Trash talk or not, Auburn’s defense isn’t lacking motivation going into the Peach Bowl

ATLANTA — Auburn’s players and coaches have heard the narrative that’s out there same as you have.

The Tigers were one win short of making the College Football Playoff, and their penalty for falling to Georgia in the SEC Championship game was a trip back to Atlanta to face a Group of 5 team in the Peach Bowl. On paper, it seems they should beat UCF. But will they be motivated enough to do so?

It’s a question’s Auburn’s defense takes some umbrage with.

“When this final four came along, part of what came with that is, OK, if you’re not in the final four, then what does it mean?” defensive coordinator Kevin Steele said Friday. “Well, it means a lot. It means a lot to a football team. I guarantee you. I’m with those guys every day. It means a lot to them. They have a lot of focus on doing and playing their best game of the year this week. So that’s external stuff. I guess it’s good for ratings, but we don’t allow that in the room.”

Of course, that’s not to say Auburn wasn’t initially disappointed with the result. The team, on defense especially, has spoken often this season about the 24-hour rule it enforces — players and coaches have that long after a game to celebrate a win or lament a loss. Once that period passes, it’s on to the next game.

The 24 hours following the Dec. 2 loss to the Bulldogs in the SEC Championship were particularly difficult. A 28-7 defeat at the hands of one of your biggest rivals with a spot in a semifinal on the line will leave a bad taste in any player’s mouth. The fact that Georgia and Alabama — two teams Auburn beat handily in the regular season — both secured playoff berths early the next day made matters even worse.

But the disappointment did fade.

“Ever since we’ve been practicing, we’ve always had great practices and had a lot of energy at practice,” Davis said. “No sad faces, nobody saying I don’t want to do this or that. Honest to God truth. We’re ready to play this game, so I don’t know where the buzz comes from.”

And if there were any players who weren’t initially excited about the prospect of playing in the Peach Bowl, senior safety Tray Matthews said, the comments coming from their opponent over the last few weeks “woke everybody up.”

On Dec. 14, UCF running back Adrian Killins told reporters that Auburn “hasn’t seen any speed like we have here” and would be in for a “rude awakening” come Monday. On Thursday, the headlines read that freshman wide receiver Gabriel Davis said there are “some holes” in the Tigers’ defense.

Auburn’s defenders didn’t put much stock into what was said Thursday. “That was just the headline,” Matthews said. “If you read into the story, he complimented everybody on the defense. He just said there was a hole in every defense.”

“The media likes to mix things up,” he said.

Killins’ comments were met with more shock than anything. Auburn linebacker Tre’ Williams said of all the criticisms he has heard about the SEC, speed was never one of them. Safety Stephen Roberts said “I don’t know what film they’re watching.”

“I don’t get it, because we have been playing really good as a defense, so to say we don’t have speed is kind of questioning me,” Roberts continued.

In all fairness, Killins is fast — he leads UCF with 762 rushing yards on 112 carries this season, and when he and Auburn corner Javaris Davis both competed in the 100-meter dash at the Florida Class 3A track and field state championships in 2015, he ran a 10.55 to Davis’ 11.21 in the preliminaries and took second overall.

And Otis Anderson, one of the Knights’ other running backs, said his teammate was “misunderstood.” Killins wasn’t saying that UCF was faster than any other team that Auburn has played, but rather that it plays at an up-tempo pace on offense and “swarms to the ball” on defense.

Regardless, Auburn isn’t reading much into what has been said. It isn’t lobbing any barbs back, either.

“We don’t go down that road,” Steele said. “We really don’t, because we are conditioned and built to control what we can control and do our job. That’s just the way it is. I don’t know what else to say about that. It really is not what we focus on.”

What Auburn is focusing on, Steele continued, is a chance to do three things on Monday: Beat a third undefeated team with a record of 9-0 or better this season, win an 11th game for a seventh time in program history, and create some momentum to carry into the 2018 season.

The Tigers don’t need any more motivation than that.

“We’re looking to win the game. That’s just the main goal whenever you go into a game,” defensive tackle Dontavius Russell said. “It doesn’t matter who we play, what time we play, when we play; we always have the motivation to go out and try to win the game. So everybody is excited to be here and excited to have another opportunity, especially playing in the same place (as the SEC Championship) and trying to get that bad taste out your mouth.”