The defending National Champs came to town with expectations of a high scoring nail biter between two recovering defenses. The result was a lopsided Auburn blowout that saw eight touchdowns in a 48-11 win. The Auburn Tigers are back and trending on the national stage finding all parts of their game in their fourth win of the season.
The Auburn defense hasn’t allowed fewer than 27 points in their last four games. Holding the Bengal Tigers to just 11 points the entire game, Kevin Steele’s defense was responsible for two interceptions and a fumble recovery resulting in three touchdowns. LSU only recorded 32 rushing yards and were forced to throw the ball 48 times accounting for only one touchdown. The Bengal Tigers were forced to experiment at the quarterback position with Max Johnson after TJ Finley struggled, never having set foot in the red zone.
On the other side of the ball, Bo Nix and Chad Morris (OC) seemed to finally click with the rest of their offense never having taken a field goal attempt the entire game. Even more impressive is that all of the scoring happened outside of the first quarter. Both Tiger offenses crawled out of the gates before the Auburn defense ignited the flame scoring four touchdowns on consecutive possessions in the third quarter.
After the game, Gus Malzahn wanted to make sure they “Stop the run and make them (LSU) one dimensional. Get after the rookie quarterbacks and take some shots, and that was the game plan in a nutshell”. As for Bo Nix, “He played extremely well today and led us to a victory”.
Leading the Tigers on the ground was Bo Nix with 11 carries for 81 yards and a touchdown followed by the defending SEC freshman of the week Tank Bigsby with 15 carries for 71 yards and two touchdowns. In the air, a speedy Anthony Swartz caught up to a 91-yard bomb from Nix for Auburn’s final score of the game finishing with 123-yards on four catches. Seth Williams has been a consistent force all year leading the team in catches with five for 64-yards plus a touchdown. After the last three contests were decided on the last possessions, Bo Nix will send LSU home with a blowout loss saying, “Can we just not have a close game one of these weeks”.
Special teams even got in on some of the fun with Anders Carlson scoring a touchdown’s worth of PATs and Aidan Marshall pinning a 46-yard punt at the one. Grant Loy, Auburn’s second string quarterback, even got some action after the home team had a healthy 48-3 lead.
There wasn’t a single part of Auburn’s game that Gus Malzahn struggled to get going as the home team demoralized an already struggling LSU team who now move to 2-3 on the season. In two weeks, the now 4-2 Auburn Tigers travel to Mississippi State 1-4 to take on the Bulldogs.
