Auburn will face one of the most productive pass rushes in college football Saturday when the Tigers take on Vanderbilt.
The Commodores have gotten to opposing quarterbacks 12 times this season. Three different Commodore defenders have racked up more than two sacks through three games.
Alex Golesh feels Vanderbilt's pass rush is different than any pass rush the Tigers have faced this year. The aggressiveness off this group is something the Auburn head coach wants to take advantage of.
"It's different than what we've seen these first three weeks in the sense that they make you prepare for a bunch of different things, and it's normal down situations, it's third down, it's red zone, tight zone, as aggressive as we've seen," Golesh said. "So, it's give and take, right? Like if you could take advantage of it and be on the right side of it, for us, being able to protect, being able to run the football, all these things that we're trying to get better at every single day, they present a bunch of challenges. Obviously, the work the last couple of days has been big. We got to go finish it because there's so much mental. They force you to be on it. If you're not on it, you're going to cut guys loose and it's not a good deal."
Auburn is struggling to protect its starting quarterback in Byrum Brown. The Tigers quarterback has been sacked 13 times this season. Auburn's offensive line will have to be operating at a high level to protect Brown from a defense that shows a lot of different looks.
"What makes them effective is they present so many different pictures," Golesh said. "I mean, a ton of different pictures. And again, it's normal down, it's 3rd down, it's situationally. They're trying to keep you off balance, and they do a really good job. And you saw it a year ago at the end of the season, they kind of evolved in this way. They force you to make really fast decisions. They're not gonna let the quarterback sit back there and pat the ball, which for us, we, we got to be schematically right and Byram's got to be right. We got to be right up front. Everybody's got to be right. So that's the challenge it presents."
Auburn and Vanderbilt will go to battle Saturday in Jordan-Hare Stadium.
