Auburn’s first loss of the season is in the rearview mirror, and Bryan Harsin and his team are turning their attention to their next opponent -- Georgia State this weekend for homecoming.
No. 23 Auburn (2-1) will host Georgia State (1-2) at 3 p.m. Saturday in Jordan-Hare Stadium, with the game airing on SEC Network. Auburn will look to bounce back from a 28-20 setbacks against Penn State on the road, and the Tigers will aim to address key areas that contributed to the team’s defeat in Happy Valley.
Before Auburn returns to the practice field Tuesday, Harsin met with reporters via Zoom for his weekly Monday press conference to close the book on the Penn State game and preview this weekend’s matchup with the Panthers. Here’s a look at everything he had to say:
BRYAN HARSIN, Auburn head coach
Opening statement...
“Alright, just wrapping up last week. We came back yesterday, had a good practice. Were able to clean up things from the previous game against Penn State, look at things we did well, things that we didn’t do well and make those corrections before we move onto Georgia State.
“We didn’t have any players of the game; we don’t do that when there’s a loss. But I did think there were guys that did play well and there were some good performances from several guys on the team. But overall, just, guys were disappointed, as they should be. And we need to take away what we learned from this game, apply it to this week and use that as motivation as going into the preparation that we need to have against a really good Georgia State team.
“So, and looking at Georgia State, this is a team — go back a couple years ago — they beat Tennessee. What I’ve seen on film right now: They play very hard, very well coached. Coach Elliot does a great job with them.
“On offense, they give you a lot of problems. I think their quarterback, No. 3 Grainger, he’s a transfer that came in there and had his first start this last Saturday and played well. Had a couple TD passes, a couple rushing touchdowns or was leading his team in rushing there — second-leading rusher. Destin Coates, their tailback, guys got great feet, runs hard, plays physical. No. 2, their wide receiver, Jamari Thrash, 11 catches for 167 yards so he’s a guy now that can take it over at the wide receiver position. Very impressed with him. No. 15, Sam Pinckney, he’s been injured but one of the guys that’s the best in the conference. These guys have done a great job as far as just what they have to do on the offensive side, and they’ll give you some different looks and ways they can attack you.
“Defensively, very solid linebacker — Blake Carroll — very good player, leading tackler. Dontae Wilson, their nose tackle, this guy’s strong, physical, plays I think very hard and consistent as the game goes on you see that. Their cornerback, (Quavian) White, this guy’s their best DB — one of their best DBs. He’s got good ball skills and you can see him show quite a bit on tape. Special teams, all very solid as we’ve been seeing for the last three games. I think there’s good specialists. There’s got to be opportunities in there that we can hopefully creat on special teams but these guys do a good job.
“They definitely have the attention of everybody on this team and this staff. It’s our next opponent and we want to make sure that we prepare ourselves going into Tuesday for the looks and the things that we feel like we have to work on to play our best football on Saturday. But, very good team.
“We have a chance to be at home and for us to really focus on the things that we have to work on. And no distractions from that standpoint and just lock back into the things that have helped us to where we are right now and learn from the things that we did not do well and how we must improve in those areas and then spend the proper amount of time getting ready to go. I think one of the things in the last game that we have to continue to improve on is the discipline of everybody in this program and staying focused on the things that matter, staying focused on the things that are going to help us be successful. And then continue on with making sure that we continue to emphasize the things that are important ,and we make those important. And we fix the things that we need to correct as we move into this next week.”
On Auburn’s run/pass balance against Penn State and the success of the run game…
“Well, I always think we want to run it as much as we can. And you want to have balance. I think those guys did a very good job. The o-line and the tight ends, those guys blocked well so run game wise we felt good about some of the things that we were doing.
“In the pass game, there were opportunities there as well, so you like to have that balance. But we want to continue that trend. We want to be able to run the ball, we want to be able to do it effectively like we did in the last game, and we want to be able to build off of that in the pass game and then keep the balance of run and pass.
