Auburn’s rushing attack leads its offense to a 26-point Homecoming victory as the running back room combined for 266 yards on 37 attempts.
The Tiger’s enjoyed a 45-19 victory behind new starting quarterback Hank Brown who helped lead their offense to 503 total yards to outdo New Mexico’s 448 yards. Although Brown had a solid night, it was their rushing attack which ended up accounting for the most yards.
The Tiger’s running back group which included senior Jarquez Hunter, junior Damari Alston and sophomore Jeremiah Cobb, gashed the Lobos’ defense all night long. They were led by Hunter as he would receive 20 — a career high for him resulting in a total of 152 yards total on the ground.
“Yea, it brings back the High School memories, I used to get the ball all the time”, Hunter said when asked about his workload. “It’s fun when you get the opportunity to run the ball, you got make every opportunity its best. I mean, its fun running the football for us running backs, we go the opportunity tonight and I think we did a decent job.”
A huge part of their success came from the efficiency with which they ran averaging 6.7 yards per carry. Individually Hunter averaged 7.6 yards per carry topped only by his teammate Alston who would end up averaging 8 yards per carry.
A lot of the opportunities for the team’s running back room came for a more balanced offensive attack from head coach Hugh Freeze this week as both the rushing attack and passing attack were able to get 200+ yards.
The running back core even propelled the offense in other ways throughout the game. To open Auburn’s first possession, Cobb would have a massive 66-yard run to jumpstart Auburn’s first scoring drive which would give them the lead and with 7 minutes and 45 seconds left in the first quarter Auburn would only trail one more time briefly before leading the rest of the game.
Later in the game Hunter would get a big 14-yard receiving touchdown on a dump pass by Brown to pull the lead to an 18-point margin in the third quarter.
Running Back Damari Alston (0) getting hoisted into the air by his fellow teammates after scoring a touchdown in the second half of the game against the New Mexico Lobos on September 14, 2024.
“I mean, I saw everybody bail just bail out”, Hunter said about his mindset on his receiving touchdown. “I tried to be slow because I was just trying to make sure but pressure came through and they just left me wide open”
The Tigers offense would finish the night with a total of 40 rushing attempts to 26 passing attempts looking balanced. There were six total touchdowns coming from five different players including three coming from their running backs.
“Anytime you do that , you got a happy room”, Freeze said when speaking on the team’s ability to score with many different players “and it puts on tape that there’s not just a single guy you can double or do things”
The change of momentum for Auburn’s offense but more notably Auburn’s rushing game was definitely a step in the right direction for the Tigers, but it will be interesting to see how they carry this play style into SEC play next week. Even with a wide receiver core that is deeper than it’s been in quite a while, the running back core still stands as a serious weapon for Coach Freeze and his team as they continue to seek their identity on offense.
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Reid is a freshman, exploratory major. He joined the Plainsman in the fall of 2024.
You can follow him on X (Twitter) at @ReidFarris2
