Auburn celebrates a win in College Station. Photo: USA Today Sports.
One of the big storylines on Saturday was the rash of upsets in the SEC. Earlier, we touched on the wins by Missouri, Tennessee and Vanderbilt over Florida, South Carolina and Georgia. Apparently that was just the first part of the SEC's display of their league wide parity. When the night was over in the SEC, only one of the six teams that were favored by Vegas actually won. Alabama's 52-0 win over Arkansas proved that the Crimson Tide is the only constant in the SEC.
Auburn 45 Texas A&M 41
Auburn knew that they were going to have to put up some points today if they wanted to give themselves a shot against Johnny Football and the Aggies and they did just that. Auburn trailed throughout the game but they always kept themselves within striking distance and just overwhelmed the Aggies with the run game down the stretch. In this offensive explosion, both teams totaled over 600 yards of total offense. Auburn ran for 379 yards which is the most they've gained on the ground in a single SEC game since the 2010 season when they put 440 yards on LSU (Cam Newton had 217 yards rushing in that game).
Earlier this week, I featured Gus Malzahn in an article about first year coaches having a positive impact on their team. Would you believe that there are now only two teams that control their own destiny in the SEC West? If I told you one was Alabama, you would believe that without a doubt. The other is Auburn. This is quite a turnaround that Malzahn has engineered on the Plains.
Ole Miss 27 LSU 24
When the Rebels took a 10-0 lead into half-time, most thought LSU would come out and overwhelm them with their power game in the second half. LSU did come alive and tied the game at 24 with three minutes left but the Rebels would just not go away. Bo Wallace led his team from their own 15 all the way down to the LSU 24 for a 41 yard game winning FG by Andrew Ritter.
For Ole Miss, this was a crucial win as the season had started to turn on them. On a three game slide, this would have been a heart-breaker for the Rebels. The Rebels held on and gave Hugh Freeze his first win over a Top 25 opponent at Ole Miss and it gives them a chance to finish up strong as the only top 25 team remaining on the schedule is Missouri.
