Observations: Auburn 24, Kentucky 10
In more ways than one, the 2024 Tigers did what they hadn't been able to do all season — and they got to celebrate a win again.
(Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)
LEXINGTON, Ky. — It didn’t matter that No. 27 had already touched the ball 27 times.
It didn’t matter that Jarquez Hunter had broken countless tackles and had sprinted away from the defense for 10 different explosive carries, including three of 50-plus yards in the second half alone.
It didn’t matter that he had taken — and dished out — plenty of punishment in what would be the fourth-best rushing performance in Auburn football history and the best since Tre Mason’s legendary 2013 SEC Championship Game.
Hunter was going to use those legs one more time for an incredible feat: A backflip.
The flip, punctuating a final kneeldown from Payton Thorne in the victory formation, was pure celebration. Pure adrenaline. Pure relief.
Because, in more ways than one, the 2024 Auburn Tigers did what they hadn’t been able to do all season.
Auburn beat Kentucky, 24-10, on the road Saturday night. The win wasn’t always pretty, but the time for style points is lone gone.
The Tigers, losers of four straight and five of their last six, just needed a victory against a power-conference opponent — for the first time in almost a full calendar year — by any means necessary.
“To be honest, I got tired of losing,” said Hunter, who rushed for a jaw-dropping 278 yards. “I’m tired of losing. I told Coach, ‘We’re going to find a way to win this game, and it doesn’t matter how we do it or how it gets done.’”
Hunter’s massive performance helped overshadow what was a brutal start for Auburn at Kentucky. The Wildcats scored on their first two drives. The Tigers went three-and-out and threw a quick Payton Thorne interception inside their own territory on their first two drives. Auburn trailed by double digits before it even got a first down.
But Auburn stayed the course. It tormented a limited Kentucky offense that had little answers besides 1-on-1 jump-ball prayers to Dane Key. It went away from an attack that had 13 pass calls and just one handoff to Hunter in the first quarter to dominate Kentucky the rest of the way — 24 points to zero, and 460 yards to 109.
“We've obviously had our chances to win a lot of football games this year,” said Hugh Freeze, who bounced back from an illness and a late arrival to Lexington this weekend. “And, for whatever reason — lack of confidence or not making the right call or not making the right play — things just haven't gone our way. And, tonight, our kids found a way to win, and I just couldn't be happier for them.”
Auburn found a way to win and found a way to hold onto a late advantage. The ghosts of the Oklahoma and Missouri losses didn’t pop back up Saturday night. Auburn doubled its lead in the fourth quarter with a long Hunter touchdown run, then came up with a goal-line stand that was capped by a Kayin Lee interception in the end zone on the ensuing drive.
“We just knew it was going to be a dogfight,” Lee said. “We knew the whole week, we wanted to fight and finish — especially when we got up in the game. I was just telling everybody, ‘Let's just finish.’ That's our biggest thing: We've got to finish.
“You know how many of those other games we could have had, but we didn't finish.”
After a string of missed opportunities, Auburn got to be the team taking advantage of a struggling opponent for a change.
There were still plenty of issues, ranging from the ice-cold start to a few more fruitless scoring chances. And beating a team that might be the second-worst one in the SEC isn’t a sign that the Tigers are Capital-B Back.
But Auburn just had to keep some glimmer of hope alive. For at least one Saturday in 2024, the Tigers got to do that — and they will have a chance to turn it into something more.
“I felt like we did a great job as a team of not getting down on ourselves like we’ve done in the past,” Hunter said. “We just kept going out there and competing. You look at the end result, we won the game because we didn’t give up on ourselves.”
Here are five Observations from Auburn’s 24-10 win at Kentucky, along with some Nerd Stats and the Quote of the Night.
RB Jarquez Hunter (Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)
Jarquez was Fed…
Auburn’s offensive start was nothing short of disastrous. Thorne bounced a checkdown pass to Hunter before scrambling for no gain and throwing a screen to his running back that also went for no gain.
After Hunter was stuffed for no gain on the first play of the second drive, Thorne threw an interception that Kentucky — which was already up by 10 — returned to the Auburn 40.
The third drive actually featured some positive momentum, with Thorne converting a couple of third-and-mediums with passes to KeAndre Lambert-Smith and Cam Coleman. But Thorne took a sack on first down near midfield, and Auburn never recovered, punting the ball away a few plays later.
Freeze said Auburn thought it could come out and throw the ball around early against Kentucky, which entered the game with a strong run defense but the SEC’s worst passing defense in conference play. That, obviously, did not work.
“People hadn’t run it on (Kentucky), outside of the Florida game,” Freeze said. “No one. Those are good football teams that they’ve really stopped rushing.”
To the Tigers’ credit, they actually adjusted.