12.4.23Football Articles

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saturdaydownsouth.com

 

Auburn vs. Maryland: 5 things to know about the Music City Bowl matchup

Sydney Hunte | 13 hours ago

6–7 minutes

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Auburn is back in the postseason for the 1st time since 2021 as it will face Maryland in the Music City Bowl on Dec. 30.

Hugh Freeze took the reins of the Tigers program ahead of the 2023 season and led them to a 6-6 record, including a heartbreaking loss to Alabama in the Iron Bowl. After finishing 5-7 in 2022, they’re in a bowl once more and will face the Terrapins, the Music City Bowl’s B1G rep, in Nashville.

Freeze still has a lot of work to do at Auburn, especially after Bryan Harsin went 9-12 overall and didn’t even last through his 2nd season. Making the bowl is the bare minimum expectation for a program that has largely lived in the shadows of its rival. But the Tigers will look to end 2023 on a high note and hopefully position themselves for the next step during what will be a pivotal 2024 for the SEC.

These 2 teams have met just 3 times before: in 1952, Maryland won 13-7 in Birmingham before Auburn won 20-7 6 years later. Auburn beat Maryland 35-23 in the next meeting, which didn’t happen until 1983.

Now, 40 years later, the Tigers and Terrapins meet again. Here’s a look at the matchup:

It’s Auburn’s 3rd time in the Music City Bowl

While it’s Maryland’s 1st time in the Music City Bowl, Auburn’s familiar with this game as it’s played in it twice before.

On Dec. 31, 2003, the Tigers beat Wisconsin 28-14. Jason Campbell was named the game’s MVP after going 10-of-22 for 138 yards and carrying the ball 9 times for 67 yards.

Fifteen years later, the Tigers dismantled Purdue 63-14 as Jarrett Stidham threw for 373 yards and 5 touchdowns, 3 of them to Darius Slayton. Boobee Whitlow accounted for 3 TDs of his own, 2 on the ground and 1 through the air.

The Tigers have had some good memories at Nissan Stadium, and in late December, they’ll hope to make it 3-0 at the venue.

Maryland’s quarterback has a familiar last name

The name “Tagovailoa” is already etched among Alabama’s legendary players. But Tua’s younger brother, Taulia, will leave the Maryland program as the most prolific quarterback in program history.

Taulia Tagovailoa holds every major passing record for the Terrapins: most passing yards in a career (11,256) and in a single season (3,860), and most career passing touchdowns (76). His 419 yards against Indiana in 2019 is the 3rd-most all time in school history.

He played in 5 games with Alabama in 2019 — Tua’s final year with the program — before transferring to Maryland. In 2023, he has 3,377 yards, 25 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions.

In an NFL Draft that will include Bo Nix, Caleb Williams, and Jayden Daniels, Tagovailoa probably won’t be top of mind, but that doesn’t mean he won’t end up on an NFL roster when it’s all said and done.

Maryland has a pair of talented wide receivers on its roster

Tagovailoa’s favorite targets in 2023 have been a pair of All-B1G Third-Team selections: Jeshaun Jones, a 6th-year player, and junior Tai Felton.

Jones leads the way with 58 catches and 747 yards with 4 touchdowns. Felton has a team-high 6 touchdowns with 723 yards on 48 catches.

The Auburn secondary, ranked 4th in the SEC and 29th in FBS in passing defense  will have their hands full trying to keep both of those players in check.

Maryland could just as easily could be 10-2

Maryland had 2 losses on its schedule where it was absolutely throttled: Against Penn State (51-15) and Ohio State (31-17). Both of those teams will be playing in New Year’s 6 bowls — and for good reason.

There have been some close losses, too. The Terps made for a pesky opponent for Michigan: the Wolverines opened up a 16-3 lead that was 29-24 after 3 quarters before they eventually won 31-24. Against Northwestern, they fell 33-27, a week after dropping a 27-24 decision to Illinois on a last-second Illini field goal.

Needless to say, the Terps can’t be taken lightly by the Tigers in this one.

How will the Tigers respond?

There’s no understating how disappointing Auburn’s Iron Bowl loss to Alabama was. Isaiah Bond has probably been living in the nightmares of the Auburn secondary for days, and as it turned out, Alabama is in the College Football Playoff.

