Postgame Podcast: Auburn upset by Cal at Jordan-Hare Stadium

[Applause] [Music] and welcome on in everybody to the Auburn undercover podcast Auburn undercover YouTube channel Nathan King here with Jason Caldwell we're back um we were talking to y'all pregame about the potential for Auburn against Cal today to show off a bunch of offensive improvements well Jason I think today went to show you never know until you put it on the field and uh this was this was a big face plant of a performance for Auburn 21 to4 losing today to Cal Jason we talked about before the game I mean five interceptions excuse me five turnovers that'll get you beat against just about anybody but I think a couple of those turnovers late in the game were not when things were decided but they were not the definition of what went wrong overall it was just a complete amalgamation of issues on uh on offense it it started I think with the offensive line Pon Thorne had a lot of issues it just was a very uninspiring day for a group that made a lot of improvements it thought in the off season yeah I think it was everything I think it was offense it was defense for a half it was special teams for much of the game um you know Cal played field position they backed Auburn up um they kept control in the third quarter even though they didn't move the football much either but Auburn couldn't get they couldn't get anything going offensively for the entire game other than the first series got helped out by a couple penalties there um yeah it was I it was kind of dumbfounding a little bit for me um I didn't expect it uh I don't know that anybody expected it I think we we saw a bunch of shock guys because I think they thought okay this is a team we're better and they are better talented in terms of athletically they are but you saw a veteran group of guys on both sides of the ball that totally took Albert out of what they wanted to do and I thought they control the line of scrimmage and I thought frankly I thought coaching on both sides of the ball went way into favor of Cal today and that was a big difference too yeah I mean there was you know little things that pay off here and there Auburn decided to throw it well I don't know if they decided it may have been an RPO read uh two times in a row on a third and two and a fourth and two huge plays of the game yeah it's huge play yeah and the both of those were in were in Cal territory I mean you look back at the cow game last year and we were sort of looking at it this week and saying all right what 230 yards offense four turnovers surely they can't do that again uh they go out there and have what feels like a worse performance because you so it's worse you got and you're in this building yeah it's it's it's worse because you are you're at home you got better Talent than you had last year um it's absolutely a wor performance in watch last year yep uh Auburn went down the field like Jason said went down the field and scored right away uh Thorne made a really good throw to Keandre L Lambert Smith from that first drive to the end of the second quarter Jason they went 20 minutes of game time between first downs uh as pton Thor said after the game every time it felt like they got any sort of Rhythm whether it was jquest Hunter hey seven yards on first down down um they were just hit with negative plays and I think that started to crumble we saw issues in the first half it was sort of muddled for me Jason when it really broke down the second half felt like honestly the pass rush for both teams Auburn cranked it up to slow Mendoza but C cranked it up as well in that offensive line just they could never really recover Thorne was running around every single play yeah no it was it it wasn't just pton Thorne there's no question about it we saw pressure uh and they weren't having to blit to get a ton of pressure um but it was it was a little bit of everything um you know offensive line issues early on they didn't run it very well and and and you know they made a couple of throws cal made some adjustments and they backed off a little bit and said oh we're going we're going to make sure that we're not going to let you throw the ball down the field so they were they did they got physical with Auburn's young receivers I thought that played a part in this game as well uh but you know the overwhelming theme for me was just the lack of playmaking ability those are guys that we we were we were expecting to see it happen and honestly it's it it's starts with pton Thorne I know it it's everything else it's offensive line play it's it's everything to do with it but there were just so many play he admitted it after the game he said look I made some throws I normally wouldn't make I didn't make them um you can't have those kind of things in this offense because everything's on his shoulders you know protections the things you're doing and honestly it's my big question now is what do you do um it's not all to him but man it it's it's going to be tough to go hey just roll it back out there again I I don't know honestly it's a bad position to be in two games it is and it's you know maybe it's not horrible you get New Mexico next week I mean you get a little bit of a of a landing pad there but yeah I mean Thorne had never thrown four interceptions in a game in his career an Auburn quarterback had not thrown four interceptions in a game since Brandon Cox Cox in 2007 against Georgia um and so I mean it's it's been quite a minute since we've seen that kind of performance from an Auburn quarterback I mean I think it went from at one point them like you said trying to run the RPO system and then going onone those throws that were there against somebody like Alabama Anam and their personnel those throws against cam Coleman they weren't there much smaller window yeah and so yeah it was there wasn't a whole lot to take from it uh not a lot of positives and defense adjustment I think deserves a little bit of CR correct that's the big that's the big thing was was them in the second half they did job they they did a great job of of getting pressure playing a little tighter coverage we saw very little of keonte Scott after the first half they you know he played a little bit inside at nickel but it was almost in exclusively Antonio kite and Kay and Lee outside at corner and things got better they did a better job back there so I don't know there there's a lot of soul searching that's going to be done in the next couple days yeah especially because like you said there needs to be a lot of soul I mean there's struggles across the board I mean even you go to special teams I think about how often they were backed up a couple of those were ke he just had a bad day overall I thought a couple of those were his decisions to let the punts roll um Jason you know they everyone will say don't let a team beat you twice it's it's you there's one side of the coinin another side of the coin for this being a loss so early in the season number one because it sucks it it kind of undercuts what you thought you had but at the same time it is so early we see it across the sport I mean Notre Dame went out and lost to Northern Illinois today after they had the one of the biggest wins of week one Auburn has plenty of time to recover corre but they have a lot of work to do to do so no question that's it you know what can you do I know I mean I I expect we'll see pton Thorne because when they go back and watch the film probably it's not going to be all his fault how much of it we don't know we know with the the last one Keandre Lambert Smith they thought he was going to run a a different route and he fre said he should have run a different route there'll be some of those things that have to get fixed but man it's when you start looking at it do do you move Dylan wade back outside to tackle because there were some struggles on from The Tackle spots for this team yeah and they given themselves some options and and there's talent but it's a lot of young Talent um I honestly don't know what we'll see but you know New Mexico no matter what but um you can go out and score 100 yep you're still going to have question marks when you go up against a good team and until you go out andove again in this situation well they've got some player I mean New Mexico's got players too I mean they went out and competed with Arizona but like Jason said lots of soul searching to do um after this one for Auburn lots of pieces to pick up so for Jason calwell I'm Nathan King thank you guys so much for joining us here on the postgame podcast whether you're listening on the podcast channels are on the YouTube channel we appreciate you guys for joining we'll catch you guys next week everybody enjoy the rest of your weekend