GAINESVILLE, Fla. | Smiles were hard to come by after Auburn’s 24-13 loss at Florida.

Most players emerged from the locker room, ready to either hop on the bus or speak to media for a few minutes, with blank, disappointed expressions. The only smile from anyone in the vicinity came from Kristi Malzahn, who made sure to hug each and every player before they got on the bus.

All was solemn, that is, until senior defensive end Marlon Davidson was asked about fellow defensive lineman Derrick Brown’s performance.

Davidson flashed a big grin and chuckled with his shoulders, his earrings swaying: “Oh, man. That boy special. I really, really say that if they don’t pick him first pick, then I don’t think they made the right decision.

“Derrick Brown, he had a terrific game today.”

Brown had a strip sack and a pair of fumble recoveries for 53 yards in Auburn’s (5-1, 2-1 SEC) first loss of the season.

“Derrick Brown is one of the best players in college football,” Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn said. “He played his heart out and had the two pick-up fumbles and he carried it a long way on that one. He’s an impact player in big games. He got it done today.”

His first big play went viral on social media, and for good reason.

Davidson swiped the ball out of Florida quarterback Kyle Trask’s hands on a strip sack on the final play of the first quarter. As a few Gators were slow to react, Brown scooped the ball off the turf and took off. With his fellow defenders blocking well in a convoy, it appeared he was primed to score until he tripped and fell at Florida’s 33-yard line.

“I told him, I said, ‘You fat for not scoring,’” Davidson joked postgame. “But, you know, he made a great play man. That shows the athleticism of Derrick Brown, man. It really does.”

Brown said he thought someone tackled him in the legs until he watched a video of the sequence after the game.

“I didn’t know I tripped over my own feet,” Brown said.

Brown then took matters into his own hands early in the fourth quarter, bulldozing through a late double team to rip the ball from Trask, returning it 11 yards, priming Auburn’s offense for a breakthrough yet again.

And Auburn couldn’t make good on the opportunity, yet again.

“I mean, I don’t even really count it,” Brown said of his big game. “We lost.”

Auburn went scoreless in the second half and converted just 2 of 14 third-down tries for the game. It totaled six points off four turnovers.

Auburn’s defense wasn’t pointing any fingers, however.

Safety Jeremiah Dinson said he didn’t think anything of Auburn forcing four turnovers and still losing: “Just doing our job.” Davidson added, “That’s just the game goes” and that Auburn has to improve on both sides of the ball to win.

Brown, whose forced fumble was the fifth of his career and whose fumble recovery was his third, admitted that, given the favorable situations Auburn found itself in, the loss was tough to swallow.

But he knows nothing is promised in football.

“Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day when you do that — when you force four turnovers — it’s hard to just take the loss,” he said. “At the end of the day, it is what it is. We just have to go back and get better now. Nobody says if you get four turnovers that you’re guaranteed to win the game.”