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Adams 'always wanted' good defense at Auburn

AUBURN | Montravius Adams has waited his whole career for this. It took four years but it was worth the wait.

Auburn has a good defense.

Pretty darn good, actually. The 15th-ranked Tigers are second in the SEC and third nationally in scoring defense, fourth in the conference and 18th nationally in total defense and fifth in the SEC and 30th nationally in rushing defense.

“I feel like all the leaders, offensively and defensively, I feel like we just put it on ourselves to be as good as we can be, and for the defense, for Auburn to be known as a good defense. That’s really one thing I’ve always wanted since I’ve been here, and that’s just something we’ve never been known as since the older days. That’s just really all I wanted, to be honest,” Adams said.

Adams has 22 tackles, 6.0 TFL, 3.0 sacks and 10 quarterback hurries this season.
Adams has 22 tackles, 6.0 TFL, 3.0 sacks and 10 quarterback hurries this season. (Robin Conn/AuburnSports.com)
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And that improved defense was on display in Saturday night’s 56-3 beatdown of Arkansas, holding the Razorbacks to 25 rushing yards and 215 total yards.

“On every single play, we had the front four either knocking people back or affecting the rusher and we did that playing good technique, had good gap control so it started up front and ended up front,” defensive coordinator Kevin Steele said. “I thought our linebacker group did a good job feeding off that. They did a good job with their eyes and the secondary did a good job in terms of not getting the top knocked off the coverage.

“They had 26 called runs for 40 yards. They called 38 passes, which we knocked him down 15 times and had four sacks for 147 yards. We were 80 percent on 3rd down and kept them off the board except for the field goal. All in all, it was a very good complete game.”

For Steele, however, the time to talk about the Arkansas game has ended. he’s ready to move on to Saturday’s game at Ole Miss. He’s counting on his seniors to keep the team focused as they prepare for an offense that put up 43 points on No. 1 Alabama five weeks ago.

“It doesn’t matter if we win or lose. Our leadership group needs to keep everybody level-headed and to keep everybody with the same mindset that we have every game so that we can go out and play the next game and just try to get better every game and just try to keep doing what we do best,” Adams said.

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