Auburn, Alabama – Critical mistakes, poor situational football and questionable play decisions continued to prove fatal Auburn Saturday in Tigers’ 17-7 home loss to Vanderbilt.

Besides the offense only scoring one touchdown, special teams played a key role in the loss. Kicker Towns McGough was 0-2 on field goals – from 44 and 51 yards – and perhaps the most crucial mistake of the day was a penalty on the field defense that gave the Vanderbilt’s offense had the opportunity to extend its lead to two scores late. in the fourth quarter.

Near the end of a long drive with the Commodores leading 10-7, the Auburn defense forced a field goal attempt, which was a good thing, and it would have extended the lead to 13-7. Auburn’s offense would have had a chance to take the lead or win with a touchdown. However, Keldric Faulk jumped into the air to try to block the kick and landed on a Commodore blocker.

“Ummm…I better be careful here,” Freeze said when asked about the post-match play. “It was certainly a critical decision in the game, and one that I would not agree with at all. If you’re lined up at the line of scrimmage, you can put your hands on the offensive linemen’s backs. You can’t land on it. I didn’t think he landed on it. I’ll have to watch the movie and see. You probably had better eyesight than me. It was certainly a critical call.

Two plays later, Vanderbilt scored a touchdown and took a 17-7 lead and won.

Auburn had its chances, but special teams proved detrimental in the loss. Tied 7-7 at the end of the half, Auburn drove to the Commodores’ 26-yard line and stalled on third down – a theme throughout the game for the Auburn offense.

McGough missed his first of two field goal attempts.

Later in the third quarter, after Vanderbilt punter Jesse Mirco pinned the Auburn offense at its own two-yard line, the Tigers’ offense stalled. Auburn punter Oscar Chapman outran his coverage team with a 59-yarder through the air, only for it to be returned by Martel Hight to the Auburn 21-yard line. That allowed the basket to give the Commodores their 10-7 advantage.

After Vanderbilt’s fourth-quarter touchdown, Auburn drove to the Commodores’ 34-yard line. Needing two scores to potentially force overtime, Freeze inexplicably called on McGough again from 51 yards out. It was no surprise to anyone when the freshman kicker whose confidence was all but gone, missed falling to 5-12 this season.

Auburn outscored Vanderbilt by a hundred yards – 327 to 227 – and the defense played wonderfully all day. At the end of the third quarter, Vanderbilt had a 10-7 lead, but had only 55 rushing yards on 23 carries and had not completed a pass since the first quarter.

Auburn averaged 7.9 yards per play on first down, but didn’t get a third-down conversion until the fourth quarter. The Tigers offense was 2-13 for the game on third down averaging just 3.5 yards per play on the money put.

A week after Jarquez Hunter passed for 275 yards in the second half at Kentucky on 21 carries, Auburn’s offense moved away from Hunter against Vanderbilt. Hunter had runs of eight yards and five yards on the opening possession of the second half, and did not get another carry.

“I don’t think he’s banged up,” Freeze said of Hunter, “but he looked gassed to me.” In the second half, we kind of had, I don’t know how many possessions we had, but we didn’t have a lot. We definitely have to go for the last two, and so we don’t give ourselves the ball in these circumstances. Other than that, I don’t know if we only had two other possessions.

Auburn had three possessions in the second half before scrambling.

As bad as Auburn’s play has been in critical situations, the time management has been abysmal in several games. After Saturday, Freeze surely belongs in the same territory as Les Miles – maybe even worse.

Auburn was using timeouts on defense heading into the two-minute warning, hoping to get the ball back and get some late scores. After a third stop, Freeze elected to call a timeout after a third stop with 2:01 on the clock. Vanderbilt’s punt would have caused the clock to stop. Freeze traded a timeout to gain a second.

“It was a bad decision,” Freeze noted. “We should have let this continue until the two-minute warning.”

Freeze massacred the final 30 seconds of the first half against Oklahoma earlier this year. It’s only been seven days since the Tigers attempted a field goal with 14 players at the basket late in the first half against Kentucky.

Considering how Auburn continually dominated its opponents but made glaring errors at critical times, it’s clear that neither the players nor the head coach are learning from their mistakes as the Tigers fell to 3 -6 with the program’s first-ever loss to Vanderbilt. at Jordan-Hare Stadium.