2024 Week 6

A night game on ESPN for a classic SEC showdown. Tennessee vs. #24 Auburn, this had great match-up written all over it. Knoxville would be indeed rocking, with 109,000 in Neyland the banks of the Tennessee river would have magic on them.

Auburn opened up the game with a 85 yard touchdown run by Edwin "Bo Jackson" Marks. Clearly a hoss, he broke four tackles en route to a 7-0 lead. Tennessee would not go away in the first quarter at all by driving the field both times and coming up with two field goals to make it a 7-6 battle at the end of the first.

In the second quarter, Auburn got on fire. Mark Mitchell got popped in the second quarter and managed to fumble the ball, which Nathan Sanni, Auburns LOLB, scooped it up and ran back 33 yards for an Auburn touchdown. Then to make matters worse Tennessee's offense stalled and had to punt. Auburn seized upon the opportunity and Charlie Osborn caught a 30 yard pass from Ricky "I am Jason Campbell" Whitaker for a Auburn touchdown. This gave Auburn a 21-6 lead.

However, even with Auburn leading 21-6 with three minutes before half, the Volunteer nation watched the Vols open up the Justin Smith playbook. Cedric Washington came in on this drive and optioned his way to put Justin Smith in touchdown range. Washington handed off to Justin Smith and he popped an Auburn defender, too bad his helmet didn't pop off as well, and ran in for 10 yards. With a Cedric Washington pitch on the two point conversion to Justin Smith it became a 21-14 game before halftime.

The second half would belong to Tennessee as they shut down Auburn's SEC leading pass attack. Tennessee started out in the third quarter in such of a balanced drive they ate up three minutes on nine rushes and five passes and scored on a three yard touchdown run by Justin Smith. Then, another Auburn stop gave Tennessee the ball back. The Vols went quickly to work slicing and dicing the Auburn defense up and coming away with a 39 yard touchdown strike from Mark Mitchell to Shannon Lowe to give Tennessee a 28-21 lead.

Tennessee started off the fourth quarter with a 28-21 lead. Having the ball back thanks to an Auburn punt around the Tennessee 45. Auburn was poised to get the ball back with great field position for it was third and 14 how could Tennessee get a first down with Auburn's front seven getting better pressure. Alas, Tennessee came out in the shotgun-trips formation and the Tennessee line held and Mark Mitchell put one right on the money to Chris Lundy who caught it at the Auburn 4 yard line, a 55 yard pass. Fred Barron managed to come in and go untouched for a four yard touchdown. This gave Tennessee a 35-21 lead, and they would manage to tack on a field goal to put the game out of reach late in the game. Tennessee managed to escape with another victory over a ranked Auburn team 38-28.

"Well, the execution was there late in the game, but not in the first half. We got to turn on the jets late in the game, and when I pressed the gas pedal it was there for us. I am pleased with the offensive performance from my guys today." Said an elated Coach Minton.