AU FOOTBALL: Chizik: Todd still gives Tigers best chance to win

Less than 24 hours after Chris Todd’s third consecutive poor, and, at times, puzzling performance, Gene Chizik and offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn came to a quick and concise decision on his job status.

A change won’t do Auburn any good.

Todd will start Saturday against Ole Miss, Chizik said, and until he’s not giving Auburn the best chance to win, he’ll continue to do so.

“We still think Chris gives us the best chance to win,” Chizik said. “Obviously, we would have loved for the offensive production as a whole to be better than it was, but we’re in the month of October, and we knew it was going to be a tough month.”

Though the entire Auburn team has struggled through the month, which has quickly turned its 5-0 undefeated start into a downward-spiraling 5-3, no one has had it rougher than Todd.

In Auburn’s three losses, Todd has completed 33-of-66 passes for 260 yards, no touchdowns, two interceptions and two fumbles. After hitting 20 passes for 20 yards or more in the Tigers’ first five games, Todd has hit just three for that distance, none of which coming Saturday at LSU.

His 8-of-14 effort for 47 yards Saturday included a number of foibles unseen in the previous two starts, though.

He tucked and ran with a number of his designed passes, flustered with a perceived lack of open receivers and rarely looked downfield — negating a core trademark of Gus Malzahn’s offense.

Four of Todd’s eight passes went for a yard or less, and he completed just one pass to a true wide receiver, which went for 1 yard to Terrell Zachery.

“Sheer numbers will tell you that’s been an area over the last couple of weeks that we certainly need to improve on,” Chizik said. “Whatever we need to do.

“We’ve got to come up with some answers right now for some more productive downfield passing in the next few weeks. Obviously, it gives us a chance to move the ball and get first downs, and that’s not happening near as much as it has when we’ve won.”

Todd and Chizik both said Sunday that Todd has one thing on his side at this juncture of the season. He’s had success, even some this month, when he threw for 218 yards and a touchdown against a Tennessee defense that held No. 2 Alabama without a touchdown Saturday.

He and the Auburn offense as a whole, though, have had trouble with the adjustments defenses have made now that more Auburn film is being circulated.

Chizik and Todd both were short on specifics about what exactly defenses have done in dropping an offense that had ranked as high as second in the nation to 19th. Chizik said Auburn’s receivers, particularly against LSU, have seen added press coverage at the line of scrimmage, daring Todd to throw long.

Regardless, it all comes back to Auburn, Todd said.

“Every week that we play, we’re playing against a really good defense, a really good team,” Todd said. “We’ve just got to step up our level of play and really just get down to what we do best.”

The message-board infused fervor that was already against Todd before the LSU start only grew with intensity after a strong showing from backup Neil Caudle late in the action Saturday. Caudle, playing against LSU’s second-team defense, went 3-for-5 for 34 yards on a late fourth-quarter drive and tossed his first career touchdown pass — a 1-yarder to freshman Philip Lutzenkirchen.

Caudle said he and the team were completely behind Todd as the team’s starter, but added that there would be no need to panic if he were called into action.

“I prepare every week as if I’m the starter,” Caudle said. “I think that’s my job and my role on this team right now. I’m always prepared to go in there to play and I’m not going to change anything from week to week.”

That’s how Todd said he’s prepared ever since he was named the team’s starter back in August. He’s been through a similar fall from grace before, when a shoulder injury derailed his 2008 season after a few starts and kept him off the field for the second half of the year.

It just comes with the territory.

“When things are good you get some credit for some stuff, and when things are bad, you take that, too,” Todd said. “But I’m definitely working myself and trying to improve things that will help us move on and win some ballgames.”

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