“But ultimately, one of the things that I thought we did well: we ran the ball in the red zone well, we had some opportunities to do that again and, you know, there was a little bit of confusion there when we got down into the red zone. But we’ve got to build off of that. We’ve got to continue to keep developing the run game, and I thought the o-line was a big part of that. There’s improvements. There’s things that we’re doing on the o-line in the run game that you’re seeing show up where we’re getting better, and that trend has to continue. So, we’ve got to build on the stuff that we’re doing there and then make sure that our run game is solid and that we can do some things off it in the pass game.”
On opponents completing 79 percent of their passes against Auburn this season…
“Well, I think it’s a combination of, you know, our opponents doing a good job of executing their pass game, so guys actually catching the ball and doing that. But we’ve got to come up and challenge them. That’s too high of a completion percentage that you want to see against the defense, so there’s things that we have to do as far as putting ourselves in zone coverage in better positions. We’ve got to create some pass rush and be able to make the quarterback have to move in the pocket, and so create some opportunities there. That’s an area that we know we can improve on and then lower that percentage as the season goes on from what the quarterbacks are able to do.
“And so, a lot of that -- even on the scrambles when a guy gets out of the pocket, we have to plaster and cover and stay in coverage a little bit longer and be able to make some plays on the ball. So, those are all things that are a work-in-progress every single week. It’s not something that we don’t expect that teams are going to throw it; we just have to continue to keep working and putting ourselves in a position to have the right personnel out there, absolutely, but also be able to, you know, play those techniques properly.
“A fundamental of the game is covering, and we’ve got to be able to really work through the techniques and improve in those areas as we move forward and we get those numbers down, for sure.”
On what he means by “plaster” in coverage…
“Yeah, that means just to cover -- like to stay on. If there’s a guy scrambling or moving, you know, you need to stay on your man. And that’s always something, you work that in camp, you work that as the season goes on, you see it in games. But keeping your eyes on your man when the quarterback is scrambling and there’s eyes on the QB at times, you know, when he does finally break the line of scrimmage. He’s going to be able to converge on him and tackle him. But, you know, keeping eyes on your man as you cover down the field and he scrambles.”
On the lack of explosive passing plays against Penn State and possible rotation of receivers…
“Well, I think there’s a plan to go -- I mean, every single week. And this is win or lose, you go back and look at, alright, what did we get done and what did we do well? Guys are competing for opportunities to play, so I think you’re always accessing that. Even in a win, you go back and look at the rotation. You look at the guys that played well; you look at other guys that are practicing well that you want to get into the game that may deserve an opportunity.
“Obviously, the big plays -- the explosive plays -- were not there. That’s a big part of what we have to create. It comes down to I think there’s opportunities for that. I think there were from a scheme standpoint chances to do that. We’ve got to be able to hit ‘em, we’ve got to be able to catch ‘em. Those are fundamentals; those are things that we work on every single day that we’ve got to be able to execute in a game. So that’s, to me, that’s just more time of working through those same concepts and the fundamentals of making those plays in order to hit those shot plays down the field or having explosive plays in the pass game.
“And you’ve got to have more explosives than we had in this game. You run the ball, you’ve got to have some explosive plays. You can put 12-, 13-play drives together, but you want to try to create some momentum. That doesn’t always have to be just a play down the field; they can also be, again, even a shorter throw that somebody’s able to take and make something out of it. Those are things that we’ve got to find ways to create those opportunities for more explosives, because that’s a big part of it. Explosive plays in a game are a big factor to that offense in particular having success in the game.”
On whether the switch to more off-man and zone coverage is causing growing pains in the secondary…
“What are you talking about, the defense? What are you talking about?”
Yeah, the defense in coverage…
“OK, what did you mean by more press-man?”
The former staff ran more press-man coverage, while Derek Mason said he prefers off-man and zone schemes. Has that caused growing pains with the secondary adjusting to the new system?...
“Yeah, I don’t really know if it’s a growing pain. That would—we’d be making the assumption that we’re allowing that and just kind of playing soft and making sure that we’re not trying to be aggressive. I don’t think that’s the case. You want to protect yourself from big-play opportunities at times, but we are trying to be aggressive throughout the gameplan. I don’t think we’re trying to just play soft and give up those throws. We haven’t executed the way that we could and should, so I think that’s what you asked as far as the growing pains. Those are things that we have to—we’ve got to make those plays. We got to put ourselves in the position to go in there and play a little tighter in coverage. Man coverage, we will play it. We had some man coverage in the game. Penn State did a good job with the tempo and did some things against some of our coverages where they made plays. And that’s going to happen. There’s going to be plays made; offenses are going to make plays.
“You’ve got to be able to recover. You’ve got to be able to get yourself back into position if there’s some momentum created from the offense to where you can now play in a man or zone situation and eliminate the explosive play again, because a lot of teams are going to try to come back to that. But overall, yeah, we have to improve on the defensive side in coverage, like we do everywhere else on this team. That’s putting ourselves, really throughout the week of practice, in those positions so that come gametime—if we do what we practice, and that’s really what it comes down to; we need to do the things in the games that we practice, and that way we can have some consistency. That way we know maybe what the issues might be, and we can identify that, and we can make adjustments.
“A lot of it comes down to the consistency and really just doing the things in games that you practice, and not putting ourselves in the position where we do things that are out of character from what we did the entire week of preparing. That’s where our preparation comes in. That’s where the daily focus comes in and just how important those reps and the fundamentals, the things that we preach every single day, really are, because they’re going to show up in games. And our opponents are also doing their best to put us in a position where we have a disadvantage on the defensive side, so it’s just your studying, your preparation, your knowledge going into that game is going to reflect all the work that you did that entire week to have yourself ready to go out there and identify things that they’re trying to do. If you’re in zone and there’s a concept where they’re trying to get in space, there’s probably some things you can identify from your preparation and you can put yourself in a better position to make plays on the ball.”
On the status of linebacker Owen Pappoe…
“Owen’s doing good. He obviously came out of the game, but he’s a tough guy and he’s ready to go back and get after it. So I feel good about his progress throughoug this week. We’ll know more on Tuesday of where he’s at, how many reps he gets. And that’s part of where we are in the season. It’s not just our team. There’s going to be guys that get nicked up in games and you’re going to have to manage that throughout the week. But they’ll be ready to go come game time. So that’s really going to be the case as we move forward, and hopefully nobody’s going to be out for the season. But you’re going to have some guys that have got to get in that training room and really spend time in there and really be a pro. Just taking care of their body. Getting themselves back into practice and then obviously preparing for the game.”
On Auburn’s pass rush…
“As far as the pass rush goes, yeah, we’ve got to put some pressure on the QB. We can’t let him stand back there and sit in the pocket for 8-9 seconds. We’ve got to be able to move him and get him off his platform of where he wants to be. So disrupt the pocket somehow, get guys moving where we have a chance to see where the quarterback’s eyes might be or put him in a position to be a little disadvantaged for them by moving him around.
“And we didn’t get that done enough. And create some opportunities where we can get to the QB as well and get some sacks. So we have to do a better job of that and that’s something that we’ve got to evolve and be better at on the defensive side. All those things, they showed up. And if we can do a better job in those areas and pressure the quarterback and we can continue to do a good job against the run _ and we’ve been able to do that _ then we’re obviously going to help our secondary out. We’re going to help out the defense in coverage, and we’re going to give ourselves a better chance with some of the completions that have been made on us if we can do a better job up front.”
On what he learned about Bo Nix’s first road start in this offense…
“A lot of the talk in the week, obviously the environment. There was a lot of people there. It did get loud. I thought we handled that well. So that I was pleased with. We did handle the noise. I thought we had poise from that position. And so those were positives there. And then there were things in the game that he did really well. There were things that we’re going to go back, and he can learn from and we’re going to be better. But I said before, the guys around him as well need to be consistent and we need to line up properly.
“We need to have guys that are in the game detailed to what it is that they’re out there to do. So the details of what we’re doing in the offense are extremely important to the success. The quarterback’s job is not to go out there and have to manage every single guy on the field. He has to do his job just like everybody else. The quarterback has his job to do. That’s what he needs to stay focused on, so you need all 11 guys on the field doing exactly what we practiced, doing exactly what they’re supposed to do as far as the pre-snap of the play.
