Led by a fleet of young and old newcomers, the Tigers trounced Alabama A&M 73-3 in the season opener Saturday night under the lights in Jordan-Hare Stadium. The win also marked Auburn's 800th win in program history.
“I wish they were all kind of like that,” Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze said following the win. “They won't be but good to see a lot of kids get involved and a lot of faces. We have a lot of things to clean up, but certainly pleased with a lot of aspects.”
It took Auburn just over three minutes into the first quarter of the early 2024 season to have three touchdowns on the scoreboard. Fast scoring continued to be a theme throughout the contest as the Tigers had five touchdown scoring drives last under a minute.
“Yeah, there's nothing like confidence. And that's something that we've always been good at, is creating explosive plays,” Freeze said. “We weren't very good at that last year, and it was certainly an emphasis when I brought [Derrick] Nix in.”
Jarquez Hunter started the party by capping off a four play, 70-yard drive with a 34-yard house call on the Tigers’ opening drive. Then came Thorne’s trio of deep balls to new Auburn receivers in three of the next four touchdowns to debut what is a transformed position group from a season ago.
“It was really satisfying,” Freeze said of watching his new receivers find success early. “They're just young kids, man, and they are enjoying playing and going through the experience. And it's fun to see them.”
It started with a 67-yard grab by Penn State graduate transfer Keandre Lambert-Smith who finished the day with 80 yards on three receptions with two touchdowns. The next Auburn possession saw Cam Coleman make his collegiate debut with a 44-yard touchdown reception.
“I was seeing the ball in the air and I was like, ‘oh, wide open, wide open, don't drop it, don't drop it’ and I heard the crowd starting to go aaah.” Coleman said of his internal thoughts during his first touchdown of his young Auburn career. “This is really just a really great feeling. I can't describe it happened so fast, you gotta take in the moment.”
The true freshman finished off the night with 62 yards on two receptions with one touchdown. Coleman’s true freshman counterpart, Perry Thompson, captured the third Thorne deep ball touchdown — a 70-yard reception — to put the Tigers up 38-0 early in the second quarter.
“It was crazy, because of all the work we put in every week of fall camp. Happy to see all my people eating like, get the ball and get in the end zone for real. So anytime any of us get in the end zone, I'm very excited for everybody,” Thompson said of his teammates that combined for 451 yards receiving and six touchdowns.
The almost completely new receiver room benefited from a quarterback who started his fourth season of college football tonight in Payton Thorne. The second year starter at Auburn completed 62% of his passes Saturday night and had four throws for over 40 yards.
Payton Thorne (#1) succesfully rushes for touchdown run against Alabama A&M at Jordan Hare Stadium on August 31st 2024
“It's nice to see, you know, we're able to take some shots down the field and connect on them and then obviously finish it the rest of the way in the end zone,” Thorne said after throwing for an Auburn career high 322 yards. “So, it means a lot. You know, it's something to actually do it against another team and see it happen, and something we got to build on.”
Part of what fueled the offense’s quick start was a defense that held the Bulldogs to three-and-outs in four of their first five drives.
“Overall, it was a solid night,” Freeze said of the defense's performance against Alabama A&M. “You know, we got to clean those things up. But all in all, we got a lot of kids in and held Isaiah [Raikes] out and got his ankle some more rest. So hopefully we can learn from the mistakes we did make and be improved next week.”
With the Tigers leading 52-3 at the half, the second half was reduced to two, 10 minute quarters. Freeze explained that he was approached by the officials during the half saying that Alabama A&M had requested the reduction and he was okay with it.
And while the second half saw lots of rotation on both sides of the ball for the Tigers, Freeze was committed to getting his young players real experience running the offense as Auburn was still able to find the end zone with true freshman Malcolm Simmons scoring his first two touchdowns of his Auburn career.
“I'm looking and I'm like, ‘where's the ball at?’ So I saw the punter when he ran, I ran, and the ball dropped right in front of me, and I just picked it up and scored,” Simmons said of his recovery of a blocked punt for a touchdown.
Simmons also joined his fellow freshman receivers with a deep ball touchdown scoring off a 57-yard reception from Hank Brown in the third quarter.
The Tigers 73-point performance fell just short of Auburn’s all-time record for points scored in Jordan-Hare Stadium at 76 back in 1995 to Chattanooga. However, The Tigers’ 70-point margin of victory was the largest since Auburn defeated Erskine, 77-0, in 1932.
“But, we certainly haven’t arrived yet,” Freeze said.”Right in front of us are some great opportunities in our home stadium. … So we'll see how the leadership handles us having a good opener but it’s going to get much harder soon.”
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Patrick is a junior from Auburn, Alabama, double majoring in journalism and marketing. He started with The Plainsman in the fall of 2022.
You can follow him on X (Twitter) at @patrickabingham
