Editor's Note: On this date 10 years ago, Auburn backed up its No. 1 BCS ranking with a 51-31 victory on the road at Ole Miss to improve to 9-0 on the season. Each week, we'll be taking you back in time to relive the journey to the 2010 national championship.
Following its win over LSU, Auburn moved up to No. 1 in the BCS standings for the first time all season – a precarious position to be in that year in college football. In the three weeks prior to Auburn's jump, the No. 1 team in the country had lost.
But there would be no letdown for the Tigers on the road at Ole Miss. They came out and played like the No. 1 team, leaving Oxford with an impressive 51-31 victory.
"Road block Saturday? I think it was truck load Saturday," Auburn radio analyst Stan White said on air as the final seconds ticked away.
For Cam Newton, his string of four straight 170-yard rushing efforts against SEC defenses came to an end. But the Auburn quarterback still showed why he was the Heisman front runner with 209 yards passing and two touchdowns, 45 yards rushing, and for the first time all season, he was on the receiving end of a touchdown, catching a 20-yard pass from Kodi Burns in the end zone.
And though Newton had his second-lowest rushing output against an SEC team that season, running backs Michael Dyer and Onterio McCalebb more than picked up the slack.
Dyer had maybe his best game in an Auburn uniform with a career-high 180 yards and a touchdown on 21 carries. McCalebb just missed 100 yards, rushing for 99 yards on just nine carries, and broke off a 68-yard run for his third touchdown in three weeks. And as a team, the Tigers rushed for 334 to make it five straight SEC games with 300 or more yards on the ground.
Defensively, Auburn clamped down after giving up an 83-yard touchdown run on the opening drive. Ole Miss gained only 324 total yards the rest of the game.
The spotlight of No. 1 was not too big for this team. Instead, they found another gear.
"I feel like we just started to hit our stride," Auburn defensive lineman Nosa Eguae said. "After some tough games, after some close games, it was just this level of 'OK, now we can see it.' That LSU game was such a big top-10 matchup, and I think as we shifted into going on the road for the first time having this No. 1 ranking, we knew what we had was special. We started to practice like it. We started to play like it."
Impact Player: Demond Washington
Demond Washington made plays for this Auburn team all season, but his performance in the second quarter against Ole Miss might have kept the Tigers from sweating it out late. Two different times after Ole Miss grabbed the momentum, it was Washington who flipped it.
First, following an Auburn fumble, the Rebels took over in the red zone with a chance to take the lead. But on the first play, Washington stepped in front of a pass and intercepted it at the 2-yard line to keep points off the board. Auburn's offense came back reinvigorated after the turnover and drove 98 yards for a touchdown.
Ole Miss scored a field goal on its next drive to make it a one-possession game again, but any momentum quickly evaporated when Washington returned the ensuing kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown to extend the lead to 14 points. It never got closer than that.
Washington finished with 176 kickoff return yards, breaking the Auburn single-season record for kickoff return yardage that game. He also recorded six tackles and added a pass break-up.
Play of the Game: Kodi to Cam
Yes, it was unique seeing Newton on the receiving end of a touchdown. It's not every week you see a quarterback catch a touchdown, even one as strong and as athletic as Newton. But it wasn't a surprise to Burns or Newton when the play was called. They were more than prepared as the two had repped that same play over 100 times in practice in the weeks leading up to the game.
"The funny thing is it really went according to plan," Burns said.
Prior to the game, offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn told them once the ball is on the left hash anywhere from the 20- to the 25-yard line, this is the play we're going to run. Sure enough on Auburn's first drive, the ball was on the left hash at the 20-yard line.
So Newton went out wide, and Burns moved to quarterback where he took the snap and launched a jump ball to the Heisman Trophy winner in the corner of the end zone.
"Whenever you rep the play over and over again, you have great confidence in it, and really it was expected," Burns said. "It wasn't a shock to Cam. It wasn't a shock to me. Because we had already had plenty of reps at that play, and we just went out there and executed the play."
Key Stat: 34 points in 1st half
Ole Miss won the toss and elected to receive, hoping to strike first. The plan worked. The Rebels scored a touchdown in the first minute. What they did not account for was Auburn putting up 34 points over the next 29 minutes to take a 34-17 lead into the intermission.
The Tigers had seven drives in the first half and scored on six of them, including four for touchdowns. Newton's touchdown catch from Burns put Auburn on the board, and then on the next drive, McCalebb took it 68 yards to the house. Midway through the second quarter, the offense went 98 yards on 12 plays – a drive capped by Newton and Darvin Adams connecting for a 24-yard score.
Technically, the last touchdown drive wasn't a drive at all. It was one play – a 95-yard kickoff return from Washington to make it 31-17. Kicker Wes Byrum tacked on the last three points, making a 35-yard field goal with less than 10 seconds left.
It was the most points scored by Auburn in the first half of an SEC game since the Tigers had 38 points in the first half against Mississippi State in 2003.
In Their Own Words
"Everybody can't rush for 100 or 200 yards every week, so you have to work with what the defense is giving you. You have to go to the next thing. Tonight, they did a nice job of taking Cameron (Newton) away in terms of the run game, and that was their plan. We had to work other avenues. I'm really proud of our plan." – Gene Chizik
"We are a team that has our mind set on a business mission. We are aware that the last couple of weeks, the No. 1 team has gone down, and we practiced all week like we wanted to win this game. And I think that says a lot about our team." – Emory Blake
"I remember they had some grey pajama-looking uniforms on that game. They looked like pajamas. We were talking trash to their d-line. We were like, 'Y'all look like you just rolled out of bed. What's wrong with y'all?'" – Lee Ziemba, on 2010 podcast series
Perfection on the Plains: 2010 vs. Ole Miss