“We can control that. We can control all the things up to the pre-snap of lining up right, being in the right spots and making sure that everybody is set and prepared to go out there and play fast on that play. And then when the ball is snapped, it’s a matter of reacting to what the defense is doing or going out there and attacking them, one way or another depending on the call. That’s what we have to do a better job on the offensive side, is being consistent in the games from the things that we do in practice. And to me that’s discipline. It’s all about discipline. It’s all about the time spent throughout the week so when you get into the games, you’ve spent so much time _ you’ve worked on it and focused on it _ it’s going to be very hard to get it wrong from that standpoint before the ball is snapped.
“And Bo did a good job with all those things getting the plays in, making sure that we had the right play called. He checked a few plays, did a nice job of seeing things. So, there were some really good positives that came out of that in that environment.”
On the fourth-and-2 call now that he had time to review film…
“That’s a tough question there. Was it the right play call? It didn’t work, so you know everybody’s assumption on that. That’s a good play. It’s something we’ve prepared. It’s something down there, in that situation, that had been prepared and we had executed in practice and done a good job of that. It was the first time we’ve had the chance to use it in a live game. It’s just a matter of time before we have a chance to call that. You work on it, and there’s options on that play. I’m not going to take you through the whole progression of it. There are options on that play and from the standpoint of having a good play, we did. It didn’t go our way. Obviously, we’ve got to go back and look at why it didn’t go our way and what we can do better and how we improve in that situation. The guys were working to do their job on the play, and it didn’t go our way.
“That’s what we have to take away from that. We have to learn from it and get better as coaches and players. We’re going to be in that situation again. We’re going to be down there inside the five-yard line with a fourth and goal of some kind. We have to find a way on fourth-down plays. When you’re in those situations it comes down to, you’ve got go make a play. It’s not ideal to be in a fourth-down situation. You would like to put yourself in a situation where you are converting on third down, but in fourth downs we have to have great plays. We’ve got to make great execution happen on the field. It didn’t go our way. Credit to Penn State, too. Penn State did a good job. They had themselves in good position in a fourth down call, whatever their call was. Those guys work those same things just like we do. There were opportunities there and next time we’ve got learn from it. We’ll be in that situation again and next time we need to have a better result.”
On Kobe Hudson responding after losing that fumble in the third quarter…
“It’s important to see that. I think it’s important to see anybody respond when something negative happens. That’s what you want. You want to see your team respond. We talk about that a lot. The majority of the game you’re going to have things happen to you that, it’s not perfect, but you’re still going to be able to win that particular play. You’re going to have to come back and respond to whatever that challenge was. You’ve got to have your mind right. It goes back to just preparation and all that. Some of those things we can’t let happen. There’s things that happen in games that, yes, you have to respond to. There’s things that happen in games that you’re preparing to not let happen. That’s also part of it as well. We want to respond properly when bad things happen to us, but we also don’t want to put ourselves in position to have negative plays or bad things happen to us. That goes back all the way Sunday through Friday in our preparation.
“Ultimately, in the middle of the game and the heat of the battle and all those things, you’ve got to move on to that next play. You’ve got to be able to get back out there and make things happen. He was able to do that and so were other players on the team. Guys did that. They were able to come back. At the end of the game, we still give ourselves a chance to go score and win the game, and we were not able to do that.
“When you’re on the road, you’re playing a good football team like Penn State, those are the things that we have to learn through our preparation, through the games we play, through all the things that we do, every rep we take, to be able to go out there and make those plays in those situations. So it’s not just the ones that are the obvious ones. There’s other things in the game that we see, that we know, that we could’ve picked up that are going to also put us in a position where we have more explosive—we have more opportunities, we have better field position in the game. And we didn’t execute it. And that goes back to, look back at yourself, look back at how you had yourself ready, look back at how you put that together as a staff. That’s really what you do, each and every game, win or lose, you should always have that same process to go back and, if you didn’t do something well in a win, it’s still important. And when you get into a game and you lose it—you know, you want to try to be consistent every single week as a coach.
