So far, Auburn’s season seems like repeat of last year

A slow start, including a tough loss to Clemson, a blowout SEC win on the road, followed by an even more impressive win at home.

Haven’t we seen this movie before?

So far, this season is looking quite similar to the 2016 campaign for the Auburn Tigers. That embarrassing struggle against lowly Mercer two weeks ago now seems like a foggy memory. Winning a pair of SEC games by a combined 76 points is sufficient atonement for one uninspiring game.

Yes, you could say they played two bad games. But let’s be realistic. It’s hard to hold it against any team for having problems against Clemson, especially in Death Valley. And certainly Missouri and Mississippi State are not Clemson – far from it. But they aren’t Mercer, either.

Last year, the Tigers were one play away against LSU from falling to 1-3. They escaped because the clock expired before LSU could snap the ball. That fueled the speculation that Gus Malzahn was on the hot seat. Two weeks later, Auburn beat Mississippi State on the road, then wore out a decent Arkansas team at home. That 56-3 win boosted the Tigers into the top 10 for the first time all season.

This season has taken a similar path. The Mercer game left many fans ready to boot Malzahn, along with Athletic Director Jay Jacobs.

Jacobs may have a tough time surviving the athletic department crises – the sudden resignation of softball coach Clint Meyer and now the scandal that’s rocking college basketball, with Auburn’s Chuck Person right in the middle of it. How Jacobs could have possibly known that an assistant basketball coach was allegedly violating NCAA rules is hard to understand. But the fact is, some Auburn folks just don’t like Jacobs and want him gone.

Malzahn, now that’s a different story. Truth be told, most Auburn fans would probably love to find a coach they could embrace and feel good about. Exactly whom they would want – and could get – is another matter. Southern Cal’s Clay Helton is an Auburn man. Troy’s Neal Brown is the shiny new thing among college football coaches after beating LSU.

But if Auburn keeps winning, Malzahn’s approval rating will stabilize for a while.

And if the Mizzou win didn’t carry much weight, the Mississippi State win did. Just as Georgia did the week before, Auburn jumped on State early and never let up. It was a game of statistical oddities. They scored six offensive touchdowns despite running only 56 plays. They had six offensive plays of 47 or more yards. One of those was a 67-yard run by their backup quarterback, Malik Willis.

They piled up 511 yards of offense despite Kamryn Pettway getting only six yards on five carries.

So now the Tigers are 4-1 going into Saturday’s home game against Ole Miss, which suddenly looks awful. Then they have three straight road games against LSU, Arkansas and Texas A&M before their annual showdown with Georgia. They have a chance to edge their way back up in the national rankings.

“I’d like to think we’re getting some momentum,” Malzahn said. “We still made some mistakes. But if we keep improving just a little bit each week, we’ve got a chance to be a pretty good football team.”

Maybe so. There’s still a lot of work to do. But the outlook certainly looks more promising than it did two weeks ago.

This story was originally published October 3, 2017 at 6:35 PM with the headline "So far, Auburn’s season seems like repeat of last year."