Observations: Auburn 43, Texas A&M 41 (4OT)
After years of waiting, the Tigers finally made enough plays late to get over the hump and beat a true title contender again.
(Justin Ferguson/The Auburn Observer)
AUBURN — Since it was installed in 1987, the old scoreboard in the north end zone at Jordan-Hare Stadium has seen a lot.
It hadn’t seen a lot of Auburn football wins lately. It had seen defeat snatched from the jaws of victory — including the last two home Iron Bowls and the Oklahoma meltdown earlier this season — much more often.
In its final game before it gets replaced in time for the 2025 season, the old scoreboard saw Auburn blow another big lead. It saw the Tigers miss chance after chance to finish off the game. It stood over a lot of exasperated fans in the bleachers.
But, somehow, the scoreboard got to see one more field-storming. One more instant-classic win. One more fatal blow to an opponent’s championship dreams.
And it got turned off, one last time, with a winning score: AUBURN 43 and TAMU 41, with a glowing 5 next to the quarter marker.
It should have been an 8, but you can forgive the old scoreboard for just staying with the “fifth quarter” theme. After all, it had never seen Auburn win a game that went into four overtimes. No one had.
“It was four overtimes?” freshman wide receiver Cam Coleman said. “Four? I lost track.”
In a season largely defined by all the winning plays Auburn didn’t make in crunch time, it just made more against a Texas A&M team fighting to stay in front in the College Football Playoff and SEC championship races.
There was the Auburn offense that had -14 yards and a killer turnover on its last four drives marching down the field for a 15-play, 74-yard scoring drive to send it to overtime.
There was the walk-on, third-string kicker who was playing at a school that no longer exists this time last year, hitting two clutch field goals after one of the worst-looking misses you’ll ever see.
There was the defense that had so many difficulties getting off the field at opportune moments making the plays it needed down the stretch.
And there was the fifth-year transfer wide receiver making one more ridiculous, in-traffic catch to give Auburn the lead in a nonsensical two-point conversion shootout.
Moments later, Texas A&M dropped a much more open pass to lose the game.
Sometimes, after years of waiting, you just need a break to go your way.
“I was just like, please, let us get off the field,” said senior wide receiver and game-winner KeAndre Lambert-Smith. “I thought he caught it, then he dropped it. I just saw a helmet going in the air, everybody starts running on the field.
“Next thing you know, I'm surrounded by students.”
Auburn outlasted Texas A&M on Saturday night when it had every reason to do the exact opposite. It built and then blew a 21-point lead. It looked dead in the water in the fourth quarter, destined to have yet another disastrous loss that would put the final nail in the coffin of bowl eligibility and any forward momentum.
But, even when so many had given up on the Tigers, they didn’t quit on themselves — not Saturday night, not in November, not in this frustrating season.
“The one thing that I'm so proud of is just our locker room,” head coach Hugh Freeze said. “It's continued to fight. No matter what people say, they've just chosen to say, ‘We're gonna fight to the finish.’”
No matter what happened earlier, each Saturday provides a new opportunity in college football. On a day when several SEC teams that were left for dead earlier this season delivered memorable home wins over playoff contenders, Auburn finally got to join in the chaos. It got its first win over a ranked team in three years.
There’s still a massive amount of working and improving to do for Auburn football to get back to where it belongs, and a single wild upset win won’t change that. The Tigers will have to do something they haven’t done since 2010 in order just to get back to .500 and have an outside chance at avoiding a fourth straight losing season.
But Saturday night felt like the old Auburn again. Even though that one scoreboard will look a lot different the next time the Tigers are in Jordan-Hare Stadium, they believe that they’ll be able to actually keep that feeling going for a change.
“You hope this is a pivotal moment you can look back on two or three or four or five years and say, ‘That was a big one for the program,’” senior quarterback Payton Thorne said. “To hopefully be a part of that, this senior class — we talked about going out the right way and trying to set the foundation for what’s to come.”
Here are five Observations from Auburn’s quadruple-overtime win over Texas A&M, along with the Quote of the Night.