Jonathan Wallace throws first pass in nearly a year

AUBURN -- Just hours shy of an anniversary since his last true pass attempt, Jonathan Wallace threw a 17-yard completion to Nick Marshall on a trick play during the second quarter of Auburn's 42-35 win over South Carolina Saturday night.

With Auburn trailing 21-14 and facing a third-and-eight from its own 27-yard line, Marshall threw a lateral to Wallace, who hadn't attempted a pass in 364 days, last doing so against Florida Atlantic, and Wallace threw it back across the field to Marshall, who cut outside for a first down.

"I really thought Nick was going to break it, honestly," Wallace said. "It was a critical down, it was third-and-long, we needed to keep scoring because South Carolina just kept scoring."

Wallace and coach Gus Malzahn both estimated the Tigers practiced the quarterback throwback pass at least 50 times.

"They were playing man to man," Malzahn said. "That's a play that we've had up and running for the last month and we've repped it 50 times so we felt pretty confident. That was a big third-down play."

Four plays later, Marshall ran in a 37-yard touchdown to tie the game at 21 going into halftime.

Wallace did throw a pass on a two-point conversion attempt after the Prayer at Jordan-Hare, which came up short of the end zone, though conversions do not could towards pass attempts.