AU FOOTBALL: Carter adding spark to improved defensive line

Before the season, a number of Auburn’s defensive players talked a lot about getting their “swagger” back — whatever that is.

Whether it was panache, attitude or your garden-variety sense of confidence, the Tigers didn’t have it when they lost six of seven games to finish 2008, but quickly got it back in their 5-0 start to the season and have claimed to maintain it as they sit 6-3 heading into a homecoming date with Furman.

Basic translation: The better you perform, the more swagger you obtain.

But when cornerback Walt McFadden talks about the redemption month defensive end Antoine Carter had in October, it’s not about Carter’s swagger.

It’s about the smack he talks.

“He’s been talking a lot of trash,” McFadden said. “He’s like, ‘I’m going to speed rush you. I’m going to bull rush you.’ Sometimes he tricks ’em. But you can tell that he’s getting back into it.”

Carter’s resurgence and knack to get in opposing quarterbacks’ facemasks has not only benefitted his personal standing with the team, but Auburn’s defensive line as a whole.

Asked about what got into Auburn’s defensive line Saturday against Ole Miss, when it relentlessly pressured quarterback Jevan
Snead into two interceptions and a number of other bad decisions, Gene Chizik started with Carter.

“I think you’re seeing Antoine Carter play better as the weeks go on,” Chizik said. “I think he’s more confident in his health. I think he’s getting reps now that are allowing him to get closer to where he was when he left off last spring.”

Carter’s progression from the spring seemed overly slow until it was revealed that he had undergone arthroscopic surgery on his right knee.

His only notable appearances came when he snuck into Auburn’s interview room and posed a few questions to his teammates.

On the Tuesday before Auburn’s fourth game of the season against Ball State, Carter asked defensive tackle Mike Blanc what he thought about him finally returning to the field.

“I’m just happy to have him back,” Blanc said. “I know he’s just been waiting to come back.”

Carter has stopped making his teammates blush during interviews and has strictly been a nuisance to opposing offensive tackles ever since.

In just six games, Carter has vaulted into fourth on the team with 3.5 tackles for loss and is just one of four players with more than one sack. More significantly, Carter has taken over as the team’s starting right end over the past three games, replacing Michael
Goggans, who had started the previous 18.

“It’s a bigger role,” Carter said. “You get more snaps. But it’s just like playing with the 2’s. It doesn’t really affect me. You still have to play.”

And talk.

“I talk it because I know I can back it up,” Carter said. “You have to get out there and have fun. You can’t just be out there going through the motions, because you’re body gets tired of it. So you have to do something to make you keep going.”

Carter’s bull rushing and a healthier Antonio Coleman, who has ditched the cast he was wearing on his wrist, have given Auburn’s D-line a much-needed boost after a rough first half to the season.

Even after arguably its best all-around defensive performance of the season, the Tigers still haven’t shown they can stop the run. Ole Miss ran for 219 yards and the Tigers are allowing 179 per game — 10th-worst in the SEC.

That makes the pass rush from the defensive line all the more important, especially when Auburn’s depth problems at linebacker and in the secondary have prevented defensive coordinator Ted Roof from scheming as many blitzes as he’d prefer.

“Any time you can get pressure with four, why bring five? Or six? Or put yourself coverage-wise in potential jeopardy?” Chizik said. “The edge pressure guys right now, I think that’s making a huge difference.”

The difference might have best exemplified Saturday when Carter said Snead kicked him after he pancaked the quarterback during
Walt McFadden’s interception return for a touchdown.

“It’s the D-line’s job to block the quarterback on an interception,” Carter said. “I knew we had them out of the game.

“He was frustrated.”

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