total defensive letdown

[aubiefifty 18,231]

Auburn suffers total defensive letdown vs. Texas A&M

By Tom Green | tgreen@al.com

5-6 minutes

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Texas A&M running back Isaiah Spiller (28) carries the ball during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Auburn on Saturday, Dec. 5, 2020, in Auburn, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)AP

Zakoby McClain dropped to his knees and buried his helmet in his hands as Jalen Wydermyer skipped through the end zone.

It was the kind of play Auburn’s defense made all season: a red-zone turnover at a crucial juncture of a close game. Auburn had those momentum-shifting moments in wins against Kentucky, Ole Miss and Tennessee. But against Texas A&M, the moment slipped through McClain’s hands as did Auburn’s chance to redeem itself against a top-five team.

“It went from one extreme to the other,” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said.

It wasn’t just that Auburn’s defense couldn’t make the opportunistic big plays that have dotted its resume this year; it’s that the Tigers couldn’t do much of anything defensively in a 31-20 loss to Texas A&M on Saturday afternoon. The Tigers surrendered a season-high 509 yards of offense, including 313 yards on the ground, as the Aggies put together one of the more demoralizing games against a Kevin Steele-led defense over the last five years.

“What other game did we struggle in at home?” senior defensive end Big Kat Bryant wondered as he shook his head in disappointment. “I have never seen this much movement and progress (against the defense) this year than I ever did.”

Instead of redemption following last week’s blowout at the hands of rival Alabama, it was a total letdown for Auburn defensively against Texas A&M, which out-schemed Steele’s defense throughout the day.

The Aggies gashed the Tigers on the ground, setting their own season-high in rushing and running for the most yards against Auburn since Mississippi State totaled 359 yards on Oct. 10, 2018. In that game, Auburn allowed a pair of Mississippi State players — quarterback Nick Fitzgerald and running back Kylin Hill — to each eclipse the 100-yard rushing mark. Texas A&M didn’t quite accomplish that, but it was close, as Isaiah Spiller ran for 120 yards on 20 carries while Devon Achane had 99 yards on nine touches.

“Well, it was just a matter of stopping the run,” Malzahn said. “That’s pretty simple. We couldn’t stop them. They did a good job. The offensive line is good, their back is good. We couldn’t stop the run. That was a big factor to this.”

The Aggies’ 313 rushing yards were the most allowed by the Tigers at Jordan-Hare Stadium since 2012, when a Johnny Manziel-led Aggies team ran for 352 yards and six scores against the worst Auburn team in recent memory. Texas A&M’s 6.7 yards per carry Saturday were also the second-most allowed by Auburn in a game under Steele.

“We always pride ourselves with stopping the run first,” safety Jordyn Peters said. “When they’re busting out runs like that, it’s a red flag, of course, if we pride ourselves on run defense initially. We also pride ourselves on adversity, so when that’s happening, shoot, buckle up and let’s go. It’s war time. Time to come on and see what we got, you know?”

Auburn learned the hard way that what it had Saturday wasn’t enough against Texas A&M, and not just in terms of the run defense.

Aggies quarterback Kellen Mond, who also rushed for 60 yards and a score, completed 18-of-23 passes for 196 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Two of Mond’s three touchdowns came in the first half, when the Aggies racked up 271 yards of offense against the Tigers and staked a 14-10 lead going into halftime.

Auburn’s defense only briefly found its footing in the third quarter, when it held Texas A&M scoreless and to just 70 yards of offense over 14 plays, but things crumbled for the Tigers in the fourth. Texas A&M put up 168 yards of offense in the fourth quarter alone while scoring 17 unanswered points — starting with Wydermyer’s go-ahead touchdown off the McClain deflection with 13:31 to play. The Aggies followed it up with Ainias Smith’s 4-yard rushing touchdown to push the lead to eight midway through the quarter and then ended Auburn’s comeback chances with a Seth Small’s 32-yard field goal with 1:09 remaining.

“We’ve been pretty good in those must-stop situations this year,” Malzahn said. “When we’re burning our timeouts, we’ve been really good up to this point. But obviously today, we weren’t. You’ve got to give them credit. They made the plays with the game on the line to win. Kind of sums up the day.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.