Auburn 35 Ole Miss 31. The #3 and #4 teams in the country played a de facto playoff game on Saturday November 1st and the game lived up to the hype. Both teams put it on the line and absolutely played their guts out. Unfortunately the game was tainted by penalties and a horrific injury. Everyone has seen horrible injuries in sports but I do not think I have ever seen an injury like this occur on the most important play of the game, the play that the entire game came down to.
THE UGLY
Auburn was clinging to a 35-31 lead as the time drained out of the fourth quarter. They had survived the last Ole Miss incursion into the red zone by stripping the ball from Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace as he stretched for more yardage. This time it did not look like there was anyway Auburn would stop the Rebels especially as Wallace swung it out to superstar wide receiver Laquon Treadwell and he streaked toward the end zone.
However just as Treadwell was about to take it in Auburn linebacker Kris Frost flew in and grabbed Treadwell's jersey and hips and pulled back mightily. We then unfortunately found out what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object. Treadwell was bent back and his leg was broken and his ankle dislocated. He then dropped the ball before crossing the goal line and Auburn linebacker Cassanova McKinzy jumped on it.
There is not one person on the Auburn football team or fan in their right mind that was not horrified at the graphic injury. There is not much more you can say. It was horrible and everyone wishes it had never happened regardless of who won the game. Hopefully Treadwell can recover from this and resume his career. Treadwell was a man among boys for the rest of the game shredding Auburn's defense for over 100 yards and a touchdown on 10 catches.
In fact Ole Miss had TWO other 100 yard receivers in tight end Evan Engram and Vince Sanders. Bo Wallace was 28 of 40 for 341 yards and two touchdowns. Ole Miss rolled up almost 500 yards on the Auburn defense. The Auburn defense was looking like the bad or the ugly this week till making the two big stops at the end.
THE BAD
Penalties. This would be the ugly part of the game if Laquon Treadwell's horrible injury had not happened. I definitely do not want to just pile on the refs this week although they deserve plenty of criticism but also pile on Auburn for some of these penalties. Auburn was penalized 13 times for 145 yards. That has got to be close to a record. What are the coaches doing about all these penalties? The problem seems to get worse each game.
There was some incredibly stupid personal foul penalties along with some obvious pass interference or holding calls. I know one of those was a good play because the 15 yard penalty was better than the long pass being completed but that not true of the rest. This team looks incredibly undisciplined at times. You simply cannot win a championship killing your won drives or donating free yards to your opponent through penalties. I know the coaches want the players going all out but they have to do something about these penalties or it will definitely come back to haunt the Tigers.
With that said there were also some completely BS calls that did not make any sense. First there were some pretty bogus calls on Auburn and after that they let Ole Miss get away with things they called on Auburn. On top of all that they let both teams get away with things later in the game they had called early in the game. The reffing in the SEC has simply hit a new low this season.
I know I will be called a homer and biased with these observations but I have one huge piece of evidence that something stinks. An offensive holding call has still not been called on an offensive lineman playing Auburn in a big game since before the national championship game. There were none called against Florida State, Kansas State (in fact no penalties period were called on Kansas State), Mississippi State, South Carolina OR Ole Miss. There was a call in the Mississippi State game against a wide receiver after the game had already been decided but NONE in any of those games against an offensive lineman.
I know holding is done on every play but the egregious holds still have to be called and have been called on Auburn. Auburn was penalized for one bad hold in just about all of those games killing a potential scoring drive. Just calling one hold is huge. This streak encompasses almost 200 passing plays. It is literally impossible to not see at least half a dozen near felony holds in that many passes. You really have to wonder why it seems impossible for an Auburn's opponents offensive lineman to be called for a hold??? South Carolina is not that good a team and threw the ball 50 times yet no holds were called.
THE GOOD
Whew that is a lot of bad stuff to wade through to get to the good... There was some definite good though in this game for Auburn. The offense went toe-to-toe with one of the best defenses in the country and scored five touchdowns. The coaches finally threw the ball to open the run and what do you know, it worked. Auburn might have beat Mississippi State with a similar game plan. Nick Marshall was brilliant for the most part with over 250 yards passing and two touchdowns. Marshall's 65 yard bomb to Sammie Coates has to be one of the most unbelievable plays I have seen all season.
Marshall really did a great job avoiding the rush and buying time long enough to get his receivers open downfield. Duke Williams had some big catches as well as Quan Bray. Marcus Davis made a great touchdown catch on one of the best play calls of the game. I would really have liked to see that call against Mississippi State in the red zone. Auburn also had what I think was their most impressive day running the ball. They made it look easy but Ole Miss does have a very good defense. Cameron Artis-Payne made that blocking count with 143 yards rushing and Nick Marshall had two rushing touchdowns.
THE LAST WORD
The injury was understandably the talk of the town after this game but beyond that Auburn beat the #4 team in the country on the road. They overcame some serious obstacles to do it. Regardless of how the season ends, this was a big win. This game and the LSU game stand above all others so far this season. Now Auburn just has to stay the course and beat two teams they are better than to set up another possible winner-take-all game in the Iron Bowl. The Aggies are next.
The other big news around the SEC was Florida mauling Georgia. I don't think anyone saw that coming. That took a lot of air out of Georgia's sails but I GUARANTEE you will see a different team against Auburn in two weeks. Richt has been historically bad against Florida and great against Auburn. More relevant to Auburn this week was Texas A&M struggling against Louisiana Monroe. I think the beatdown Bama laid on the Aggies ended their season.
Butch Davis and Tennessee finally got another big win at the expense of Steve Spurrier and South Carolina. I think Carolina was a little hungover after the Auburn game and let Tennessee catch them at the end and then anything goes in overtime. While I don't think it was the signature win Davis needs it was a much needed win for the Vols. Meanwhile Bret Bielema once again got very close to that signature win he needs against #1 Mississippi State. They once again came up short but you have to give it to Bielema. Arkansas is a much better team this year.
Auburn vs. Texas A&M coming up next. Last year I thought Auburn got their respect back upsetting A&M and Johnny Football in College Station after the absolute whipping the Aggies laid on Auburn in Jordan Hare in 2012. However after remembering that awful 2012 game this week I think Auburn needs some more payback for that game. It is one of the most embarrassing moments in Auburn history and this is A&M's first game back to Jordan Hare since then. Auburn needs to really bring it this Saturday to complete making up for that horrible game.
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