Auburn didn’t do itself any favors, though. Its quarterback play, which has been a massive question mark all season long, it gathered just 93 yards through the air on 17 attempts against Alabama. It turned the ball over 3 times. On 3rd downs, it was 4-of-12.

The good news: its run game broke off some big plays, eventually totaling over 240 yards. The Tigers actually had a Top 20 rushing offense in 2023; Maryland has allowed 129.6 yards per game this season. Perhaps that’s the receipe for Auburn to leaving Nashville with a win.

All told, the emotions from Nov. 25 need to be left in the rearview mirror. The Tigers made baby steps under Freeze in his 1st season and, as mentioned, he still has plenty of work to do. A win against Maryland on Saturday will be yet another step in the right direction and can serve as a base to build on for 2024.

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al.com

 

How the Nashville Auburn Club reacted to football’s Music City Bowl selection

Published: Dec. 03, 2023, 4:41 p.m.

5–6 minutes

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Hugh Freeze praises Auburn fans for showing up in Nashville

Nowadays, Evan Thomas likes to refer to Nashville as “Auburn North.”

And it makes sense for the President of the Greater Nashville Auburn Club. Thousands of Auburn alumni and fans made their way to Nashville just four weeks ago when Auburn played at Vanderbilt. They’ll be coming right back as the Auburn football team was selected to play in the Music City Bowl against Maryland, the bowl announced Sunday.

“If you could insert an emoji with the crazy eyes, that’s kind of how I feel,” Thomas told AL.com on Sunday afternoon.

The bowl game is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 30, and will be played at Nissan Stadium — the home of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans.

Thomas was selected as the Club’s president in 2019 after moving to Nashville in 2018 to work in real estate. At that time — just after Auburn’s last Music City Bowl appearance in 2018 — Thomas said the Club was in dire need of better organization to fit a large city like Nashville with a large alumni base.

It is estimated around 6,000 Auburn alumni live in the greater Nashville area.

Thomas said he’s seen the Club expand greatly during his time as president, and said it is now regarded as a “torch bearer” among Auburn alumni groups.

“We’ve been able to move the needle quite effectively here in Nashville and it’s been really neat to kind of build this thing,” Thomas said. “We were able to give it an orange and blue blood transfusion.”

And after years of building the foundation for the Club’s current state, he’ll get a second football game in one season.

“Given how close we are to Auburn, our fans tend to travel well. And they really love coming to Nashville,” Thomas said. “We had over 1,000 people at Tiger Walk back when Auburn played Vanderbilt in basketball in February. You see the impact that the Auburn fan base had here for the football game against Vanderbilt. Now that we’re poised and positioned to be able to host Auburn again, in the middle of the holidays, at a time where people are available and looking to travel, we look forward to being able to provide an experience that’s on brand with what our local fans and family and then also our traveling fans and family have come to expect us. Yeah, we’re pumped.”

Thomas said he and other Club executives closely watched bowl projections once it became clear Auburn had a chance to end up in Nashville. He paid attention with excitement, hoping he might get a chance to see his alma mater in his city once again this year.

He had a graphic made to post on X, formerly known as Twitter, in celebration if Auburn was picked for Nashville. He was so ready, in fact, that his post came out before Auburn’s own tweet from the football team’s account.

Auburn fans and alumni like Thomas took over an entire half of Vanderbilt’s stadium during Auburn’s win there this season, all wearing orange. Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze and players said after the game it felt as if they were playing at home.

A committee member with the Music City Bowl told AL.com in the days leading up to the selection that they saw Auburn as a good fit because of the driveability for Auburn fans as well as the fact that they too paid attention to the strong showing of Auburn fans at Vanderbilt this year.

Thomas said that the Club, a volunteer group, spent a significant amount of time planning a tailgate for the Vanderbilt football game. This time, though, Thomas will have the help of Auburn’s planned events in conjunction with the Music City Bowl. Thomas said there is more funding from Auburn and its alumni association expected to come for events at the bowl game compared to the Vanderbilt game due to the larger expected turnout and exposure.

The exact event schedule is still to be determined. Auburn has plans for an event in downtown Nashville on the eve of the game, but has not yet announced specific plans.

