AU-GA STATE: Tigers find just the right time to pull out win
Action from Auburn’s win over Georgia State on Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium (AU Media Relations)
By TIM GAYLE
Auburn found its offense just in time to fight off Georgia State and rally with a fourth-down pass from T.J. Finley to Shedrick Jackson to defeat the Panthers 34-24 on Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
The Tigers entered homecoming as a four-touchdown favorite but watched the Panthers take the Auburn game plan and use it to perfection as Tucker Gregg rushed for 150 yards on 12 carries to help the Sun Belt team grab a 24-12 lead at the half.
Auburn (3-1) relied on a blocked punt for a touchdown to ignite their offense, then turned to Finley to replace an ineffective Bo Nix and lead the Tigers down the field for their only offensive touchdown of the game.
“You saw the same thing I did, we weren’t really doing anything,” Auburn coach Bryan Harsin said of his offense. “We had played every running back, we had played every receiver. You’re not going to switch your offensive line out. And I made the decision to change and try to create some type of momentum at the quarterback position for the offense. That was my decision.”
Finley drove the Tigers 98 yards in 13 plays, scoring on a fourth-and-nine pass when he scrambled away from pressure, stepped up and found a wide-open Jackson in the end zone for a 25-24 lead with 45 seconds remaining. Auburn added the two-point conversion and Smoke Monday returned an interception 36 yards for a touchdown seconds later to finish off the Panthers.
“I thought he was going to throw us a couple there late,” Elliott said of Finley, “but he did a good job in keeping his composure and making plays when he had to make them.”
One play that didn’t sit well with Elliott was a 19-yard completion from Finley to John Samuel Shenker that moved the ball to the Georgia State 11 for Auburn’s last set of downs in the final minute. Instant replay reviewed the call to see whether Shenker caught the ball and upheld the call on the field.
“They had a little bit of help on that review,” Elliott said, “where the ball was incomplete and should have been put back on the 30-yard line. But, you know, when you’re playing the SEC, you’ve got to take the hits and they gave us a real gut punch on that call.”
Georgia State (1-3) dominated the second quarter and took control of the game, but Elliott knew his team would need more points in the second half to pull off the upset.
“In the first half, we were ahead of the chains,” he said. “When you’re ahead of the chains, it’s easy. It’s an easy game to call offensively. But we never got ahead of the chains (in the second half). It was second and 13 or second and 11. You thought we could have, the way we handled their front in the first half. I thought we were going to have success. It was unfortunate that we did not.”
The Tigers still had little chance of climbing back into the game until the blocked punt with 4:44 left in the third quarter when Caylin Newton’s block was recovered in the end zone by Barton Lester to trim the deficit to 24-19 and bring the crowd back into the contest.
“We had opportunities that we capitalized on at the end,” Harsin said. “I was proud of our guys for finding a way to finish. Special teams were huge in this game. To me, that was probably the biggest thing momentum-wise. Anders (Carlson) kept us in the game with the field goals. The block by Caylin Newton was huge as far as momentum goes.
“It’s not pretty, it’s not perfect, but you found a way. The one thing that you can never really replicate is how to find a way. You can only get that from games. We’ll build on that. We’ll learn from the things we didn’t do well and get back to work on Sunday. We’ve got to make sure we’re playing chess, not checkers, and getting ourselves better prepared each day.”
With Jarquez Hunter managing just 62 yards and Tank Bigsby getting 60, the Tigers needed big plays from Nix, who went 13 of 17 for 156 yards. As the Tigers open conference play at LSU next week, Harsin offered little insight on the quarterback position as Finley came off the bench to complete 9 of 16 passes for 97 yards and a touchdown.
“I thought (Finley’s performance) was pretty good,” Harsin said. “We didn’t go score 80 points. We won the game. T.J., everybody on the offensive side, there were opportunities for us to be better. But he was there for the last drive and he found a way to win.”
When it was over, Elliott was left fighting his emotions as his squad had the upper hand for most of the game until it counted most. Harsin, meanwhile, was breathing a sigh of relief.
“It’s amazing that it comes down to a fourth-down play,” Elliott said. “We got amazing pressure on the quarterback right there but we lost containment on the backside and he delivered the game winning touchdown with 30 seconds left in the game. It’s a disappointing feeling. Sports can rip you apart.”
“I thought they came out there and they whipped us in a lot of ways,” Harsin said. “I think that’s something that everyone in that (Auburn) locker room knows. But we did win. At the end of the day, that’s the goal in the game.”