Auburn Tigers' PFF Grades and Snap Counts From Win Over Vanderbilt – Sports Illustrated

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This past Saturday, the Auburn Tigers took care of business at home, taking down Vanderbilt 21-15 at Jordan-Hare Stadium to pick up their first SEC win of the season. 
Let’s take a look at some of the advanced statistics PFF has to offer regarding the game, including snap counts and player grades, from Saturday’s win. Snap counts will be in parentheses next to player grades.
Auburn’s offensive line, a newly shuffled one, was able to make strides in Saturday’s win, which led to Brown being the best offensive player on the field.
Typically, starters Jo Simmons and Cole Skinner did not make starts in this contest, while Simmons eventually took Strand’s spot back at left tackle during the middle of the game after only 20 snaps. However, PFF’s scale with grading has anything over 65 being “green”, meaning good. 
Interestingly enough, Jacob Strand, who started at left tackle but didn’t finish the game there, was the team’s best player on the line, according to the database, which will be interesting to see if he gets more snaps as SEC play continues. 
However, the Tigers must improve at the tight end spot. Head coach Alex Golesh played three tight ends in the game, and nobody recorded more than a 50 grade. I’ll be keeping a close eye on that position group in both the run game and the receiving game for improvements.
There are a lot of usual suspects at the top, like Atkins, Murray, Melendez and Smith-Reed, who all had serviceable games that helped the Auburn defense hold strong. However, the interior grades were something that interested me a lot. 
Auburn got to Vanderbilt quarterback Jared Curtis with only one sack, although the Tigers were in the backfield plenty and couldn’t bring down the true freshman, which extended plays and drives. Even defensive tackle Cody Sigler and Smith-Reed believed that Auburn could hold off the Commodores for no scores in the entire game. 
Defensive coordinator DJ Durkin will look to tighten up that unit, especially in the process of getting to the quarterback, in the upcoming games, where Auburn has a gauntlet of teams to face in October. Names like Faizon Brandon, Gunner Stockton, Sam Leavitt and Trinidad Champbliss will end up punishing the Tigers in October in the upcoming weeks if they can’t get to the quarterback more often. 
However, a win is a win, and that will bring the momentum into Neyland Stadium on Saturday afternoon, when Auburn plays No. 17 Tennessee for its first ranked opponent of the season. 
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Griffin is a communications major who was the Sports Editor for The Tiger at Clemson University. He led a team of 20+ reporters after working his way up through the ranks as a staff writer, sideline reporter, and assistant sports editor.
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