It took till the ultimate week of October, however the Auburn Tigers (3-5) lastly gained a convention soccer sport. After trailing 10-0 after the primary body, the Tigers responded with 24 unanswered factors, incomes their first SEC win of the season over Kentucky (3-5) to provide themselves a fighter’s probability at incomes bowl eligibility.
It appeared like it will be the identical outdated story for the Tigers early on after Kentucky adopted up a gap scripted drive subject aim with a fast landing to take a 10-0 lead, however Auburn’s protection, particularly defensive finish Keldric Faulk, stepped up in a significant approach for the rest of the competition. Regardless of the protection discovering some footing, Auburn’s offense struggled to place collectively any consistency early, finally going scoreless for the primary quarter-plus.
The Tigers would rating in each quarter remaining nonetheless. After a miss-hit punt by Kentucky punter Aiden Laros arrange Auburn close to mid subject early within the second quarter, the Tigers took benefit with a quartet of punishing runs by the backfield duo of Jarquez Hunter and Damari Alston to arrange an eventual KeAndre Lambert-Smith landing to place the Tigers on the board early within the second stanza. Auburn would add an Evan McPherson subject aim earlier than the quarter expired, resulting in a 10-10 impasse coming into the half.
Very like the second quarter, the ultimate 30-minutes of Saturday’s contest was all Auburn. The Tigers scored one other 14 second half factors off the again of a career-best night time from senior Jarquez Hunter, who would go on to hurry for 278 yards and a couple of touchdowns. Now the main rusher within the SEC, Hunter added 19 receiving yards as effectively, ending simply 3 yards wanting a 300 all-purpose yard sport. Saturday was Hunter’s first ever 200+ yard speeding efficiency in his Auburn profession. The overall was simply 29 yards behind Curtis Kuykendall’s all-time single sport file for speeding yards by a Tiger. The senuor now sits in fourth place on the all-time checklist, behind solely Kuykendall, Tre Mason (304 yards, 2013), and Bo Jackson (290, 1985).
Whereas Hunter’s career-day was the spotlight, the overarching theme of Saturday’s contest offers optimism to an Auburn workforce needing to win three of its ultimate 4 video games to qualify for a bowl. Saturday confirmed how efficient Auburn could be when the offense takes care of the soccer, and the Tigers could have quite a lot of good tape to construct on as they head again to the Plains for an enormous contest with a rejuvenated Vanderbilt squad.
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