Observations: Vanderbilt 17, Auburn 7
It was more of the same for the Tigers, just in a brutal new package — a single digit on the board in their first-ever home loss to the 'Dores.
(David Gray/Auburn Tigers)
AUBURN — This weekend, Auburn football honored its legendary 2004 team. Dozens of players and coaches from the undefeated squad returned to campus to have a reunion, go through Tiger Walk and get honored on the field during a TV timeout.
Meanwhile, the 2024 team put together the wrong kind of 20th anniversary tribute.
Arguably the most famous win for those 2004 Auburn Tigers came against LSU. In that game, Auburn only scored one touchdown, averaged fewer than 4 yards per carry and had to lean on a dominant defense.
The 2024 Auburn Tigers did all of that Saturday afternoon. But this wasn’t an old-school, SEC heavyweight slugfest between two title contenders.
No, this was a matchup between a 3-5 Auburn team just fighting to keep its season alive against Vanderbilt, the perennial conference doormat that had never won a game inside Jordan-Hare Stadium.
But, hey, at least both games had a critical flag thrown on a player for trying to leap over the field goal protection team.
This time, it went against Auburn.
This time, it gave Vanderbilt a free first down and more time to plunge the dagger in a massively low-scoring game.
This time, it doomed an Auburn program that went perfect in the SEC 20 years ago to its fourth straight season of five-plus conference losses for the first time since 94 years ago.
“This has been too often a story this year for us — for our players and our fans,” Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze said.
Auburn’s 17-7 loss to Vanderbilt on Saturday afternoon was a microcosm of a disastrous Year 2 for Freeze.
The Tigers had their opportunities. In the big picture, they were looking to capitalize on a road win at struggling Kentucky from last week and keep a realistic shot at a late-season turnaround and a bowl berth. In the game itself, they held a Vanderbilt team that scored 40 on Alabama earlier this season to just 227 yards.
“It sucks to go out there and beat somebody on the stat sheet and not come out with the win,” linebacker Dorian Mausi Jr. said.
An Auburn offense that entered the weekend ranked No. 112 in the country in average points on scoring opportunities (2.90) scored just seven points on four trips inside the Vanderbilt 40-yard line. That’s an average of 1.75.
Auburn couldn’t finish drives, nor sustain them. The Tigers went 2-13 on third downs, which was the worst performance for the team in that stat since hitting that exact total in a bowl game loss to Northwestern with a lame-duck coaching staff at the end of the 2020 season.
“We got to figure out a way to finish drives and score points, but we're just not,” Freeze said. “We're not playing well on third down, and we're not finishing the drives that we do have.”
Jarquez Hunter, the running back who sprinted into Auburn history just seven days ago with a 278-yard performance at Kentucky, had 50 yards on just 12 carries. He got handed the ball twice in the second half.
Meanwhile, quarterback Payton Thorne dropped back to pass more than 30 times and just barely had a positive EPA/play at 0.01. He took three sacks behind a still-struggling Auburn offensive line and was relentlessly pressured several more times.
“It's very frustrating,” Thorne said. “You know, if I was on the defense, I would be frustrated, too. We're human. We say that we're a team, and we absolutely are. It's a team game. But that unit is playing well right now, and they're playing with energy and juice. It's frustrating.
“I feel bad, being on the offense and obviously being the quarterback of the offense, that we're not helping them out more.”
The Tigers were penalized six times: Four that gave a struggling Commodores offense free first downs, and two more that put their own offense behind the chains and doomed them to empty possessions.
They missed two more field goals, putting them at a woeful 6-14 for the season, and lost the field position battle by a decent margin. There were also baffling coaching decisions, like calling a timeout with one second left before the two-minute warning.
All in all, it was more of the same for this 2024 Auburn football team: Woeful offense, self-inflicted wounds and damaging special teams play. That’s exactly how a team can lose a game by multiple scores while holding its opponent to 3.7 yards per play.
A program that once averaged making it to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game — like the one the 2004 squad won — every four years or so is on the verge of going that length of time without a single winning season.
Instead of taking a step forward and showing proof of concept, Auburn has done nothing but dig itself into even more of a rebuild.
Here are three big Observations from Auburn’s 17-7 loss to Vanderbilt.