AUB-ARK: Carlson field goal saves Tigers' bacon in win over Hogs
Scenes from the Auburn Tigers’ win over Arkansas on Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium. (Todd Van Emst/Auburn Media Relations)
By TIM GAYLE
AUBURN – Need a boost of confidence? There’s nothing like playing one of the lower echelon teams in the Southeastern Conference.
At least, that’s how it looked through much of the first half as Auburn found its long-lost running game, seemed to make the plays it needed on defense and rolled out to a 17-0 lead over Arkansas at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Then, as quick as the gusts of winds and rain associated with Hurricane Delta subsided, the Razorbacks rallied back to take the lead and had a chance to win it, only to watch a controversial play at the end leave the Hogs on the short end of a 30-28 score.
“Give them credit,” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. “They fought back, matter of fact took the lead in the fourth quarter. Extremely tough, emotional, for our team to fight back, the way we won.
“A lot of times, it’s how you win. That’s what I told our team tonight. These SEC wins, especially this year, are not easy. Just look around our league. Our guys found a way to win and I think we can take that and it’ll help us later in the season.”
Anders Carlson drilled a 39-yard field goal with seven seconds left to give Auburn the win after the junior kicker had missed a 34-yard attempt just two minutes earlier. He was given a second chance on the next possession after quarterback Bo Nix fumbled the snap and turned backward to spike the ball, resulting in a lateral instead of an incomplete pass. Officials called the play dead, signaling an incomplete pass, and stood by their ruling after a lengthy discussion.
“I guess they’re saying he fumbled the snap and got it and then spiked it, that’s what they said,” Malzahn said.
Across the field, it was hard to put into words what first-year Razorback coach Sam Pittman was thinking.
“I was told it wasn’t a backwards pass,” Pittman said. When pressed on his view, he added, “(I saw) the same thing you did, the ball went backwards 6 yards. I saw a fumble, then a spike that went backwards 6 yards.”
Early on, it didn’t look like anyone would need any last-second heroics. Nix ran at right end for 15 yards and a touchdown three minutes into the second quarter and Auburn held a commanding 17-0 lead. At that point, the Tigers had 11 first downs and 166 rushing yards on 20 carries, gashing the Razorbacks for 8.3 yards per rush. Arkansas, by contrast, had managed just two first downs and had 21 yards on 11 carries.
But, suddenly, the Razorbacks caught fire and Feleipe Franks threw a pair of touchdown passes and trimmed the deficit to 20-12 at the half.
Auburn, which had driven down the field for a Carlson field goal to close out the half, went on a lengthy drive to start the third quarter. But the running game seemed to vanish and the big-play potential of the passing game was missing, leaving the Tigers predictable and vulnerable.
“I’ll have to look at it on film,” Malzahn said, when asked about his disappearing rushing attack. “I think we had 200 yards rushing (actually 215) in the first half and 50 (actually 44) in the second half. Give them credit but at the same time we’ll have to look at it on film.”
At that point, Arkansas put together its most impressive drive of the game, an 85-yard march in which Trelon Smith gained all but 16 yards on the drive, either by rushing or receiving. He covered the final five yards on a catch from Franks to cut the deficit to 20-18 with 4:14 remaining in the third quarter.
Auburn fans breathed a little easier on the first play of the fourth quarter when Anthony Schwartz took a bubble screen pass from Nix toward the middle of the field, then veered back outside on a 15-yard touchdown play to give the Tigers a 27-18 lead.
But the Razorbacks rallied, holding Auburn to a three and out in between two scoring drives that staked the Hogs to a one-point lead. On the first drive, Franks was injured on a rollout in the red zone and replaced by Malik Hornsby, who managed to lose two yards, then gain one back on a pair of runs at right end.
Prattville’s AJ Reed came on to kick a 22-yard field goal with 11:37 remaining, cutting the deficit to six points.
On the next possession, Franks returned and converted on third and seven with a quarterback scramble and fourth and six with a pass to Mike Woods, then found De’Vion Warren behind the Auburn secondary for a 30-yard touchdown pass and a 28-27 lead that stood until Carlson’s final kick.
And while Pittman’s fans might have thought they were robbed by a bad call at the end, the first-year coach refused to veer in that direction.
“I don’t want to say that,” Pittman said. “I mean, there were a lot of opportunities that we could have won the football game and done things better. The players were like you’d think. Last week we were jovial and cheerful. This week they were down and they were hurting, and they should. They put a lot of sweat into their preparation for Auburn. At the end they had one more play that was a little bit better than ours.
“(I told the players) I was proud of them, that they fought their butts off, that we’ve got a good football team and that times of us going some place and embarrassing our fans and our football team are over.”
Malzahn probably felt relieved, but was certainly happy after his team improved to 2-1 heading into next week’s game at South Carolina.
“I just told them how you win is so important,” he said. “First of all, SEC wins are extremely hard. I’ll keep saying, this year, with a 10-game SEC schedule and you’ve already seen it around our league, you can’t take anything for granted. You’ve got to play good football. It’s going to be a real challenging year around our league.”