A&M-AU: Frustrating day on the Plains for Auburn in loss

Auburn lost to Texas A&M on Saturday and will complete the season next week against Mississippi State. (Auburn Media Relations/Todd Van Emst)

By TIM GAYLE

AUBURN – It was a frustrating afternoon for the Auburn Tigers and their fans at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday.

When things were going well, the Tigers couldn’t put away fifth-ranked Texas A&M. When they weren’t going well, they couldn’t stop the Aggies from grabbing a lead and chewing up the fourth-quarter game clock on the way to a 31-20 victory.

“We had a chance to play a top five team at home on Senior Day and win and we didn’t seize the moment, so it’s a frustrating deal from that standpoint,” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn admitted. “They made the plays in the fourth quarter and we didn’t. You’ve got to give them credit.”

And in a season that already featured lopsided losses to Georgia and Alabama, Malzahn tried to rally his players to rebound from the Iron Bowl rout with a win over a ranked team and finish the regular season at 7-3. Now, the goal is adjusted again to “6-4 and if you had a normal non-conference schedule, it would be a solid year,” Malzahn said. “But, obviously, we’re not happy to not beat one of those ranked teams.” 

Instead, the Tigers fall to 5-4 as Texas A&M (7-1) amassed 509 total yards, including a season-high 313 rushing yards while the conference’s top-rated team in time of possession owned the ball for 38 minutes on Saturday.

“I think it is one of the hardest places if not the hardest place to play in this league,” Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said. “It’s very tough. We knew it was a big battle coming in here, an important game. They’re a physical team. Offensively, we had struggled last week. We knew we had to have a good performance this week.

“Kellen (Mond) was crazy efficient, big throws in the fourth quarter, big throws on third down, big catches by our team.”

Mond became only the third quarterback in the history of the conference after Tim Tebow and Dak Prescott to accumulate 9,000 career passing yards and 1,500 career rushing yards with a standout performance on Saturday. He completed 18 of 23 passes for 196 yards and a pair of touchdowns (to run his career total to 9,148) and rushed for 60 yards on 10 carries (bringing his career rushing total to 1,513). 

On the game’s first drive, the Tigers got a taste of what type of day it would become as Isaiah Spiller was separated from the ball on a run at left end, but right tackle Carson Green happened to be in the right place at the right time to fall on the loose ball for the Aggies at the Auburn 24. Four plays later, Mond connected with tight end Jalen Wydermyer for a quick 7-0 lead.

Auburn rallied for a 10-7 lead, but Mond scored on a quarterback sneak with 24 seconds remaining for a 14-10 halftime lead. 

The Tigers responded with what might have been their most impressive drive of the season to open the third quarter with a touchdown and a 17-14 lead, but missed the opportunity for another touchdown minutes later and had to settle for a field goal. Bo Nix, who had badly overthrown a wide-open Eli Stove on the Tigers’ first scoring possession, threw poorly in the direction of tight end Brandon Frazier and Auburn had to settle for another Anders Carlson field goal and a 20-14 lead.

“You’re playing one of the top teams,” Malzahn said. “When you get in the red zone, you’ve got to get touchdowns and we had to kick two field goals and that was a factor. It was kind of one of those games where you felt like you had to do well on every drive.”

Auburn would never be the same. Tank Bigsby had run 42 yards to the Texas A&M 11-yard line to set up the scoring opportunity, but in the remaining 17 minutes of the game, the Tigers would manage just two first downs and 29 total yards, including a pair of three-and-out possessions in the fourth quarter.

“The key turning point, and I was very proud of them, was being able to hold them to a field goal down there to keep it to a one-score game,” Fisher said. “Then we come back and score and then … score again. We do the same thing and eat clock again.”

Auburn’s Zakoby McClain had a monster game, recording 17 tackles, the Tigers’ only sack and two of their three tackles for loss, but will be remembered more for letting Mond’s third-down pass skip off his hands at the Auburn 5-yard line and into the hands of Wydermyer in the end zone to complete one of the most unlikely of scoring plays to give the Aggies a 21-20 lead.

A three-and-out possession by the Tigers resulted in another Aggie touchdown and a 28-20 lead. After the second three and out ended with an Auburn punt, Texas A&M took possession with an eight-point lead and 6:41 remaining, converting two third downs in a 55-yard drive that ended with a Seth Small field goal with 1:09 remaining. 

“We’ve been pretty good in must-stop situations this year,” Malzahn said. When we burn our timeouts, we’ve been really good up to this point. Obviously, today, we weren’t. You’ve got to give them credit. They made the plays with the game on the line to win and that kind of sums up today.”

Spiller led the Aggie rushing attack with 120 yards on 20 carries, but Texas A&M also got 99 yards from Devon Achane, 60 from Mond and 36 from Ainias Smith.

“The run game was definitely on point,” Smith said. “Our offensive line, they were doing a great job the entire game. It was just an amazing game plan. We had to fight through adversity and we overcame.”

Texas A&M returns home to play Ole Miss next Saturday and Tennessee in Knoxville on Dec. 19, keeping alive its faint College Football Playoff hopes and its more likely finish as the conference’s second-best team, which earns a trip to the Orange Bowl. 

Auburn will close out the regular season next week at Mississippi State after suffering four or more losses in a season for the seventh consecutive year and the 12th time in the last 14 years. The loss dropped the Tigers into consideration for the second tier of bowls, including the Texas, Liberty and Music City bowls. 

“From the standpoint of 2020, I think it was frustrating for most teams,” Nix said. “What we’re used to and what we’re accustomed to in the game of football hasn’t been quite the same this year. It’s been completely different. It’s not like we have a bad team. We’ve played 10 SEC opponents and it wasn’t like we were blessed with the opportunity of playing the lowest four. Teams that we played that were ranked, they just had good football teams and they had great experience. At the end of the day, they were just better than we were when we played them. This kind of season just goes to who has the most experience. We felt all year that at the beginning we were going to be the least experienced team. Some games, it kind of showed.”