AU revives offense as well as the season

AUBURN — There's nothing like two touchdowns in the span of 12 seconds to snap out of a scoring funk and revive a season that suddenly seems full of life again.

Auburn scored 23 points in 5cm HALF minutes to overwhelm Ole Miss Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium. To put that in context, the Rebels surrendered only 22 points in the entire game to Alabama — and that was the most points Ole Miss had allowed to any team all season.

The 23 points in the quarter were only one shy of Auburn's total in consecutive losses to Kentucky and LSU the previous two weeks.

So how does a team go from being one of the most maligned units in the SEC to trail only Florida in points scored with a single third-quarter outburst? The reasons are as plentiful as fake handoffs in Gus Malzahn's offense.

The first constant about the Tigers' offense is this: When it rains, it scores.

Three times this season, Auburn has hosted a game on a rainy day. In those games, the Tigers have now scored 41, 54 and 33 points. In their other six games, they have averaged 26 points.

Second, there has been a Mario Fannin sighting. Auburn's junior playmaker-in-waiting actually stepped into a starring role Saturday. After five straight games of not reaching 60 total yards rushing and receiving, Fannin ran the ball six times for 35 yards and caught three passes for 35 more. With freshman speedster Onterio McCalebb still nursing a sore ankle, Malzahn expanded Fannin's role to include speed runs to the outside. It worked beautifully.

"We had some different looks for him this week," Malzahn said. "He gives us a lot of flexibility as a receiver and a runner."

Finally, Chris Todd put the rumors to rest — at least for one week — that his surgically repaired throwing shoulder was preventing him from throwing the deep ball. Todd completed passes of 42, 41 and 28 yards. His only long-ball miss was an overthrow in the first quarter.

"We got some big plays and it got contagious," said tight end Tommy Trott, who caught a 14-yard touchdown pass from Kodi Burns out of the Wildcat formation.

The Tigers will have a chance to further boost their confidence this week when Furman comes to town for a take-a-beating-for-a-paycheck game. That will give Auburn seven wins before facing rivals Georgia and Alabama. After that, a bowl game is now a guarantee.

But this is a day for the Tigers to savor a victory that very few were expecting following three straight conference losses.

"Nobody has ever lost confidence in what we're doing," Todd said. "But I think it was important for us to come out and perform the way we did."

The win means a seven-win season is the worst possible outcome for Gene Chizik's first Auburn team. That's a comforting feeling for Tigers fans who now have reason to believe again that this season could exceed everyone's expectations.

Contact Sports Editor Randy Kennedy at:

rkennedy@press-register.com

His column appears on Sundays in the Press-Register.