AUBURN, Ala. — While No. 7 Auburn’s famed eagle, Nova, flew his weekly pregame loops around the interior airspace at Jordan-Hare Stadium, it was the Tiger offense that ran circles around Mississippi State in Saturday’s 56-23 Bulldog loss.
Facing its first true road game of the season, MSU’s self-anointed “bend don’t break” defense spent virtually the entire night breaking as Auburn notched 42 first-half points, including 21 straight to open the game.
“We went into the week talking about how small the margin of error is,” coach Joe Moorhead said. “And to come out and spot them 21 before the band even gets in their seats, you don’t give yourself a chance — you’re fighting out of the corner for the whole game.”
Auburn running back JaTarvious Whitlow welcomed MSU to the Plains with the first of his three touchdowns on the night by way of a 30-yard scamper on the Tigers’ first play from scrimmage.
With the MSU defense on its heels from the outset, Anthony Schwartz and Bo Nix added touchdown runs of their own as the Tigers leapt out to a 21-0 lead just over six minutes into the game.
“I thought some of our warts got exposed today,” Moorhead said. “They took advantage of some of our deficiencies and weaknesses.”
Having already conceded a steep lead, the MSU defense got even shallower at the beginning of the second quarter when junior middle linebacker Erroll Thompson was ejected for targeting — a call affording Auburn a first down after the Bulldogs forced a three-and-out.
“It was tough,” senior safety Jaquarius Landrews said of losing Thompson. “But we always go by the next man up mentality.”
After starting quarterback Tommy Stevens left the contest due to injury for the third time in four games, freshman Garrett Shrader gave MSU minute signs of life in the second quarter.
Shrader led back-to-back scoring drives of 75 and 66 yards, respectively — the former of which was capped off by a 9-yard touchdown reception by senior Stephen Guidry.
Though as quickly as Shrader brought MSU within 17 points, the Bulldogs’ lone sliver of hope quickly turned sour.
Following a 47-yard completion from Shrader to senior tight end Farrod Green that ended inside the Tigers’ 1-yard-line, MSU was backed up five yards due to a Dareuan Parker false start penalty. Shrader then ran right with the ensuing snap, leaped forward and had the ball poked away as Auburn defensive back Jeremiah Dinson recovered.
Fresh off the freshman-induced turnover, Nix took the Tigers on an 11-play, 92-yard drive — capped off by a 3-yard Whitlow touchdown run with 12 seconds remaining in the half.
“Going into halftime our game plan stayed the same,” Shrader said. “There was nothing else we had to add; it was just a matter of execution and fine details and focusing on those.”
While Auburn’s famed marching band paraded across the turf at Jordan-Hare during halftime, the Tiger offense promptly continued its triumphant and demoralizing march over the MSU defense just 1:32 into the third quarter.
Having deferred possession on the coin toss, Nix added insult to injury as he connected with Seth Williams for a 32-yard touchdown pass just four plays into the third quarter.
The Bulldogs offered a brief reprieve from the incessant Tiger-induced demolition when Shrader found Osirus Mitchell from 21 yards out at the tail end of the third quarter — though Auburn poetically responded with a 75-yard scoring drive.
Shrader, who finished the night 12 of 23 for 209 yards and two touchdowns, closed out the night’s scoring with a 7-yard touchdown run with 50 seconds remaining.
With the loss, MSU suffered its worst margin of defeat since falling to Alabama 51-3 on Nov. 12, 2016, and heads into a bye week having allowed an average of 33.3 points per game over its past three outings.
Now with two weeks to prepare for a Tennessee team that has had plenty of faults in its own right, a noticeably irritable Moorhead was wholly cognizant of his team’s shortcomings Saturday.
“I know we got our tails whipped tonight — it can happen,” he said. “That’s a good team. Credit where it’s due, but I like the fight of this team, I like the composition of it, and we knew we were going to have to fight and scratch and claw, and we didn’t do enough in a small margin of error game.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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