AUBURN, Ala. - No. 8 Auburn hit the field running, quite literally, with full speed Saturday night against Kent State.
The Tigers finally found their tempo in the running game to redeem the offense after a mediocre performance against Tulane last week.
“When we’re running the football and playing with pace that’s when we’re at our best, it opens everything else up,” said Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn.
Auburn, in their 55-16 win over Kent State, recorded their tenth 600-yard game underMalzahn.
In doing so, Malzahn not only relied on starting running back JaTarvious “Boobee” Whitlow, but rotated in four other running backs; Kam Martin, Malik Miller, Shaun Shivers and Harold Joiner.
“Every running back that we got in rotation brings something pretty valuable to the table. With rotations in the running backs, we do a lot of hard work up front but they’re the ones toting the ball and getting blown up just about every play,” said Auburn left tackle Bailey Sharp.
Sharp highlighted the importance of rotating the running backs to give them a chance to recover from each run and therefore be able to make the explosive cuts to the endzone.
On Auburn’s second possession of the first quarter, Whitlow ran in the first touchdown of the game and gave the Tigers the 7-3 advantage. From this point on the running game was operating with full force.
On their next possession, Kam Martin sped past Kent State defenders for the 35-yard touchdown.
A deep touchdown pass from Kent State quarterback Dustin Crum made it seem as if the Golden Flashers were making a comeback, bringing the score to 14-10 Auburn.
This false hope didn’t last long as Auburn quarterback Bo Nix ran in his first touchdown of the night.
Whitlow and back-up quarterback Joey Gatewood would go on to score three more rushing touchdowns between them.
Five of the six Auburn touchdowns were rushing touchdowns.
As an offensive unit, being able to get the running game going “after so many weeks of criticism; after hearing ‘We need to step up our game, we need to step up our game’ we finally did that,” said Sharp.
A flea-flicker pass from Martin to Nix resulted in a 49-yard touchdown to receiver Eli Stove accounted as the only passing touchdown for the Tigers.
Whitlow continued to show his endurance as he reached his 1,000-career rushing yard mark during the first half. Not only did he reach the 1,000-yard mark, but also recorded 135 yards for the night.
Whitlow wasn’t the only player who reached 100 yards rushing during the game.
Shaun Shivers and quarterback Joey Gatewood both rushed for 102-yards with Gatewood scoring two rushing touchdowns.
Getting back to the quick tempo running game is something the Tigers were looking to do early in the season.
“I think more than anything it was just a commitment to run the football. And you saw, we were very committed tonight,” said Malzahn.
With the rotation of the running backs and rushing yards for the quarterbacks, the Tigers were able to establish the variance they needed to dominate in the running game; something that is crucial for the Tigers SEC opener next Saturday against Texas A&M.
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