Pre-game logo incident adds fuel to the fire

AUBURN | The last thing Arkansas needed to do was give Auburn extra motivation going into Saturday night’s Top 25 clash but that's exactly what the Razorback players did.

It happened just after Auburn arrived at Jordan-Hare Stadium a couple of hours before kickoff.

“Normally we pray before every game and we pray around the AU,” Auburn linebacker Tre’ Williams explained. “They were standing in the middle of our AU, that’s low-key disrespectful to stand on our logo. We just tried to let them know that they needed to get off of our logo. That is our time to give God praise and they were really messing that up, so we let them know.”

Auburn let them know with a little pushing and shoving and jawing before the game and then opened up one of the biggest cans of whoop-ass in SEC history during the game.

The Tigers rolled to a 56-3 win, the biggest margin of victory over a ranked team in Auburn history. Auburn rushed for a conference-regular-season record of 543 yards, just short of the 545 rushing yards Auburn had against Missouri in the 2013 SEC Championship game.

“We were motivated coming into this game but with them stepping on our AU, we felt really disrespected. That gave us a little bit more juice,” said Kamryn Pettway, who finished with 192 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 27 carries.

The pregame fracas was a new experience for Auburn coach Gus Malzahn.

“We have never had that happen before in our prayer circle. But we were wanting to win the football game, and we were plenty motivated,” Malzahn said.

The defense also came out on fire sacking Arkansas quarterback Austin Allen three times in the first quarter and limiting the Razorbacks to 25 rushing yards.

“We were already amped up for this game because of the loss last year and it was just fuel to the fire,” sophomore cornerback Carlton Davis said.