What's behind Auburn football's second-half struggles? Bryan Harsin points to momentum

AUBURN — With Auburn football, the statistics are usually more obvious than the solutions.

It's become a theme with the Tigers (3-2, 1-1 SEC) in conference play — strong starts on offense followed by a lull down the stretch. While impossible to quantify, the root cause might go beyond the first-quarter script running out.

Coach Bryan Harsin was informed at Monday's news conference that Auburn had allowed all five of its opponents this season to score in the last two minutes of the first half. Mercer, Missouri and LSU, in fact, all found the end zone in the final 30 seconds.

Harsin believes that the Tigers' struggles in the second half — they didn't score after halftime against Missouri or LSU — are, at least in part, a byproduct of its struggles late in the second quarter.

In Auburn's season opener, the FCS Bears were already down 28-0 by the time Fred Payton hit Devron Harper in the end zone. While the Tigers fell behind San Jose State, 10-7, when Kairee Robinson ran it in with under a minute in the second quarter, the scenario was similar to a week prior: they simply had more talent than their opponent.

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That wasn't the case against Penn State, which used an 11-play, 68-yard, five-minute march to go up 14-6 with 1:46 to play in the first half and proceeded to outscore Auburn 27-6 after the break. Nor was it against Missouri or LSU, the latter of which ran a perfect two-minute drill to go 77 yards down the field and cut Auburn's lead to 17-14 at intermission.

"You don't want anybody to score and you want to score points go into halftime," Harsin said. "I think it's all about momentum. ... You have to be at your best in the last five minutes and get your best players in there."

In plain, the Tigers haven't done that all season. They had chances to get the Nittany Lions off the field but gave up three third-down conversions on their lengthy drive. A facemask penalty on Derick Hall bailed out LSU after an incomplete pass on third-and-10 at its own 23 yard line, and it took just over a minute for LSU to score after that.

As far as Auburn's second-half slumps are directly concerned, Harsin doesn't think they boil down to one specific problem. He tries to look at individual plays, either negative or positive − regardless of when they occur in the game − to identify issues.

"We know the reasons and we look at every drive," Harsin said. "There’s a drive chart, there’s a result, there’s a reason why and we break it all down. Where do we have negative plays, and where do we have positive plays? What was the end result of those drives? Those are things that we've discussed as a staff. Those are things we discussed with our players. To me, it really comes down to trying to eliminate those negative plays, and then just being more consistent. That’s play calls, that’s execution, that's all of those things."

There's no doubt the Tigers' offense showed potential early against LSU. Harsin said the Tigers did a few things differently last Saturday, including some concepts from last season that helped outside receivers get more involved. Eric Kiesau's playcalling showed trust in Robby Ashford to make plays with his arm and legs and made increased use of receivers Ja'Varrius Johnson and Koy Moore.

The 438 yards gained on 70 plays is evidence that Auburn has something to build around. Two-thirds of that output, however, came in the first half. If the Tigers could only find a way to even out that split, whether through strategy or simple execution, it might spell a rebuttal to the trends which have defined the Harsin era.

Jacob Shames can be reached by email at jshames@gannett.com, by phone at 334-201-9117 and on Twitter @Jacob_Shames.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn football: Examining the Tigers' second-half struggles