OXFORD, Miss. – Can you name the only Auburn freshmen in program history who have rushed for more than 100 yards three times against SEC competition in one season?
Bo Jackson (1982). Michael Dyer (2010). And after Saturday, Tank Bigsby.
Bigbsy made it three straight Saturday over 100 yards with a team-high 129 yards on 24 carries to help carry the Tigers past Ole Miss, 35-28. The performance comes on the heels of a 111-yard outing last week at South Carolina. The week before he rushed for a career-high 146 yards at home against Arkansas. That's 386 yards on the ground over his last three games, and he's averaging 6.4 yards per carry during that span.
"Every time he runs the ball, it's something different," Auburn wide receiver Seth Williams said. "The first person is not going to tackle him. He's going to always run somebody over."
Bigbsy also scored his second and third touchdowns of the season Saturday. The freshman put Auburn on the board first with a 4-yard touchdown run straight up the middle. Then early in the fourth quarter, he found a hole to the left, stiff-armed a defender and dove across the goal line for an 18-yard score.
It would have been three touchdowns for Bigsby if not for a holding penalty that wiped out a 100-yard kickoff return on the first play of the second half.
"Even though they called the kick return back, he still ran it back," Williams added. "Just to see him do that, it's amazing. He's going to be special."
Auburn's rushing attack also got a boost from the return of Shaun Shivers on Saturday. The junior, playing for the first time since week one, ripped off 60 yards on 11 carries and scored a critical touchdown late in the third quarter from a yard out.
"He's getting close to 100 percent," Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn said. "He runs extremely hard. D.J. (Williams) got a little banged up on that one run, so those two (Shivers and Bigsby) really carried the load. I thought they ran extremely hard. I thought they broke tackles. So it was good. And they protected the football."
'A BLESSING FOR US'
There was a familiar voice breaking down Auburn's team huddle before the game Saturday. It was senior and team captain K.J. Britt. The All-SEC linebacker is still out indefinitely with a thumb injury, but unlike last week, he traveled with the team to Oxford.
"He's our team leader," Malzahn said. "His presence is really special."
Dressed in street clothes on the sideline, Britt stayed engaged throughout Saturday's contest. You could see him encouraging his teammates and fellow linebackers.
"He's one of our team leaders and just to have him back was a blessing for us," linebacker Owen Pappoe said. "In the locker room, at the hotel, on the way here – he was just being that Energizer Bunny for us and just keeping us pumped. If we looked rattled on the field, he'll come and just calm us down and let us know what to do. It was really good to have him back on the field with us."
Pappoe, who has picked up the slack with Britt out, finished with a team-high 14 tackles against Ole Miss. That's three straight games with double-digit tackles for the sophomore who is now second on the team with 47 tackles on the season.
RED-ZONE SUCCESS
Through the first four games, Auburn had been in the red-zone 15 times and had just seven touchdowns to show for it. The Tigers flipped the script Saturday, scoring touchdowns on all four trips inside the red zone.
What was the difference? It was getting back to playing hard-nosed Auburn football.
There were 10 plays run by Auburn inside the Ole Miss Miss 20-yard line. The Tigers ran the football on every single one of them. The combination of Bigsby, Shivers and quarterback Bo Nix proved lethal as all three players scored a rushing touchdown in the red zone. Bigbsy scored a pair.
"You've got to pound the ball in," wide receiver Seth Williams said. "You've got to be physical, play hard-nosed football. That's the Auburn way, just run it and run it until they can't stop it."