Auburn Football vs. Arkansas State: 5 Keys to the Game
No. 4 – Third Down Conversions
The Tigers’ offense was just 3-of-17 (18 percent) on third downs against Clemson, making it impossible to sustain any drives.
A big part of that was the fact that there were so many negative plays by our offense. It seemed like we were always in third-and-long situations.
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First and foremost, we have to win first down against Arkansas State. We need to see more positive plays on first down.
I really think Auburn needs to throw more on first down to loosen up the front seven of Arkansas State. That puts some pressure on Sean White to make a lot of big throws on first down. If he can do that, it will set us up with some more manageable third down situations.
It will also allow us to open up the running game a bit more. Maybe we actually see Kamryn Pettway gets some carries on some third-and-short situations.
Last year Auburn converted on third down 41 percent of the time, which was worse than our opponents 45 percent.
Going back to 2013, we converted on 47 percent of our third down attempts. We need to get back somewhere in that 40 percent range against Arkansas State.
Gus Malzahn’s offense relies heavily on tempo, and it’s hard to get that tempo going if you can’t convert on third down.
One major key to this game will be whether or not Auburn can win first down, setting them up for manageable third down conversions.
Toledo converted on 12-of-17 third down attempts against Arkansas State last week. I would love for our offense to put up similar numbers this week. If so, I think the Tigers run away with this game.
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