BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – John Samuel Shenker broke Auburn's single-season records for tight end receptions and yards but Houston scored on a late fourth-quarter touchdown pass to win the Ticketsmarter Birmingham Bowl 17-13 Tuesday at sold-out Protective Stadium.
"I told our team in the locker room I'm proud of our guys," Auburn coach Bryan Harsin said. "We have a lot of fantastic people on this team. In football, it does come down to execution and things you have to do to win it. We need to obviously be better in those areas.
"I'm proud to be their coach. Those seniors understand where our football program is going, and I appreciate the seniors. We didn't get the results we wanted at the end of the season."
After allowing a touchdown on Houston's opening drive, the Tigers kept the Cougars out of the end zone until Most Valuable Player Clayton Tune threw a 26-yard touchdown pass to Jake Herslow with 3:27 remaining in the game.
Needing to drive 75 yards for a game-winning TD, Tank Bigsby gained 8 yards on Auburn's first play but three straight incompletions ended the possession.
Trailing 10-6 in the third quarter, Auburn drove 78 yards on 11 plays to take a 13-10 lead on T.J. Finley's 12-yard touchdown pass to Kobe Hudson on third-and goal, helping the Tigers overcome the Cougars' 10-0 first-half lead.
Kobe with the toe tap 🔥
— Auburn Football (@AuburnFootball) December 28, 2021
13-10 Tigers!#WarEagle | #AuburnMade pic.twitter.com/AqqZCVO8k6
Finley completed 19 of 37 passes for 227 yards and a touchdown. Bigsby led Auburn with 96 rushing yards on 19 carries and 68 receiving yards on five catches, including a career-long 51-yarder that led to Auburn's first points on Ben Patton's 35-yard field goal late in the first half.
The Tigers made two interceptions and a fourth-down stop in the second half, helping turn a 10-3 halftime deficit into a 13-10 lead.
After Hudson's touchdown, Nehemiah Pritchett intercepted Tune but a long return was negated by a targeting penalty on a block by Smoke Monday, costing Auburn 50 yards of field position.
In his final Auburn game, Chandler Wooten led the Tigers with 12 tackles, including a fourth-down stop early in the fourth quarter, and an interception on a double pass midway through the final period.
"I'd rather have zero tackles and win," Wooten said. "We played extremely hard. It was never about the fight with this team. It's just about cleaning up those little things. That's how we take that next step."
"He's one of those guys you want in your organization," Harsin said of Wooten. "He's a tremendous worker. He's a guy who does what he says he's going to do. That's why he's a captain. There's a lot of great people in that locker room and he's one of them."
Shenker made two clutch grabs to set the records, a third-down conversion in the first half and a 41-yard gain on Auburn's touchdown drive that passed Fred Baxter's 391 yards in 1991.
"That's a great honor, but obviously we wanted to get the win," said Shenker, who finished with five receptions for 54 yards to bring his record-setting season totals to 33 catches and 413 yards. "I'm happy to hold it now. We'll see how long it lasts. That helps with recruiting, showing these guys we'll throw to tight ends. It opens your offense and brings a huge versatile piece to it."
Trailing 10-3 at the half, Auburn came out hot to start the third quarter. After Finley began the drive with a 9-yard pass to Shedrick Jackson, Bigsby rushed for 15 and 32 yards on successive plays to set up Patton's 35-yard field goal that trimmed Houston's lead to 10-6.
Houston drove 87 yards on 12 plays on the game's opening possession, taking a 7-0 lead on Tune's 5-yard touchdown pass to Alton McCaskill.
In the second quarter Auburn drove 55 yards on 12 plays but video review overturned a fourth-and-3 completion at Houston's 21-yard line. The Cougars then drove 45 yards and took a 10-0 lead on Dalton Witherspoon's 52-yard field goal.
Auburn concludes the 2021 season with a 6-7 record and now sets its sight on offseason conditioning, February's signing day, and spring practice.
"I'm most disappointed for our seniors," Harsin said. "There are a lot of fixable things that I know we can be much better at. Consistent execution. We're not as consistent as we need to be, and we'll fix them.
"Everything you do matters. The way we prepare, the way we work. We'll get our players back and refocus on things we know we have to do better, take what we learned from this season and go apply it to next year.
"The inconsistency showed up more this year than the consistency did. We're not going to stop. We're going to change it, we're going to fix it, and we're going to get better. There is no Plan B. There's Plan A, and we're here to make this work, and we've got a staff and a group of players who are all willing to do whatever it takes to make it work."
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer