Auburn football: The 5 biggest questions heading into Week 3 vs. Penn State

Auburn football picked up their second victory of the 2022 season this past Saturday, but they fell even further back from the AP Top 25 than they were after their opening-week win against Mercer. The Tigers took a 24-16 nail-biter that wasn’t decided until the final moments against San Jose State in Week 2, but even though teams like Notre Dame are winless and others like Wisconsin and Oregon don’t have a Power Five win yet, AP voters were unimpressed with AU enough to give them a mere four votes — down from 15 for the first two weeks.

There’s good reason for that, too. While voters aren’t necessarily using spreads as a barometer of where teams should be ranked in the polls, not handily beating teams you’re supposed to gets held against you.

Auburn football played sloppily on both sides of the ball this past Saturday and either played possum ahead of the Penn State ‘bellwether’ matchup that could set the tone for the rest of the season or simply were unprepared to dominate a team that went down to the wire the week before against Portland State.

Ahead of Week 3, these are the biggest questions the Tigers are facing ahead of their pivotal Penn State clash:

Will the Auburn football RB room power past Penn State’s run defense?

So far, the RB room has been the strongest component of the Auburn football offense. Tank Bigsby and Jarquez Hunter have seven touchdowns through the first two weeks of the season and Damari Alston lifted the sluggish offensive attack on Saturday in the second quarter with a 30+ yard run that led to their first scoring drive.

Penn State’s run defense kept Purdue in check and neutralized Ohio’s running backs, though they did give up a few quarterback runs. The Auburn football RB room will be their biggest challenge, but only if the Tigers OL gets far more push than they got against San Jose State. That Bigsby ended up with four rush attempts with negative yardage is damning.