Snap Judgments: Auburn 35, Ole Miss 28

Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports

That was better.

Auburn took down Ole Miss today in Oxford by a score of 35-28, with Seth Williams’ 58-yard touchdown catch in the final 90 seconds proving the winner. With the victory, Auburn improves to 3-2 on the year, and gets a much, much needed win to alleviate at least a little bit of the heat on Gus Malzahn’s seat.

Is it enough to get the conspiracy theorist fringe groups of Auburn fandom off of his back? No, not completely, but it was definitely a step in the right direction. How do we feel afterward? Let’s see:

SNAP JUDGMENTS

This team has to take their lumps and learn to play together this year. THat’s the realistic goal. Set up hope for a big time run next year. This is a very similar group to 1992. Just got to go through some growing pains and mature. Next year was always the year we should be pointing to. Also...

Gus re: coaching rumors...

-Josh Black

I guess the SEC Network and Ole Miss fans will allow the “holding” penalty that brought Tank’s TD back.

I guess the SEC Network and Ole Miss fans are fine shoving defenders to the ground on a deep ball and no OPI being called.

I guess the SEC Network and Ole Miss fans don’t think this was blatant holding —

But keep crying about the Shivers kickoff play. If Lane and Ole Miss really thought it should have been reviewed, you should have stopped the clock. Plain and simple.

As for the game, Bo Nix and Seth Williams for a lot of heat for their argument on the sidelines last week, but looked really good today including the GW touchdown in the last two minutes. Auburn ran the dang ball and did it really well today. The defense bent at times but had a red zone INT and held them off on the final drive. All in all, a win is a win and hopefully one that will kick start them for the rest of the year. War Eagle!

-Will McLaughlin

-AU Chief

This was a must win game and we won it. Was it perfect? No, but we aren’t Clemson fans so we really shouldn’t expect perfect. It was a team taking what it had and turning it into a road win. Please don’t act so mad about this season that you miss great it is to even have Seth Williams and Tank Bigsby on the same team. And to even have a season! I think this team looked better this week than last week, and that’s all I can hope for each week.

-Son of Crow

Barn won. That’s it, that’s the take.

-Josh Dub

This was a much better game plan. Tank and Shivers were fantastic. Bo didn’t make losing plays. The winning throw to Seth was fantastic. Seth was motivated. He’s dangerous when that happens.

The defense struggled against the run. The 3-man Tite front really struggled, but they made plays when it mattered. Roger McCreary made himself a few more dollars today.

Special teams were awful. nearly bad enough to lose this game. That has to get better, but I hope this was a win that this team can build on this season.

-James Jones

Every week this season is going to be different. You don’t know how your team is going to perform, you don’t know who may or may not be quarantined, and you don’t know anything about the other team across the field. With all of that going on, and getting spanked on the road twice already this season, Auburn came in and made the best of today with the most solid plan it’s had all year. That’s the biggest takeaway, the coaches put the players in the right position to play well and win.

It’s amazing what happens when you get the ball to your best guys. Seth Williams and Tank Bigsby did what we’ve come to expect, and that’s going to be enough to win at least a couple more ballgames this season. While there were still issues - lack of run defense, lack of pass protection, some two-minute drill issues in the first half, and the ghastly special teams - they were issues that can be fixed or improved.

It was mentioned above, we’re looking ahead to 2021 for sure, and this season is such a wash anyway with how weird it is that it’s essentially an entire year of practice. We’re going to look back at whoever wins the title and be like “Well, yeah, but c’mon”. It’s essentially a mulligan year. Use that to your advantage. Today, Gus Malzahn started to do that and figure out what he’s got on offense, which is an exceptional true freshman tailback and one of the most dangerous receivers in the SEC.

While we want to have a dynamic quarterback who filters everything through them, Bo Nix may still not be there, and that’s fine. Let’s lean on what works instead of trying to get him to win the game with 50 throws. Gus leaned into the team’s strengths today and it worked.

Who knows if we beat LSU next week. They looked good tonight, so maybe they used up all of their mojo now. All I know is that it’ll be Halloween, with a full moon, during 2020. That’s got to count for something.

-Jack Condon

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