go down and score.
“Now, we’ll review that as well and look at all those things, but sometimes you use timeouts because you may not be in the right position. You want to see something, and you want to make sure you have the right call on critical downs. Fourth down is one of those, and so, that’s why we used one of them early. And then the rest of them I think were in the two-minute situation to get the ball back, and then we were out of timeouts.”
On what he learned about his team tonight…
“Well, I think there’s a lot. I didn’t see anybody that was on the field — nobody quit. Alright, everybody was locked in on the sideline as far as running everything and make decisions and adjustments and those things. And that there’s plenty of work to do. That’s one thing. Just, this loss, it should burn.
“We came here and played a really good Penn State team on the road, we gave ourselves an opportunity to go win the game, those are games that you want to win. Those are the games that we came here to win. We didn’t come here to just play and be in the game, we came here to win the game. That’s going to be the mindset with everybody around in this program — not just showing up and playing well, but finding a way to win. And, the goal is a big part of that, if you want to be a championship team you have to win on the road. Half the games are on the road.
“Ultimately, from this point on, what do we do tomorrow? What’s the attitude, what’s the effort, what’s the focus that we’re going to get from this team? I think there’s a lot of guys in that locker room that are disappointed — and they all should be. I think it’s something that you want to absorb and take in and then you do everything in your power to not let that happen again. And, that’s everybody. Anytime — really, this should be every single week, in my opinion. Is you go back and look at it, you’re always trying to do everything you can to put yourself in the best position. Well, that starts on Sunday, and it goes all the way through Friday and Saturday’s game day. So, it doesn’t happen on just game day. You’ve got to put in the work, you’ve got to do it all the time.
“You’ve gotta leave no stone unturned and prepare yourself in a way that you’re going there to win — not just be a part of it. I thought we had a lot of guys that prepared themselves to win. I think we’ve got to get better at that. I don’t think it’s okay to feel good about just getting there and playing and losing a game. I think there’s a lot of things that we can take away from it and learn that will be positives, but at that same time, it’s still gotta have that sting. And that’s gotta be that fuel for the fire that you come back and go to work — it’s gotta be that internally that you want to go out there and do a better job. That’s everybody. That’s not just our players, that’s everybody in this program.
“Hopefully tomorrow we’ll be back out there, we all feel that way, we put in the work and then we learn from that. And then the reality of that is, you know, once you do that and once you learn that, that should become how we operate every day. Not just because we have to lose a game to figure that out. So, that’s what I saw tonight. Those are the things that we have to learn from this. That’s what Auburn football, in my opinion, should be about as we move forward. And everybody involved should feel that same way. So, those are the things that we’re going through. Those are the things that we want to create. Those are the things that we want to have in this program week in and week out. We want to be consistent. We want to put ourselves in a position in every game that we play to win. And it takes a tremendous amount of focus and work to do that.
On the status of Owen Pappoe, who left the game in the second half and didn’t return… “I don’t (have an update). He didn’t go back in the game. He was out there, so I don’t have anything else to tell you that way. I’ll know more tonight and tomorrow. Owen’s a tough player, he’s a tough person, so I imagine we’ll figure out what that looks like and how we operate that going into next week.”
Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.
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