AUBURN, Ala. – Everybody was talking about "Nix to Williams" after Saturday's win over Oregon and for good reason. It was the touchdown pass that led Auburn to victory. It was a signature moment for a true freshman quarterback. And it was eerily similar to the "Nix to Sanders" touchdown from the 1993 Iron Bowl.
But for Bo Nix, Eli Stove and Andy Burcham, the first touchdown from Saturday night's 27-21 come-from-behind victory was just as special.
No, there might not be a poster of it already hanging in the Auburn athletics complex. It wasn't the best thing Scott Van Pelt saw that day. However, it was the first touchdown Nix threw at Auburn, the first touchdown Stove caught at Auburn, and the first touchdown Burcham called as the Voice of the Auburn Tigers.
"We'd gone a half without a touchdown, and naturally, I thought back to Rod (Bramblett)," Burcham said. "It goes to his third game before he gets to call a touchdown. So I was relieved to be able to have a touchdown call. And honest to goodness, until that point, I didn't know what I would say for an Auburn touchdown. I had an idea. I didn't know how it would go. But it was just pure reaction at that point.
"And then I'm thinking, 'Okay, my first touchdown,' and I remember, 'Wait a minute. It was Eli Stove's first (receiving) touchdown and Bo Nix's first touchdown and my first touchdown.' So you had the triad there."
The touchdown itself would have never happened if not for the play before. Down 21-6 midway through the third quarter, the Auburn offense was starting to find its rhythm. They had moved the ball into Oregon territory, and on first down, Stove took a reverse around the right end where he found a seam and picked up 36 yards before being pushed out of bounds at the 11-yard line.
"Our mindset was to get (Stove) in the game," Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. "He wasn't in 100 percent game shape, but he will get better each week. I think if he was 100 percent, he would have house-called that speed sweep."
After the big play by Stove, the Tigers hurried to the line of scrimmage to get the next play off, hoping to catch the defense on its heels. Sure enough, as Oregon was trying to make substitutions, the defensive back covering Stove on the outside ran off the field, leaving the junior receiver wide open.
"I looked over at (Nix) and was like, 'There's nobody covering me,'" Stove said. "He kept looking at me, and I knew he was going to throw me the ball, so I was like, 'Oh, shoot.' I just turned around and caught it."
"We were in the opposite corner, and I'll be honest, I did not see the guy run off the field," Burcham said. "So I did not see him uncovered. Stan (White) did. Stan saw it. I did not see it. I was concentrating more on the ball, where the ball is at the line of scrimmage, and I looked up and just saw the guy come out after Eli caught the ball."
Nix saw the Oregon player run off the field because he immediately snapped the ball and threw it to Stove. At that point, all Stove had to do was make one man miss and walk into the end zone for the touchdown.
"That touchdown was probably the easiest touchdown I'll ever throw," Nix said. "It just worked in our favor. It was one of those that you could easily mess up because you're wide open, but we made a play. I threw it, he made the guy miss and he scored. It was an awesome feeling. It's the first one."
So was that the play call? Technically, the play is designed for Nix to throw it to Stove if he's open, but it happened so fast that Stove didn't know what the play was yet. He was still waiting on the call. But credit Nix, a true freshman quarterback, for having the awareness to see the defender running off the field, snap the ball and make the throw.
"It kind of surprised me in the moment," Stove said. "But then again, he's a smart quarterback. I know it's just something that he does."
As Auburn prepares for Tulane on Saturday, the hope is for that to be the first of many touchdowns thrown by Nix, caught by Stove and called on the radio by Burcham.