Led by its usual stars, Auburn picked up its fourth win of the season 48-14 against ULM Saturday afternoon inside of Jordan-Hare Stadium in hopes of building momentum for its two top-15 tests to close out the season.
“I thought it was one of our better performances in my time here,” Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze said following his tenth career win at Auburn. “Really proud of our kids and our effort, and hopefully we gain some confidence headed into these last two huge football games that we have.”
The trio of KeAndre Lambert-Smith, Cam Coleman and Malcohm Simmons led the way for the Tigers’ air attack totaling a combined 269 of Auburn’s 304 total. The true freshman from Phenix City, AL, Coleman, had a career high 100 receiving yards on 8 receptions with 3 touchdowns after scoring just two touchdowns in Auburn’s first nine games.
“He did a really good job today,” Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne said of Coleman. “He only needed one hand, so that was sweet. He is a great athlete, and it's fun playing with him. These young guys have a long career ahead of them. I'm sure he will keep working. That is all he does, so more and more of those plays will show up for him.”
With four catches of 15-or-more yards Saturday afternoon, Coleman had already totaled two touchdowns in Auburn’s first three drives with 78 yards receiving.
“It was a lot of fun. Seeing the smiles on everyone’s face was just creating energy on the sideline,” Coleman said of the energy generated from the fast start.
Coleman’s fellow receiver Lambert-Smith, picked up his eighth touchdown of the season – only the fourth player in Auburn’s history to do so – with 104 yards receiving on six receptions and a touchdown.
“He's a playmaker, outstanding player, and he's one that has earned the respect of that room to where his voice matters,” Freeze said of Lambert-Smith. “Excited to see him have continued success. He's had success mostly all year. We probably hadn't gone to him enough.”
Senior running back Jarquez Hunter’s 102 rushing yards pushed him over 1,000 rushing yards for the season for the first time in his career. He’s the first Auburn running back to do it since Tank Bigsby had 1099 rushing yards during the 2021 season.
“I mean it’s very special to me,” Hunter said now with 1015 total rushing yards this season. “When I think of all the other great running backs that came through Auburn I can just be one of them.”
Averaging 7.3 yards per carry against ULM, Hunter totaled five rush attempts that went for more than 10 yards. It was Hunter’s 11th 100-plus yard game in his career and third of the season.
Auburn’s offense started the contest with regular starter, sixth-year senior Payton Throne who played the Tigers’ first eight series completing 22-of-32 passes for 286 yards. Throne also rushed for 27 yards on seven attempts against the Warhawks.
Following Throne, Walker White made his first collegiate appearance as Auburn took over on downs at its own 34 in the fourth quarter. White fumbled his second rush attempt a few plays later to give the ball right back to ULM.
“It was a lot of fun,” White said. ”I was just talking to Payton and we’re perfectionists, most quarterbacks are, you know, the first drive I fumbled…that last drive I under threw Perry so that little stuff eats at the joy I get to experience…but it was a lot of fun.”
White would finish the day with 18 yards passing, completing two of his five attempts through the air, as well as 18 yards rushing on four attempts. The true freshman played in the Tigers’ final four drives.
“I had an anticipation that if we were up big in this game that this would happen so I was prepared,” White said of his first appearance on the field at Auburn. “I feel like this whole season I’ve been trying to prepare like a starting quarterback so throughout the whole first three quarters I was just going through my reads.”
Auburn’s offense as a unit compiled 507 yards with 26 first downs converting 12-of-17 third downs. As a team, the Tigers had a penalty free day.
“I can't remember ever being a part, truthfully, of having a team that had zero penalties,” Freeze said. “Thankful that we executed at that level today and that we had none, but that's certainly not normal.”
The Tigers’ defensive unit allowed just one Warhawk scoring drive until the final ten seconds of the ball game and forced seven three, or four,-and-outs.
“In my mind, they held them under 200 you know, I know the last play, there was a lot, but I think our defense, besides the one drive in the third quarter, was really, really solid,” Freeze said of the defense’s performance.
With two top-15 opponents – No. 15 Texas A&M and at No. 10 Alabama – looming for Freeze and the Tigers, Saturday’s matchup with an inferior Sun Belt opponent was all it needed to be for Auburn as it tries to build momentum to close out the 2024 campaign.
“These last two are going to be some tough ones so we are going to use this as a confidence booster in the way we prepared this week,” Coleman said. “We want to keep the momentum flowing for this next week and the week after.”
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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