“It’s important in a win. It’s important in a loss. It’s all important. And those are things that we’ve been working on, and that’s the progression of where we are with this team, is the continuation of correcting those things, getting better at it, and then knowing that those things are coming, each and every week, and—let’s not wait for it on Saturday. We’ve got to work that and really focus on it each practice that we get leading up to the game.”
On the defense having trouble getting calls in, and whether Derek Mason may move from the booth to the field…
“No. That has nothing to do with the box. Just, one thing — I know that’s a question that I’ve heard before. We have headsets, and it’s all real-time. So, none of that really has anything to do with how the plays get in, whether you’re in the box or on the field. But you’re going to see tempo with teams, like you just said. There’s no doubt about it. We’re going to see that. And every team has the ability to use tempo, whether they go fast or not. Whether that’s just in their DNA or they just have the opportunity in a certain field position or after a big play, they’re going to try to go tempo. So you’ve always got to be ready. And a little bit like I was talking about with the offense, the same on the defense:
“You’ve got to get your eyes to the side. You’ve got to understand what teams try to do when they use tempo and where they try to do it at. So that goes back to just knowing that through film study, knowing that through sitting in the defensive meetings, listening to the coaches when they’re talking about tempo. Practicing with a sense of urgency. Saturday is not the time to go out there and all of a sudden you’ve got a sense of urgency and you think you’re going to be ready for that. You have to do that every single day leading into the game, and you’ve got to do it in the right mindset, so you can operate like that, so you can get the call and you can ourselves lined up and ready to play.
“So tempo, that’s one of the things about tempo. Tempo is good if you can get the defense on the heels. Tempo can be an issue for your offense, now, if you go three bad plays, you’re off the field in 40 seconds. That’s the trade-off with tempo. And teams that we’re going to play, we’re going to see that, and defensively we’re going to have to get ourselves in position to go make plays, whether they’re going fast, going slow, moving guys around, huddling up. That’s what you do on defense. You have to defend all those different things.
“And offense, there’s just a lot of variety. There’s a lot of different things that offensive coordinators are doing now. Everybody’s stealing a little bit from somebody that they see, putting it into their package of plays that week. That’s why you’ve got to be on point at all times on defense. You’ve got to have some awareness of what that team’s doing. If they’re kind of muddling around, they’re slowing it down a little bit, get your call, get lined up. If you feel those guys are taking the ball, then you’ve got to be ready to play, whether they’re checking the play or not. You’ve got to be ready. And that means you’ve got to have that urgency at all times to make sure that you have yourself in position to make plays.
“So, I think a lot of it comes down to awareness on the defensive side and just knowing what your opponent’s style is and just studying that and having a great feel for that throughout the week and knowing that’s what you’re going to get in the game — probably at a faster tempo and at a faster pace, because our scout team is not going to go out there and execute it as well as Penn State. They’re gonna try their best. They’re gonna give you the very best look they can. But as a player, you’ve got to know, after playing in a few games, the speed of the game. And you take that into practice at the speed of the game. Not just practice to the level of competition that you’re getting from your scout team.
“You practice to your standard of what it’s going to be like in a game so that you’re ready when it’s time to go out there and play. You’re in the right position. Those are the things that we can improve on. Those are the things that we have to do a better job of. That starts with me, that starts with our staff in making sure that urgency, that focus that we have in practice is exactly what we feel like it needs to be as we get into the game. So none of that is any surprise. We shouldn’t be out of position. We should be in position. The offense is going to come and try to attack you in certain ways, but if we’re in position, we’re going to have a chance to cover and make a play on the ball or have a contested play. That’s what we want. We don’t want someone who is uncontested and having an opportunity for a freebie out there. So we’ve got to improve in those areas.”
On turning lessons from a loss into positives for the team…
“One thing after a loss — and, again, after every game — you go back and assess it. You look at what you did well, what you did not do well. That’s No. 1. And after a loss, I think everyone’s disappointed and should be. There’s that sting of not getting the job done. We didn’t accomplish the mission that we set out to accomplish. You use that. There’s a lot of positives in that. You use that as motivation. You use that as, alright, ‘I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough in these areas. We are not good enough in these areas.’
