As the final few seconds ticked away on the Georgia Dome scoreboard Saturday night, Auburn quarterback Jeremy Johnson received the snap, dropped back and heaved a moonshot into the skylights 10 yards past his intended receiver, which fell harmlessly to the turf as the final buzzer sounded — to the elation of the Auburn faithful.
The Tigers grinded out a game that was nearly the polar opposite of what fans had come to expect from a Gus Malzahn-led team, so it was only fitting the final play was just as bizarre.
Strange as it was, on a night the vaunted Auburn offense struggled for most of the game, it was Will Muschamp’s defense that keyed the Tigers to a 31-24 win over the Louisville Cardinals in the 2015 Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Game.
From the first snap of the game, it was clear the lax Auburn defense of old was gone. Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson rolled out to the right following a handoff and floated a prayer that had about as good a chance of reaching its target as a Civil War-era musket shot does without looking. Tray Matthews, the Georgia transfer who was on the wrong end of another ‘Prayer,’ picked it off on his first snap as a Tiger.
Auburn scored five plays later, a 1-yard run by Johnson that put the Tigers ahead for good.
Johnson, who had been receiving copious amounts of premature adulation and praise, looked every bit the part of a starter who wasn’t used to having the reins of the offense.
He struggled for most of the night, throwing a handful of ill-advised passes that found white jerseys. Johnson finished with 137 yards passing, a score and three interceptions on 21 attempts, and he wasn’t too pleased with himself.
“We made some mistakes, but I know I can perform better,” Johnson said. “We were just trying to make a play and made a few mental mistakes. We’re happy to win the game.”
Luckily, Johnson had a newly resurrected defense to back him up. All night long, Auburn’s defensive line overpowered Louisville in the trenches, bulldozing the Cardinals around like rag dolls.
“I’m very excited about the season and what the defense can do,” lineman Montravius Adams said. “We forced a lot of turnovers and got a lot of sacks. That shows people we are getting better.”
Defensive end Carl Lawson, who missed all of 2014 with a torn ACL, was a menace in the backfield, racking up four tackles, two tackles for loss and a sack before injuring his hip right before the half that forced him to sit out the remainder of the game.
Auburn held a 17-0 lead at the half after linebacker Justin Garrett—who finally found his way into the starting lineup after a myriad of injuries—scooped up a fumble Adams had jarred loose from Louisville's other quarterback, Reggie Bonnafon, and sprinted 82 yards to the end zone, Auburn’s longest fumble recovery for a touchdown since 1969.
The Cardinals made it a game in the second half, though. Louisville coach Bobby Petrino inserted true freshman Lamar Jackson in for Bonnafon, and Jackson’s speed started giving Auburn’s defense fits.
“(Jackson) was able to run around a little bit more,” cornerback Jonathan Jones said. “He was faster back there, obviously it’s harder for guys to tackle him, but we were able to get the job done.”
Jackson led three straight scoring drives, two longer than 75 yards, to make the score 31-24, but Peyton Barber, who stepped up after injuries to Roc Thomas and Jovon Robinson, salted the game away with a hard-nosed sequence of runs to whittle the time down until there was less than a minute remaining.
With four seconds left, Johnson heaved his intentionally overthrown pass into the end zone, putting the game on ice.
Barber finished the game with 116 yards on 24 carries, and he may have cemented himself as the starting running back with his performance in Atlanta.
Of course, Malzahn won’t give anything away — yet. He’s content to enjoy a bizarre win over a good team with bizarre uniforms.
“It was a hard-fought victory, and we thought it would be,” Malzahn said. “Louisville is a very good team, and we got up and we held on, and our guys found a way to win.”
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