Ledger-Enquirer.com | 09/04/2011 | Auburn football: Tigers rally from 10-point deficit with less than 4 mintues left to escape Utah State's upset bid

AUBURN, Ala. -- The BCS championship party had long ended, with Auburn’s nation’s-best 15-game winning streak hanging by a thread against a team picked to finish in the bottom half of the WAC.

That’s when the new-look Tigers flashed a bit of last year’s magic.

No. 23 Auburn rallied from 10 points down in the final 3½ minutes to pull out a miraculous 42-38 season-opening win against Utah State at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday.

The Tigers (1-0), who broke in 19 new starters, struggled mightily all afternoon but made a furious rally in the final 3:38 that included touchdowns by Philip Lutzenkirchen and Mike Dyer sandwiched around a perfectly executed onside kick.

It was a thrilling yet sobering way to extend their winning streak to 16 games.

“You never look at the clock and the scoreboard until it says 0:00,” Auburn coach Gene Chizik said. “So in that regard we are thrilled that we came out with the win today.

“I think it is obvious that everybody that saw the game realizes that we did not play well as a football team. There are no excuses for that. We just didn’t play well.”

It was a reality check for a team that rode Cam Newton, Nick Fairley and a large senior class to its first national championship in 57 years only nine months ago.

The visiting Aggies (0-1) took it to the Tigers for most of the day, out-gaining Gus Malzahn’s offense 448-364.

“All the credit goes to Utah State,” Lutzenkirchen said. “They played us real well. We were wrong for thinking coming in that they might be a cupcake team, and they really ran it down our throat the first half. We got lucky with this one.”

Freshman quarterback Chuckie Keeton threw for 213 yards and ran for two touchdowns, leading a daring offensive attack that converted 10 of 17 third downs and all three of its fourth downs.

One of those fourth-down conversions came on a fake field goal with 4:17 to play. Two plays later, running back Robert Turbin scored on a 1-yard run that made it 38-28 Utah State with 3:38 on the clock.

The seemingly overwhelming margin led to some of the 85,245 in attendance to head for the exits, but Auburn mounted a comeback.

Quarterback Barrett Trotter, who was 17-for-23 for 261 yards and three touchdowns in his first career start, hit Travante Stallworth for a long gain. It set up a 15-yard touchdown toss to Lutzenkirchen with 2:07 left that cut the lead to 38-35.

With only one timeout left, Auburn went for the onside kick. Reserve kicker Chandler Brooks hit it perfectly, getting the ball to kick up about 20 feet into the air and right into the arms of a sprinting Emory Blake.

“I’ve been telling everyone it’s three years in the making,” said the senior Brooks, who made his college debut on the play.

Auburn drove down the field with ease, getting to the 1-yard line before Dyer plowed into a pile for a touchdown that put the Tigers up 42-38 with 30 seconds left.

The SEC’s best rushing offense from a year ago finished with only 78 yards on the ground Saturday, but it came through when it counted.

“We just went out there and did our thing,” true freshman center Reese Dismukes said. “I wasn’t really worried. We were definitely prepared for this kind of situation. Usually I would have been kind of nervous, but we just went out there at the end and it just clicked.”

Utah State, which took No. 7 Oklahoma to the wire on the road in last year’s opener, couldn’t do anything with the little time left on the clock.

“A very disheartening loss,” Aggies coach Gary Andersen said. “We pulled out everything we possibly could. … This is hard to swallow. Opportunities like this do not come around every day. We let it slip away from us.”

Auburn let out a huge sigh of relief afterward, its streak since last losing a game now at 645 days and counting.

It still wasn’t satisfactory.Lutzenkirchen, one of the team’s captains, felt obliged to apologize for the team’s effort on Twitter, calling it “inexcusable.”

“I think it’s a humbling process for us,” he said. “This game humbled us a lot. Some of the younger guys who thought it might come easy, I think they realize you can’t take any plays off, any games off.”

Enter Keyword(s):	Enter a City:
Select a State:	Select a Category:

Sunday, Sep. 04, 2011

Auburn football: Tigers rally from 10-point deficit with less than 4 mintues left to escape Utah State's upset bid

Get the Deal!

Sunday, Sep. 04, 2011

Auburn football: Tigers rally from 10-point deficit with less than 4 mintues left to escape Utah State's upset bid

tool name

Get the Deal!