BY BRANDON HUGHES
FOR THE OBSERVER
AUBURN — Every horror movie has that one scene. The would-be victim slips free of Jason’s grasp or ducks Michael Myers’ blade and races down a dark hallway or through the woods. For one fleeting, breathless moment, it looks like they’ve escaped.
On Halloween in Oxford, Mississippi, Auburn (4-4, 2-4) was that close to getting away. The defense was holding its own, and the offense was doing just enough to stay within striking distance. With 6:20 remaining in the third quarter, Byrum Brown bulldozed into the end zone from 7 yards out to cut the deficit to 17-15 against No. 12 Ole Miss (6-2, 4-2). Then, like every horror-movie victim who mistakes a dead end for an escape route, the Tigers ran headlong into the inevitable.
Instead of surviving as the final girl, they became slasher fodder as the Rebels scored the last 28 points, turning a competitive SEC showdown into a 45-15 nightmare — Auburn’s most lopsided loss of the season.
How did things go from hope to horror? From Brown’s touchdown to Horatio Fields’ 28-yard scoring pass that made it 38-15 with 10:23 to play, Ole Miss ran 22 plays, covered 189 yards and scored three TDs. Auburn ran six plays. It gained -2 yards.
“Two different teams from the first half to the second half,” Brown said.
The numbers agree. Brown completed 19 of 23 first-half passes — the best first-half completion rate by an Auburn passer in an SEC game since Chris Todd at Georgia in 2009. After halftime, he was 6 of 15 for 62 yards and was sacked three times, and the run game never materialized.
Against the league’s worst rushing defense, Auburn finished with a season-low 63 rushing yards, and Brown managed 5 net yards on 13 carries. Brown’s 38 attempts produced just 5.1 yards per attempt, and once you count the four sacks, Auburn averaged a meager 4 yards every time he dropped back to pass. In comparison, Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss averaged 7.7 yards per drop back. He also passed for 68 more yards than Brown on four fewer attempts.
“We certainly tried. We kept leaning on it until we had to go into a two-minute mode,” Auburn head coach Alex Golesh said of the ground game.
Ole Miss coach Pete Golding saw it differently.
“I think they got a little pass-happy,” he said. According to the play chart, after Auburn pulled within two, the Tigers called three designed run plays for the rest of the game.
Auburn threw a season-high 43 passes and ran a season-low 27 times (only 13 by running backs).
The offensive line continues to struggle as the Tigers rank 136th out of 138 schools in sacks allowed (34). Entering the game, sacks had cost Auburn 38.6 expected points, second-most nationally. Left tackle Stanton Ramil offered the bluntest review of the protection: “Up and down. As inconsistent as can be.” Even that is sugarcoating it.
The Tigers ran 54 snaps on first or second down, and a quarter of those went for two yards or less. Two completions gained two yards, six completions gained zero or negative yards, and five designed runs gained zero or negative yards. The offense’s deficiencies show up most clearly on third down. Against LSU, the Tigers averaged 10.2 yards to go on third down, and that number improved only slightly against Ole Miss, to 8.9. Ole Miss, by contrast, averaged just 4.6 yards to go. Auburn needed at least 7 yards on 11 of its 14 third downs, while seven of the Rebels’ 16 third downs required 2 yards or fewer. Teams that live in third-and-long eventually die there.
On the other side, D.J. Durkin’s defense could not get off the field. Ole Miss converted 13 of 16 third downs, including 9 of 11 after halftime, and went 5-for-5 in the red zone with four TDs. It was the third time this season Auburn allowed five or more TDs. Prior to this season, that happened only once across Durkin’s first two seasons as defensive coordinator (2025 at Vanderbilt).
Ole Miss entered the game with the nation’s 84th-best rushing offense, and its starting tailback was sidelined by injury. The result? Ole Miss ran for 224 yards and four TDs.
Two weeks ago in Athens, Auburn knocked off No. 1 Georgia, snapping an eight-game losing streak against ranked teams. It looked like a corner turned. It now looks more like an outlier.
Since its four-overtime win over No. 15 Texas A&M in November 2024, Auburn is 1-10 against ranked opponents, and the last two — No. 18 LSU and No. 12 Ole Miss — were decided by a combined 51 points. The Tigers have surrendered 83 points and 1,039 yards in those two games.
It is the first time Auburn has lost two games in a row by 20-plus points since 1976.
“I thought a lack of finish. That was the first time that I’ve seen that out of this team this year,” Golesh said.
Defensive lineman Dallas Walker IV was even more pointed.
“You can make a choice whether you’re going to finish or not,” he said. “I feel like some people made one choice and some made another choice.”
Charlie Brown had a better Halloween than the Tigers, and all he got was a rock.
By the Numbers
• Ole Miss has now beaten Auburn three straight times (2022, 2023, 2026) for the first time since winning in 1949, 1951 and 1952.
• Auburn is the first team in the AP poll era to beat No. 1 on the road, then lose its next two games by 20-plus.
• Auburn lost seven games last year by a combined 50 points. Auburn has lost its last two games by a combined 51 points.
Up next
Home versus Arkansas on Saturday, Nov. 7, at 11:45 a.m. on SEC Network.