“One, it starts with you. And as a team, we have to understand that what we did wasn’t good enough. Credit to Penn State. We knew we played a very good opponent. But we know there were opportunities in there that we could’ve done a better job of things that we can control. And that’s where it all starts. What did we do, that we can control, that we have to be better at? What were the things that we did that we controlled that we didn’t execute well? And why? And you start to go back and look at, was it in practice? Was it focus? Was it a lack of time spent in preparing? You have to realize that winning can cover a lot of things up, and we try to focus on all those things — not to try to filter, because we won games, the stuff we didn’t do well. We aren’t trying to filter that and make it seem that it’s not that bad.
“At the same time, what a loss does is not so much exposes but gives you the understanding of just how important everything we do is. And the time that you have to spend to really have yourself prepared to play the way you want to play for four quarters of football — that’s the reality. And with a loss, that sting, that drive, that motivation — whatever you want to call it — you’ve got to move on, and you can’t let the last game beat you twice. You’ve got to move on, but you’ve got to let some of that sting and understanding that you didn’t do well enough... you don’t go out there and do the same thing.
“You don’t go out there and do the same thing. You make sure you do those things, but you do them better -- you do them with more urgency; you do them with better focus; you spend more time in the film room studying your opponent so you know every little thing you possibly can to have yourself prepared throughout the week so you can go play fast and play confident. Because you don’t want to be in that same position again. That’s a driving factor; there’s no doubt about that. To me, that should always be the driving factor. I don’t think you have to have that kind of motivation to make you want to do those things better; I think you have to have the type of discipline to just do those things at that level, every single day, every single week we go and play.
“Some guys need that motivation -- some guys, it takes that to get that out of them. That’s good; that’s something you can take away from a loss. But where we want to go is that, regardless of whether we win or lose, we operate like that every day, every practice, every opportunity we get to prepare ourselves. That’s the type of discipline we have on this team; that’s the type of toughness we display on this team every single week. Because if you don’t, you don’t want to find that out in a three-and-a-half hour game. There’s not enough time. You don’t go into a game, and then all of a sudden, you discover these things. You need to know that going into the game.
“So, experiencing a loss, that’s going to give you a very good understanding of those things that we have to do daily in order for us to be successful and win -- because you don’t want to be in that position again. So I hope for our players and everybody in this program, that stings, that’s a reminder, let’s say that, for now. That’s a reminder for this program right now that it takes what it takes. Regardless of how the day is going, when we lock in and we get in those meeting rooms, there’s a certain way of doing it; when we practice, there’s a certain way of doing it. Understanding that from what we just experienced, and then whatever happens next.
“When we go play -- and we’re going to. We’re going to go play Georgia State. That’s our focus; that’s where we are right now. We’re talking a lot about the previous game and the what-ifs and the things that we should have done and didn’t do and the way we can get better at it. But we need to take all that into Georgia State, and that’s the focus. That’s the final message for everyone in our program -- we’ve moved on to Georgia State. So take what you learned and apply it and do it in a fashion where it doesn’t have to be more on game day -- it’s exactly the way we go and prepare ourselves. The way we prepare ourselves is exactly how we play. Then you can enjoy the opportunity to be out there and compete and be in that moment and not have to worry about, ‘Did I do enough?’
“That’s one of the things we have to learn and do a better job of to win. Because every opponent -- and no different this week with Georgia State. Georgia State is a damn good football team. They will be ready to play. They will come in here and they will give us their very best. If we don’t prepare like that and we decide that’s not as important on Tuesday or Wednesday to have ourselves ready, and then by Thursday and Friday is when we really start getting our minds right, then watch out. Because Saturday’s going to be a tough day at the end of the day.
“That’s the reality, and the sooner we learn that and do it every day, the better off we’re going to be. And for our team and this program, we need to learn that, and we need to do it each and every day consistently.”
Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.
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