By Brant Daughtry

Another bye week, another opportunity.

Auburn’s offense has been a struggle all year long, and at this point, I don’t expect that to change. But that doesn’t have to mean you struggle in exactly the same ways. There’s opportunity for advancement here. This year is lost, and there’s plenty of blame to go around for all involved. That said, you still have games to play. There’s a chance here to set yourself up for next year.

I’m not saying Auburn should start Walker White, or even play him in this game. Hugh Freeze has been saying all year that he’s not ready for big time college football yet, and that’s not a bad thing. True freshman quarterbacks usually aren’t ready for the big time straight out of the gate. That said, Auburn has started bringing him on road trips with the team, and he’s getting more reps in practice. I don’t know what the answer is at QB, and frankly, I don’t think anyone does. If there was an easy answer, it would’ve been found by now.

That said, I’m not sure a new QB fixes all of Auburn’s problems. Payton Thorne is limited, sure. But Auburn’s won games with limited QB’s before. He’s clearly good enough to win at least six games, since that’s what he put up last year with a worse receiver room and offensive line. The regression of Payton Thorne and the offense as a whole is, rightfully so, a question that needs to be asked of the head coach in the offseason. But before that, there are three games left on the schedule.

ULM is coached by second-year leader Bryant Vincent, a name that should be familiar to those that pay attention to smaller school football in Alabama. Vincent has years at both South Alabama and UAB prior to his ULM days, and he’s had a ton of success. At both stops, his offenses put up records and score a ton. He’s a really good mind who’s on his first head coaching job, outside of an interim season at UAB.

Their offense is somewhat similar to Auburn’s, but with more focus on the run game. They’ll show a lot of pistol formation and there’s an air about them that they want to run the ball effectively, running it about . But, they’ll run their share of RPO’s and play-action. They’re a spread team, usually in 11-personal, one tight end and one tailback. There’s a decent bit of pre-snap motion as well. It’s been an effective unit for the major part of this season.

Defensively, they run the standard 4-2-5, with one of those four defenders on the line being an athlete. They mix it up by showing different pressures, blitzing some guys and bringing others. It’s something that Auburn’s had problems with this season, so I’d expect ULM to go back to that. Another thing to note. This is a defense that struggles to stop the run, to the tune of allowing almost 200 yards a game. The game plan should be pretty simple here.

Players to Watch For:

Running back Ahmad Hardy, #22- This offense runs through Hardy. When I mentioned the commitment to the run game, this freshman is a major reason why. He has double the carries of the Warhawks’ next leading rusher, and with good reason. If he hits his season average, he’ll get over 1,000 yards on the season. He’s got decent size at over 200 pounds, and they run a lot of zone schemes to let him find the way he wants to go. As he goes, they go.

Safety Wydett Williams Jr, #12- Williams does a little bit of everything in this defense. He’s the kind of player that you can build a team around, and that pops up on the stat sheet. He leads the team in tackles with 74 total, and has tallied a sack as well. In the secondary, he’s a force, grabbing three interceptions on the season along with two fumble recoveries. He’s always around the ball, and his ability to force turnovers is a lot of what this defense relies on.

Here’s the thing about ULM. They started out on fire, 5-1, arguably the best start in school history. The last three weeks though, things have turned on them. They’ve lost three in a row, and only one of those games was close. This is a team that’s kind of scuffling without any injury, at least that I’m aware of. This is another opportunity to win against an overmatched team that’s kind of in the dirt. Games like this shouldn’t be scary. Auburn needs to go take care of business Saturday, and if there’s another repeat of offensive ineptitude and poor game management that leads to a loss, there needs to be some tough conversation.