Passing offense ready to take next step

AUBURN | Auburn’s passing game made big improvements under first-year offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey and transfer quarterback Jarrett Stidham last season. Can the Tigers turn it up another notch in 2018?

Senior receiver Ryan Davis certainly thinks so.

“I feel like we can definitely take it another step because I feel like this is just the beginning of Auburn’s passing game,” Davis said. “The running game is always going to be there. That’s what Auburn does, but I feel like the passing game has definitely taken a huge leap this year and going forward it’s only going to improve more and more, especially now that we have a year in Coach Lindsey’s offense and mostly everybody coming back on the offensive side of the ball.”

Davis set a single-season school record with 84 receptions. Stidham threw for 3,158 yards, the second-most in school history. Auburn was the eighth team in SEC history to rush for 3,000 yards and pass for 3,000 yards in a single season.

The Tigers finished fifth in the SEC averaging 233.4 passing yards per game, but it wasn’t until the Missouri game when Stidham had two completions over 50 yards that the passing game really took off.

“I just think all the way around we just started clicking together,” Stidham said. “Offensive line, myself, running backs, receivers — the running game was where it needed to be so that opened up the passing game and the passing game opened up the running game.”

Lindsey's offense was an especially tough adjustment for the receivers, who had to learn a whole new series of routes and how to adjust those routes depending on the defense.

“With (Lindsey) we run real pass concepts and we have to understand different coverages, different zone sit-ins, we run those crossing routes or different drag concepts and flood routes and different things like that so it took us a little while. The Missouri game, everything just really started clicking,” Davis said.

“I know a lot of people were saying the receivers weren’t getting open so we just came as a receiver group and said we were tired of hearing about the receivers not doing anything. That’s all I’ve been hearing since I’ve been here. We just need to make plays for him and that’s what I feel like we started to do and that’s when he got more confident and the offense got more confident and Coach Lindsey got confident calling more pass plays.”

Auburn will have to rebuild its offensive line and find replacements for running backs Kerryon Johnson and Kamryn Pettway going into next season. But Stidham and the entire receiving corps are back for an offense that should be more fine-tuned in the second season under Lindsey.

“I think we've got a great shot to be a great football team again. I really do think that,” Stidham said.