Auburn’s Week 2 opponent just had their best showing since NFL star’s tenure
Week 2 Auburn football opponent Cal just their best showing as a program since the days of Jared Goff in Berkeley according to Auburn Daily’s Jack Singley — who pointed out that the Golden Bears featured an attack befitting of a team that no longer has the kind of talent under center Cal had when the current Detroit Lions starter was playing his way into being the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft.
“The ‘Bears of Berkley’ managed to score 58 points just one shy of matching Auburn’s 59, and totaled an incredible 669 yards of total offense,” Singley prefaced before saying, “This onslaught was the most that Cal fans have seen their offense produce since 2015 when they were led by the future number-one pick, Jared Goff. The approach against North Texas relied a bit more on the rushing attack compared to that of a Goff-led team. Jaydn Ott led the way, gaining over nine yards a carry and finishing the contest with 188 yards on the ground along with two touchdowns.”
Unshockingly for the Plains’ and its scheduling luck, AU has run into the toughest Cal team that’s been fielded in quite some time due to the implementation of former Texas State head coach Jack Spavital as offensive coordinator. Week 1’s 58-21 domination of North Texas, Cal looks like it excels in the one key area the Tigers struggled with defending…
Cal’s rushing attack is a major test for Ron Roberts’ Auburn football defense
On the first drive of the AU’s season defensively, UMass had little trouble moving the chains all the way up to the Tigers’ end zone, where Minutemen QB Taisun Phommachanh punched in a touchdown after one play that didn’t have positive yardage the whole drive. It was a worrying sequence, but not one that was replicated for the rest of the game.
Still, ceding 5.2 yards per rush to a bottom-of-the-barrel UMass team is brutal, and something the Tigers cannot do again against a much superior Golden Bears attack.
Ron Roberts has his work cut out for him as he looks to make good on the promise that his defenses on the Plains will make plays. The two Minutemen turnovers were a nice start, but Cal is a far tougher opponent to do that against than UMass.