Editor's Note: Ten years ago on this date, Auburn improved to 6-0 on its way to one of the greatest seasons in program history. Each week, we'll be taking you back in time to relive the journey to the 2010 National Championship.
AUBURN, Ala. – Gene Chizik called it a defining moment. Gus Malzahn referred to it as a championship drive. Lee Ziemba described it as something special.
On Oct. 9, 2010, Auburn began a drive at its own 7-yard line, tied 34-34 with Kentucky in the middle of the fourth quarter in Lexington.
Nineteen plays and 86 yards later, Wes Byrum kicked his fifth game-winner for the Tigers, a 24-yard field goal to give Auburn a 37-34 victory.
Auburn converted three third downs on the drive and Cam Newton rushed 10 times for 48 yards to the Wildcats' 5-yard-line to set up Byrum's chip shot, exhausting the clock even as Kentucky used its timeouts.
A decade later, Malzahn uses that drive as a teaching tool.
On Oct. 9, 2010, Auburn began a drive at its own 7-yard line, tied 34-34 with Kentucky in the middle of the fourth quarter.
— Auburn Football (@AuburnFootball) October 9, 2020
Nineteen plays and 86 yards later, Wes Byrum kicked his fifth game-winner for the Tigers, a 24-yard field goal to give Auburn a 37-34 victory.
"That's something we talk about with our teams now," said Malzahn, the Tigers' offensive coordinator from 2009-11 and head coach since 2013. "We use that as an example about what does a championship drive look like."
"I remember thinking to myself, 'If we are able to do what we need to do, drive this down while simultaneously eating the clock and get a walk-off field goal and walk out of this stadium with a win, that could be one of those defining moments,'" said Chizik, Auburn's head coach in 2010.
In the first half, Auburn scored 24 consecutive points and led by 14 at the half. Kentucky outscored the Tigers 14-0 in the third quarter with the teams trading field goals in the fourth quarter before Auburn's game-winning drive.
"A dogfight all the way down to the end," said Kodi Burns, a captain in 2010 and Auburn's current co-offensive coordinator.
"It was just one of those grind-it-out, let's win the ballgame right here and not put it on our defense," said Ziemba, an All-American and Jacobs Blocking Trophy winner as the SEC's top offensive lineman in 2010. "We played physical and tried to limit the mistakes and just took it on down the field. I thought that was a big growing-up period for our entire offense."IMPACT PLAYER: CAM NEWTONBy mid-season, Auburn fans had come to expect greatness from Cam Newton. Against Kentucky, Cam nearly outdid himself. Four rushing touchdowns in the first half alone. Newton produced 408 yards of total offense, nearly evenly split between passing (210) and rushing (198).
Ten of his 28 carries came on Auburn's last drive, with each one gaining at least 3 yards. Kentucky knew what was coming but the Wildcats were powerless to stop it.
Though Cam completed only 13 passes (on 21 attempts), each completion averaged 16.2 yards, nearly doubling Kentucky's average per completion.
"I was just trying to do my part to get a win on the road in the SEC, whether it was throwing a pass or handing the football off," Newton said. "That's my job to be dominant and give it my all every single play."PLAY OF THE GAME: CAM TO DARVIN ADAMS ON THIRD-AND-6Facing third-and-6 from its 11-yard-line, Auburn's hopes of sustaining a game-winning drive hinged on the Tigers' ability to move the chains.
Newton looked to his primary target, Darvin Adams, who gained 11 yards for a first down at the Kentucky 20. Auburn was on its way.
"Coach has enough trust in me to call a play at a certain time and I think the whole team did a great job giving Cam enough time to throw the ball, trying to make a play for the offense," said Adams, the game's leading receiver with 101 yards on five catches. "The drive means a lot. It shows that we can drive the ball and take time off the clock and come out in the end and win a game."
"There was a lot of adversity that night," Malzahn said. "It was back-and-forth. Cam made a great play. It was 3rd-and-6, and he and Darvin Adams hooked up on a back shoulder. That was a huge play. And then the offense just executed and kept the football, and we were able to kick a field goal on the last play of the game. That was just textbook execution."KEY STAT: AUBURN OUTRUSHES UK 311-110With few exceptions, in Southeastern Conference football, the more pronounced a rushing advantage a team has, the greater likelihood that team will win. When you outrush you opponent by more than 200 yards, victory is almost assured.
Against Kentucky, Auburn outran the Wildcats 311-100. The Tigers averaged 6 yards on 52 carries while holding UK to 3.7 yards per carry on 30 attempts.IN THEIR OWN WORDS"Out of all the games we played – people won't necessarily remember that one like they will others – that was an enormous game because if we don't do that and we tie or lose that game, we're not having a national championship conversation right now." – Gene Chizik
"Any time you win a championship, there's a process that goes with it. That game right there was one of the defining games of the year I felt like. Just with our team coming together and the way that we won that thing at the end." – Gus Malzahn
"Our focus for the last drive was just to have a chance to get three points at the end of it. We know we can move the ball and our main focus was to execute the plays I was calling. The defense leans on the offense and the offense leans on the defense and we were just trying to get them a breath of air, to let them get their legs back under them because we knew we were putting them in some hectic situations and that can not be done, going three and out consecutively. Our coaches put us in the best situation to win and when the play is called we have to execute it to the best of our ability." – Cam Newton
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer