Bryan Harsin gives intriguing take on poor rushing outing in spring game

The rushing numbers weren’t great for Auburn in Saturday’s spring game. However, Bryan Harsin thinks there’s a reason for that — and it’s a testament to how well one unit played.

Harsin singled out the Tigers defensive line and gave it credit for slowing down the run game. Both teams combined for 65 total rushing yards, including 23 from Sean Jackson. Harsin said he didn’t think the running backs played bad, though. Instead, he credit the defensive line for slowing down the run game.

“We’ve been running the same things against each other, but I also think our D-line’s playing well,” Harsin said. “I really do. And I would say more so probably our D-line playing better only because I’ve seen it. I sat in Coach Brumbaugh’s meeting a couple weeks ago and the way he was teaching those guys, he did a great job. I sit in there from an offensive standpoint, I’m getting so fired up because I don’t quite think the guys understand how valuable what he was teaching in that moment was.

“So I had to come out and say, ‘Well, if you guys do that, that’s going to make it hard on the offense. Any offense.’ … Then I tried to point those out in practice. That technique, the things that he was talking about, I would show it in the team meetings and then all of a sudden, you’d see more and more of that. So I think our D-line … they did a good job.”

Bryan Harsin: ‘There were some good things in the run game’

Jackson and Tank Bigsby led the rushing attack with six carries and five carries, respectively, and Bigsby had 12 total yards. Even despite the low numbers, Harsin didn’t sound disappointed with the running backs’ performances. That said, he found an area the Tigers need to focus on going forward: short-yardage plays.

“There were some good things in the run game, but I think our D-line, linebackers, those guys have been playing it well,” Harsin said. “It’s just been that back and forth. But what I would look at is say, ‘Alright, we got some short yardage runs in there. Our defense stopped the offense on the short-yardage play on fourth down. We also got some.’

“So those critical moments where you’ve got to get those yards, I think it was probably 50-50 in those situations.”