Din of inefficiency

AUBURN | Auburn managed just 269 total yards, had four turnovers and was 2 of 14 on third downs in a 24-13 loss at Florida two and a half weeks ago.

There were a number of reasons for that offensive futility, but many of them stemmed from the players inability to handle the deafening crowd noise.

For the 9th-ranked Tigers to have a chance to upset No. 2 LSU at Tiger Stadium this Saturday, they’ll have to do a much better job dealing with the din.

“We didn’t handle the noise very good against Florida,” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. “We’ve been focused on that off-week and then even last week. So really expecting our guys to handle the noise better and communicate better than we did at Florida.”

Malzahn didn’t offer specifics but said he’s implemented “some little wrinkles” to help deal with the crowd noise.

Quarterback Bo Nix, who had a miserable day at Florida Field completing just 40.7 percent of his passes and throwing three interception, put many of the communication issues the offense had, which included three false starts, squarely on his shoulders.

“We work on crowd noise, really, every week, especially when we go on the road because we know it’s going to be loud; any SEC environment is pretty loud,” said the true freshman who will be starting his fifth game away from home at LSU. “Florida, I felt like it was more on me than it was anybody else. I didn’t do a good enough job communicating with others, of being loud enough. I fully take that on myself.

“But, going forward I think that the Florida game did help, obviously, a lot, just from experience and being there and doing that. So, this week, I feel like now I can just really sit back and do my job and not really worry about the atmosphere.”

Kickoff at Tiger Stadium is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. CT on CBS.