Auburn misfires on comeback bid, losses to Texas A&M

AUBURN – For the better part of the last year Auburn made the incredible seem routine.

The surreal, very much real. The impossible, possible.

Autumn Saturdays have served as a near weekly reminder of Auburn's mettle and magic. From last year's Prayer at Jordan-Hare and Kick Six to this season's down-to-the-wire finishes at Kansas State, South Carolina and goal-line fumble at Ole Miss, the Tigers had only been upstaged in late-game heroics during the BCS National Championship game.

So as far as the No. 3 Tigers were concerned, Saturday was going to plan.

Sure Auburn fell behind three-touchdown underdog Texas A&M 14-0 in the first 3:07, but that didn't last. An 18-point halftime deficit thanks to a blocked field goal returned for a touchdown? No problem.

After Nick Marshall scored on a six-yard touchdown run to cut it to 41-38 with 6:42 to go, there was nobody wearing orange and blue among the sellout crowd of 87,451 at Jordan-Hare Stadium thinking the outcome wasn't going to finish with another off-the-wall Auburn victory.

Even after Marshall (15-for-21 for 219 yards with a touchdown and 18 carries for 67 yards and two touchdowns) fumbled on a zone read run play from the two-yard line, which Texas A&M recovered with 2:37 to go, Auburn still got another chance to at least tie, if not win, the game. The faithful hadn't lost resolve after the defense, which was plagued by missed tackles all game long, held strong; why would they?

Only this time, they were wrong.

Auburn put the game in the hands of its quarterback, who leads the nation in pass efficiency when his team in losing by seven or less, and Marshall could not deliver on this brisk evening on the Plains.

First came the fumble on what was setting up to be a go-ahead scoring run, then another blunder, a botched communication between Marshall and All-American center Reese Dismukes, resulting in one of the best offensive linemen in the country creating a bizarre game-ending turnover.

"It was something that I seen on the defense and the ball just popped out," said Marshall, who was checking into a different play and not in his usual shotgun position when Dismukes mistakenly snapped the ball, which hit Marshall in the right hand and was recovered by Texas A&M's Alonzo Williams at the Aggies 29-yard line with 0:54 to go. "It's a play that we always run."

The suddenly no longer infallible Tigers had to watch as Texas A&M and freshman quarterback Kyle Allen (19-for-29 for 277 yards with four touchdowns and an interception) celebrated a 41-38 victory at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Despite 582 yards of total offense, Auburn (7-2, 4-2 SEC) saw its 14-game home winning streak snapped and its College Football Playoff hopes likely vanished for good.

"It hurts. It hurts our team," Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. "We have goals and dreams, and we didn't get it done tonight. It's unfortunate, but we didn't get it done.

"But you got to be a big boy, you got to man up, you got to be better in the future. … It's not going to affect us in a negative way the rest of the year, put it that way."

Dismukes, a four-year starter and two-year captain, had few words on the game-ending misfire, which several players said "never" happens in practice.

"I'm not going to go into details, but stuff like that can't happen," Dismukes said. "You can't do that and win the game. … Obviously a lot of this falls on me. …I told Nick that it wasn't his fault. It was as much mine as it was his."

Running back Cameron Artis-Payne, who had a career-high 30 carries for a career-high 221 yards and two touchdowns, could only watch from the backfield as Auburn's play offensive play ended in disarray.

"We practice with a lot of noise and all that to make sure we don't have those communication issues," Artis-Payne said. "For it to happen in a game like this, in a close game, it was a shock to us."

Artis-Payne said the fumble on zone read play was the result of a "poor exchange" between himself and Marshall.

"(It's) something that rarely happens between me and Nick," said Artis-Payne, who brought his SEC-best rushing total to 1,190 yards. "That can't happen. We can never lose a game like that again."

Malzahn stood by his decision to call a zone read from the two-yard line in favor of a traditional run play.

"That's what we do, I mean that's who we are," he said. "We've been successful with that numerous times and we are not going to second guess ourselves on that one. It's just unfortunate. We've done that numerous times and usually we're pretty successful."

After the ball was loose, Artis-Payne jumped on it and appeared to recover the ball before Texas A&M's Julien Obioha, who all but admitted he took possession underneath a pile of humanity.

"A lot of stuff happens at the bottom of a pile," Obioha said. "I'm not going to say exactly who had possession of it, but when it is all said and done I ended up with the ball and we had possession, so yes I did get the fumble."

The play was reviewed and the call stood, much to the dismay of Auburn's fans and sideline, who saw the replay on the stadium's video board.

"Oh I got it. Ain't no question about that; I got it," Artis-Payne said. "But they gave it to Texas A&M on that one. … I thought it would be overturned.

"I figured it would go our way but that's what happens when you leave the game in the hands of the ref. We should've executed better and shouldn't have had that problem in the first place."

For a team accustomed to being on the winning end of implausible plays, the feeling of being on fortune's other side was unfamiliar territory.

"We was on the verge of doing that (again)," wide receiver Quan Bray said. "We just didn't do it tonight."