Kentucky football: Five things to know about Auburn
Five things to know about the Auburn Tigers, who play host to the Kentucky Wildcats in their SEC football opener on Saturday at noon EDT on the SEC Network:
1. Auburn’s Gus Malzahn does just enough to keep his job
The 54-year-old Malzahn is 62-31 in seven seasons as the Auburn head coach. The Tigers went 12-1 his first season, losing to Florida State 34-31 in the BCS national title game. Since then, Malzahn has gone 8-5, 7-6, 8-5, 10-4, 8-5 and 9-4 last season. A 48-45 win over Alabama in the Iron Bowl last season probably earned him another year at the Loveliest Village on the Plains. He’s 3-4 against the Tide.
Malzahn was the head coach at Arkansas State, going 9-3 in 2012, before being hired at Auburn, where he had been the offensive coordinator during the Tigers’ 2010 national title season. Before that, he was the offensive coordinator for Houston Nutt at Arkansas and an acclaimed high school coach in Arkansas. As for Auburn head coaches, Malzahn followed Gene Chizik, who followed Tommy Tuberville, who is now the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in the November election against Democrat incumbent Doug Jones.
2. Bo Nix is Auburn’s veteran quarterback
And the 20-year-old is only a sophomore. The son of former Auburn quarterback Patrick Nix, Bo started all 13 games for the Tigers as a true freshman a year ago. He completed 217 of 377 passes (57.6 percent) for 2,542 yards and 16 touchdowns with six interceptions. He did not throw an interception in Auburn’s final five games of the season, including the Georgia game in which he threw 50 passes without being picked off.
A 6-foot-2, 214-pounder, Nix was a high school teammate of UK receiver Allen Dailey at Pinson Valley High School in Alabama. His father was Auburn’s quarterback from 1992-95 and was later head coach at Henderson State University. Bo beat out Joey Gatewood for the starting job last fall. After the season, Gatewood transferred to Kentucky where he is still waiting for an eligibility waiver.
3. Chad Morris is Auburn’s new offensive coordinator
The 51-year-old Morris comes to Auburn as OC after spending two seasons as head coach at Arkansas, where he went 4-18 overall and 0-14 in the SEC. Before that, Morris was the head coach at SMU, where he was 14-22 in three seasons. Morris was offensive coordinator at Clemson, but knew Malzhan from their days coaching high school football.
Back in those days, Malzahn reached out to Morris after the latter had experienced a tough season. The two families have been close ever since.
“Absolutely, Gus and I have had a relationship going back to the very early 2000s. And I consider him a very dear friend for 364 days a year,” Morris said during the 2018 SEC Media Days. “But, you know, we’ve played against each other before, and — but he — he’s been very instrumental into me standing on this stage today.”
Said Malzahn, “I consider him a true friend.”
4. Seth Williams is potentially Auburn’s best player
The junior wide receiver from Cottondale, Ala., caught 54 passes for 830 yards and eight touchdowns last season as a sophomore. He caught 13 passes for 121 yards in the Tigers’ loss to Georgia. He caught the game-winning touchdown from Nix with nine seconds left in Auburn’s 27-21 victory over Oregon. Williams caught 26 passes for 134 yards and five scores as a freshman in 2018, when he averaged 20.5 yards per catch.
Pro Football Focus on Williams: “Right now, Williams is little more than a contested catch guy which is to say that he’s not going to be high on PFF’s board. He’s not dynamic enough and not refined enough with his routes to create separation even against college cornerbacks. The good news is that after being listed at 224 pounds last season, he’s checking in at 211 this year. He desperately needs to add some suddenness to his game and slimming down should help.”
[Auburn football coverage by Columbus Ledger-Enquirer]
5. Kentucky won its last game at Auburn
The Wildcats are just 6-26-1 all-time against the Tigers but one of those wins came on Oct. 17, 2009, when Rich Brooks’ team triumphed 21-14 on a cold Saturday night at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
UK trailed 14-7 at the half when Brooks switched quarterbacks in the second half, replacing Morgan Newton with Will Fidler late in the the third quarter. On UK’s first drive of the fourth quarter, Fidler led a 12-play, 75-yard march in which the senior scored on a 2-yard run to tie the game at 14 with 6:29 left. UK’s next series, Randall Cobb raced 61 yards to set up his own 4-yard TD run with 3:17 left that proved to be the winning score. Auburn finished the year 8-5. Kentucky finished 7-6 in Brooks’ final season before retiring.
Fidler now owns a household cleaning products company in Charlotte, N.C. which has been in high demand during the coronavirus pandemic. I wrote on Will back in June.
The two teams have played twice since, both times in Lexington with both games decided by three points. A quarterback named Cam Newton led the Tigers on a 19-play, 86-yard drive over the game’s final 7:25 which ended with a 24-yard field goal and 37-34 win in 2010. Auburn went on to win the national championship under Gene Chizik. Kentucky ended up 6-7 in Joker Phillips’ first season as head coach.
Auburn beat Kentucky 30-27 in a Thursday night game in 2015. Though they were outgunned 497 yards to 407, the visiting Tigers converted 11 of 18 third downs on the way to the win. Receiver Ricardo Louis caught seven passes for 154 yards while running back Peyton Barber rushed for 92 yards and two touchdowns on 26 carries. UK running back Boom Williams gained 133 yards on just 16 carries. Auburn finished the season 7-6 under Malzahn. Kentucky finished 5-7 under Mark Stoops.
[Auburn’s 2020 football roster]
[Kentucky’s 2020 football roster]
This story was originally published September 23, 2020 at 8:31 AM.