The Music City Bowl may be Auburn’s biggest trip to Nashville planned this year, it is just added to the list of a slew of Auburn games there still to come. Auburn men’s basketball plays at Vanderbilt on Jan. 17. Auburn women’s basketball plays at Vanderbilt the next day. The SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament is in March at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. Auburn baseball opens SEC play in March at Vanderbilt.

“We’re a volunteer organization,” Thomas said. “I mean, it takes a lot out of us to be able to host Auburn well up here. So we’re both nervous and excited because that’s a lot of hosting, planning and organization and bandwidth. We always rise to the occasion and are looking forward to being able to host Auburn for the Music City Bowl and all the other athletic events that are coming up in the coming months.”

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at mcohen@al.com

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al.com

 

Looking back, what were the three biggest moments in Auburn’s road to bowl eligibility?

Published: Dec. 03, 2023, 6:00 a.m.

7–9 minutes

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After losing a heartbreaker to Alabama in the Iron Bowl on Nov. 25 in Auburn’s regular-season finale, Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze was asked what his Year 1 vision was for the Tigers.

“I really didn’t have a vision for this year, other than to try to get us to a bowl game and improve us from week to week,” Freeze said.

Prior to this season, Freeze had been a first-year head coach five times dating back to his time as a high school coach at Briarcrest Christian School. And whether at Briarcrest Christian, Lambuth University, Arkansas State, Ole Miss or his most recent post at Liberty, Freeze led his team to the postseason in Year 1.

It’s an important milestone in Year 1.

“I think it’s huge,” Freeze said when asked about the importance of reaching bowl eligibility in Season 1. “

Truthfully this is a bit selfish to say probably, but the staff and I, everywhere we’ve been we’ve been able to do that in year one. I would like to keep that streak alive, and we have. More importantly for our seniors, for them to get to experience going out and experiencing the bowl and representing Auburn. Then for the extra practices for our young kids. I thought it was huge. It was an important step in us rebuilding.”

Freeze kept his streak alive as the Tigers finished an even 6-6 in the regular season, giving them just what they needed to go bowling — nothing more, nothing less.

Auburn will find out its bowl assignment Sunday afternoon sometime after the College Football Playoff is set.

But first, a look back: What were some of the biggest moments in Auburn’s postseason bowl game bid?

1. Dismantling Arkansas on the road

No surprises here. The game that gave Auburn win No. 6, allowing the Tigers to punch their ticket to a bowl game, comes in at No. 1 when looking at the biggest moments in Auburn’s road to the postseason.

Coming into the game at Arkansas, Auburn had yet to prove they could play anything close to a complete game on the road. But the Tigers went on to prove they could as they marched into Razorback Stadium and quickly sucked the life out of it with a dominating performance.

Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne and the Tigers’ offense scored on their first drive to take an early 7-0 lead, followed by the Auburn defense forcing Arkansas to go three-and-out and punt it away to end the Razorbacks’ first possession.

But that punt found the awaiting arms of Auburn returner Keionte Scott, who returned it 74-yards for an Auburn touchdown, stretching the Tigers lead out to 14-0 after less than five minutes of game clock had expired.

If you want to really get specific and pick the biggest play in Auburn’s road to a bowl game, Scott’s punt return for a touchdown might be the play to beat as players in Auburn’s locker room said that’s when they felt the game was unraveling out of control, but in their favor.

Auburn went on to sustain their success against Arkansas and put together a 48-10 win as Thorne threw three touchdown passes and rushed for another, while the Tigers’ defense added a quarterback to the “boneyard” after sacking Arkansas quarterback KJ Jefferson five times.

2. Squeaking out a road win against Cal in Week 2

Auburn’s come-from-behind 14-10 win from the hills of California in Week 2 felt like it meant very little at the time.

However, knowing what we know now about how the rest of the season would pan out, that Week 2 win was pivotal for Auburn’s bowl-game hopes as the funky, one-possession ball game easily could’ve gone the other way, meaning the Tigers might’ve finished the regular season without six wins.

There were a lot of oddities in that game in the hills of California.

Auburn committed four turnovers against Cal, making it nearly impossible for the offense to find any kind of rhythm — let alone the endzone.

After the Auburn defense forced Cal to return the favor and cough up the football, Thorne connected with wide receiver Jay Fair on a 13-yard touchdown pass to give the Tigers their first points of the night with 11:50 to play in the second quarter.

The Tigers went on to trail 10-7 at halftime.

