Home cooking upsets stomachs when it involves Ags, Tigers
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M and Auburn pride themselves on their Southern hospitality, but both sides have taken their friendliness too far when welcoming the other.
One of the wackiest statistics since the Aggies entered the Southeastern Conference comes into play Saturday when the No. 14 Tigers pay their biennial visit to Kyle Field. The visitors have won all five of their previous meetings with both in the SEC and are favorites Saturday.
“We’ve lost some tough ones at home against those guys,” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said, “and we’ve played good football when we went there.”
That non-explanation is about the closest explanation one can come up with concerning the schedule abnormality. No other league mate has come close to matching the oddity of visitor-takes-all between A&M (5-3, 3-2) and Auburn (6-2, 4-1), and it didn’t in the Aggies’ last league, either.
Take former Southwest Conference and Big 12 rival Texas, for instance. In A&M and UT’s last five meetings stretching from 2007-11, the visitor won the last three games, but the two previous played out with the home team prevailing. No other stretch in the storied series’ 118 games comes close to matching what Auburn and A&M have done over the past five years.
“When you go on the road, it’s just you and your team,” A&M receiver Christian Kirk said, in trying to explain the unexplainable. “You’re going into a hostile environment, and everybody else is against you. It’s that much sweeter when you go on the road and get a win.”
Aggies stay positive
That doesn’t mean the Aggies, coming off a 35-14 home loss to Mississippi State, are anticipating another setback Saturday, Kirk quickly added.
“That’s not in our heads,” he said. “We’re going to try and win every game.”
A year ago, the Aggies prevailed 29-16 in JordanHare Stadium thanks to five Daniel LaCamera field goals and a late 89-yard touchdown dash by Trayveon Williams. Two years ago at Kyle Field, Malzahn’s worst Auburn team to date manhandled the Aggies throughout, in rushing for 311 yards en route to a 26-10 Tigers win.
In 2014, the Aggies escaped Auburn with a 41-38 win after the Tigers fumbled twice late in the game, including near the goal line when then-A&M defensive end Julien Obioha emerged from the pile with the ball and a smile.
“What happens on the bottom of the pile,” Obioha later said when asked if he had recovered the fumble from the start, “stays on the bottom of the pile.”
In 2013, both teams clutched national title hopes, and Auburn pulled off an escape with a 45-41 victory at Kyle Field against quarterback Johnny Manziel and the Aggies. Later that season, the Tigers lost in the national title game to Florida State.
In the teams’ first meeting as division opponents in 2012, Manziel was en route to the Heisman Trophy while torching the Tigers in a 63-21 A&M triumph before a stunned crowd and even more stunned coaching staff. The six-touchdown loss hastened the departure of Gene Chizik from Auburn.
“It’s embarrassing for me, it’s embarrassing for Gene, it’s embarrassing for the Auburn people,” then Tigers defensive coordinator Brian Van Gorder said. “I can’t ever remember being a part of something like that.”
Now it is A&M coach Kevin Sumlin feeling the heat, after the Aggies haven’t won an SEC West home game in more than two years, and have won only three total under Sumlin. That statistic is skewed in that A&M has played division foe Arkansas in Arlington’s AT&T Stadium the last four games, all A&M victories.
Sumlin catches heat
The Aggies haven’t reached double-digit victories in a season since 2012 (11-2), when they finished third in the SEC West behind Alabama and LSU and fifth nationally.
“It starts with me,” Sumlin said of any A&M failures
along the way, including his receivers dropping multiple passes in the threetouchdown loss to Mississippi State. “Ultimately, I’m responsible for our performance. Anything that happens like that — it starts with me.”
The Aggies have one more home game remaining past Auburn: against non-conference foe New Mexico in one week. A&M closes out its regular season and what’s looking more like Sumlin’s final season with road games against SEC West members Mississippi and LSU, against whom the Aggies own a combined record of 2-8 over the past five years.