For all the similarities Auburn and Clemson share, and they are many — the campuses are eerily similar in design; they share the same feline nickname; heck, they’ve both got a clock tower-based building that’s the de facto mascot of the university — the state of the two football teams is antithetical, and it couldn’t have been more apparent Saturday night.
Clemson, the No. 2 team in the country, rolled into Auburn with a Heisman finalist commandeering one of the nation’s best scoring attacks and pulled out a 19-13 win, though the six-point difference belied the immense gulf that separated the offenses of the two teams of Tigers.
Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson piloted his team to 399 total yards — 259 of which he was personally responsible for — while Auburn picked up 262. On the surface, it isn’t too disconcerting, but the Tigers in orange and blue notched half of their total yardage in the fourth quarter, when a furious rally in the final two minutes almost paved the way to another stunning miracle in Jordan-Hare Stadium.
With a 4th down and 5 yards to go on Auburn’s 17-yard line, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney elected not to kick a field goal — which would’ve give his team a nine-point lead with 40 seconds remaining — and instead run the ball. Running back Wayne Gallman was stonewalled two yards shy of the marker, and Gus Malzahn’s Tigers took over. It was a strange decision, but Swinney ran the numbers in his head and elected to go that route.
“I’ve been to Auburn a lot of times, and I’ve seen crazy things happen down here for whatever reason, and next thing you know, the ball gets blocked, scooped, scored, so we just wanted to put it in our defense’s hands right there, just eliminate any room for error,” Swinney said. “If they can go the length of the field and beat us with no timeouts with 40 seconds, then I’m going to go shake their hand and tell them good game.
“I wanted to eliminate any type of block, that’s really what I was trying to eliminate. Any type of block, scoop, score.”
Jordan-Hare Stadium, the scene of so many improbable, unlikely or otherwise impossible endings, could sense another one was close. And while the uncertainty of how the game would end was palpable, it wasn’t any stranger than the carousel of quarterbacks Malzahn had been rolling out all game.
Sean White, who was named the starter after a camp battle with John Franklin III and Jeremy Johnson, played the most snaps, followed by Johnson, then Franklin. But there wasn’t ever any indication as to who would trot out next, or why.
“We went into this game knowing that we were going to play all three,” Malzahn said. “They all had packages and that’s what we went with … They all had roles. They had roles on specific things that they did, and that was our plan.”
It was a plan that really only made sense in his head, because from a third-party perspective, it seemed discombobulating and arbitrary. White would come in and throw a pass. Johnson would sub in, run a few designed QB draws and be replaced by White, who then would give way to Franklin before Johnson would return to throw a slant.
It worked occasionally, but it failed to produce anything meaningful more often than not. At halftime, Auburn’s 38 total yards paled in comparison to Clemson’s 233, yet the home team only trailed 10-3, thanks to a stifling defense that dug its heels in and bent but didn’t break.
Auburn kept Watson from buying enough time with his feet to expose the wrinkles in a defense that manifest when a play is strung out long enough, and it did the best it could to prevent him from torching the Tigers through the air, although he found Mike Williams on nearly unguardable back-shoulder throws more than a handful of times. Despite all that, Auburn allowed just 19 points, and was a play away from yanking a ridiculously unlikely victory from the wired-shut jaws of defeat.
With five seconds left, White — the quarterback of choice for the final drive — rolled out and launched a fluttering ball into the front of the end zone before getting planted in the ground by a Clemson defensive lineman. Somewhere, 40 yards away in a cluster of navy and white jerseys, it richocheted into the air and hung there for upwards of three hours, before Jadar Johnson turned on a dime and spiked it into the ground.
It was an unceremonious end to a game that was simultaneously encouraging and heartily disappointing for Auburn. They held the No. 2 team in the country to 19 points, but the issues that plagued the offense don’t look like they’ll disappear magically. The tempo and production picked up in the second half, though, and it very well could be a building block.
"We're trying to go fast,” said running back Kerryon Johnson. “It's different to try to get a guy in there and get a guy out, that might slow you down a little bit, but we did it tonight and we did it pretty well. The second half, we got a thing going, and we just had to stick with it."
Despite only producing one touchdown and a pair of field goals, Malzahn didn’t seem discouraged.
“We are going to fight our tail off. We have a lot of guys that have a lot of guts,” Malzahn said. “That’s one of the best teams in college football and our guys are going to be just fine.”
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