And after a scoreless third quarter, Auburn entered the final 15 minutes of play trailing Cal by three points. And considering the Tigers’ offense hadn’t had any success in the first three quarters, it felt like the game could go sideways at any moment.

Instead, Thorne found tight end Rivaldo Fairweather on a 5-yard 50/50 ball in the back corner of the endzone to give Auburn a 14-10 advantage with 6:31 to play. That play, paired with the heroic efforts of linebacker Eugene Asante, who finished with 12 tackles, bolstered Auburn to escape the Pacific Coast with a 14-10 win.

Again, at the time, the win over the Golden Bears looked like a sloppy one the Tigers should try to put behind them quickly. But now, it appears much more significant.

3. Snapping the skid against Mississippi State

Freeze was asked what he was most proud of from his first regular season on The Plains.

Among his answers was the fact that Auburn, at one point in the season, was on a four-game losing streak.

“I mean you lose four-straight games, and that thing could’ve gone a lot of different ways,” Freeze said Monday. “I thought they stayed engaged which shows our staff did a decent job of keeping them engaged.”

Between Sept. 23 and Oct. 21, the Tigers lost on the road to Texas A&M, at home to Georgia, on the road to LSU and at home to Ole Miss. It was an absolutely brutal stretch of games, no doubt. But some of the results were even more brutal as Auburn lost to Georgia and Ole Miss by just one possession.

And after a team goes so long without winning a football game, the pressure builds to simply snap the streak so players can see that they’ve got what it takes to be a winning program again.

For Auburn, that win finally came on Oct. 28 in a 27-13 win over Mississippi State from Jordan-Hare Stadium.

The Tigers outscored the Bulldogs 24-3 in the first half before being outscored in the second half.

“You hope that it gives us a lot of confidence and maybe a little swagger to go play with confidence on the road,” Freeze said after the win over Mississippi State. “It’s not easy at home, and it’s certainly not easy on the road. And we’ve got two games that obviously you look at and you think we can win ‘em. But as I know from being in this league before, you can also lose them. And your confidence is a huge, huge factor and key in that. And hopefully that’s what today did.”

The two games that followed Auburn’s win against Mississippi State were visits to Vanderbilt and Arkansas — games the Tigers went on to win by a combined score of 79-25.

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1 hour ago, gr82be said:

 

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al.com

 

Auburn DB Jaylin Simpson responds to question about opting out of bowl game

Published: Dec. 04, 2023, 11:38 a.m.

~3 minutes

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Auburn safety Jaylin Simpson carries the football after an interception against Samford on Sept. 16, 2023, at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn.(AP Photo/Butch Dill)

A user on Instagram asked Auburn senior defensive back Jaylin Simpson if he planned on playing in Auburn’s bowl game against Maryland on Dec. 30.

In a day and age when more and more college football players are opting out of bowl games, the question was warranted. But Simpson was quick to respond and left no room for any kind of speculation.

“Yep,” Simpson bluntly responded.

Auburn veteran defensive back Jaylin Simpson responds to a question about him playing in Auburn's bowl game matchup against Maryland.Jaylin Simpson's Instagram

And based on Simpson’s comments on Auburn reaching bowl eligibility earlier this year, his decision to play in the Music City Bowl shouldn’t come as a shock.

“I just like playing football. I just want to play as many games as possible,” Simpson said on Oct. 24. “Me personally, I just want to go to a bowl game because I just like to play. It’s just important because if you don’t go to a bowl game you have to sit and watch everyone play.”

Such was the case last year as the Tigers missed out on playing in the postseason.

“I can’t speak for everyone, but for me I was not happy,” Simpson said. “I was not happy that I wasn’t playing in a bowl game.”

So given the opportunity this season, Simpson is locked into playing in Auburn’s bowl game against Maryland later this month.

What Simpson decides to do after the fact, however, will be interesting. Though Simpson still has one year of eligibility remaining, he graded out well during his 2023 regular season campaign with a 78.0 grade according to Pro Football Focus.

Simpson was named to the Senior Bowl Mid-Season All-American team in October, while senior bowl director Jim Nagy previously predicted that Simpson would “blow up” at the NFL Combine.

The good news for Auburn is the fact that it sounds like Simpson will be waiting until after the bowl game to jump to any decisions about his future — whether that means staying at Auburn or turning his attention to the NFL.

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