Auburn dropped its fourth-straight game in a four-overtime 24-22 thriller in the 86th Iron Bowl.
The Auburn defense put together its best performance of the season but the offense managed just 159 yards of offense on Saturday.
Grades from the game:
Quarterback: C-
It's hard to grade out T.J. Finley's performance. I'm going to give it a below-average C-, but also Finley deserves a lot of credit.
He got hurt on a sack with 10 minutes left in the third. He could barely walk into the medical tent. But he returned to the game and gutted it out. His offensive line didn't make it easy on him nor did the lack of a running game. But he also made his fair share of mistakes, too.
Finley finished 17-of-26 with 137 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. He was sacked six times.
The guts from Finley to go out and play should not be forgotten, but the performance was rather forgettable.
Running Backs: D
It was the same old story for the Auburn backs on Saturday: Not a lot of holes to run through and a lackluster performance.
Tank Bigbsy ran 29 times for 63 yards and Jarquez Hunter took three carries for two yards.
Again, the offensive line did the two backs no favors. But also, Bigsby missed a big hole early in the game and opted to bounce it outside for what ended up being a tackle for loss.
Auburn's backs will go down as one of the more puzzling parts of Auburn this season, especially during SEC play. An extremely talented group that never really dominated games like it felt like they could.
Wide Receivers: C+
Both Shedrick Jackson and Demetris Robertson had two of their best catches all season early in the game, but it was overall just a slightly above-average game for the receivers.
Ja'Varrius Johnson led the team with four receptions, but totaled just seven yards. Demetris Robertson caught three passes for 39 yards.
In Kobe Hudson's return, he caught three passes for 33 yards including a 15-yard touchdown to open the game.
It was about the usual from the Auburn receivers.
Tight Ends: A
The tight ends didn't catch a lot of passes, but when they did, they counted in a big way.
John Samuel Shenker had an acrobatic, one-handed 22-yard snag early in the game. Then he also caught the pass on the 2-point conversion in triple-overtime for Auburn.
Then freshman Landen King had an impressive one-handed catch of his own in the first overtime to tie it up for Auburn. It was King's first touchdown at Auburn and it was a clutch one.
Offensive Line: F
Alabama had six sacks and 15 tackles for loss.
That's all that needs to be written.
Defensive Line: A+
Auburn's defense started to slip at the end, yes, but what they accomplished for a majority of the game cannot go unrecognized.
The defensive line had six of Auburn's seven sacks and nine of Auburn's 11 tackles for loss.
Colby Wooden was a man on a mission as was T.D. Moultry and Derick Hall. They all deserve heavy praise for their performance.
It'd be criminal to give this group anything below an A+ for its pass rush and run defense on Saturday.
Linebacker: B
The linebacker duo of Zakoby McClain and Chandler Wooten was strong in the run game, as usual. It also struggled in pass coverage, which is not out of ordinary.
On Alabama's 14-yard completion on fourth-and-7 on the game-tying drive in the fourth quarter, Jahleel Billingsley got open because of a drop in coverage from Wooten, so that dings the grade slightly.
Secondary: A-
What was an all-time great performance by Roger McCreary will be overshadowed by the final 2-point conversion he gave up. McCreary had seven tackles and four pass breakups.
Jaylin Simpson was strong for most of the game, too, but the touchdown at the end of the fourth will also overshadow his game.
People will point to John Metchie's final stat-line of 13 receptions for 150 yards, but he was also targeted 24 times. A lot of those 11 misses were because of the Auburn secondary.
At the end of the day, the group got tired and ran out of steam. The defense as a whole kept Auburn in this game, but the offense was never able to slam the door on Alabama.
Special Teams: A+
It was a busy day for Oscar Chapman, but he was quite good for Auburn. He punted 10 times for 427 yards. Five of those punts were downed inside the 20 and two punts got downed inside the 5-yard line.
Walk-on Ben Patton nailed a 33- and 49-yard field goal, with the latter coming in second-overtime. He deserves a ton of credit for a clutch performance.
Ja'Varrius Johnson was a much better option at punt returner than Robertson was.
There was one penalty on the opening kick for Auburn from Caylin Newton, but it's not enough to damage the grade as a whole.
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