AU FOOTBALL: Tigers pull away from Rebels in wild third quarter

Senior cornerback Walt McFadden experienced an acute case of déjà vu about 4 minutes into the third quarter of Auburn’s 33-20 win Saturday afternoon.

Ole Miss quarterback Jevan Snead threw short for Markeith Summers in the flat, who scooped it off the ground and right to McFadden, who was standing behind him.

Kind of like a North Carolina receiver had done in front of Florida State’s Patrick Robinson when McFadden was watching an ESPN Thursday night telecast last week.

It also brought to mind what one of the defensive coaches told him in practice.

“He told me, ‘As long as I be around the ball, great things’ll happen,” McFadden said. “It happened to be that I was in zone pressure — I was in Cover 3 — and it happened to be that I just ran up to him and where the ball would be at, and it happened to be the ball bounced up.

“Like he said, great things’ll happen if you just be around the ball.”

McFadden collected the ball, got both feet inbounds, did a little 360 on the sideline and ran it to the house from 29 yards out.

After a short review, the play stood, and McFadden had given the Tigers a 24-7 lead.

“When I kept running for the touchdown, I was like ‘Man, I stepped out of bounds,’ or ‘Man, this ain’t gonna count,’” McFadden said. “But I’m fixing to enjoy it while I can because I know you don’t get too many touchdown returns as a DB.”

McFadden’s second touchdown as an Auburn Tiger wasn’t even the most bizarre thing to take place in that third quarter, one that held 36 combined points, 284 yards of offense, took about an hour to complete and encompassed probably the strangest 85 seconds of Gene Chizik’s coaching career.

Ben Tate ran for a 53-yard score to put Auburn up, 31-7 with 7:42 to go.

On the ensuing kickoff, Ole Miss’ Jesse Grandy ran it back for 82 yards and a touchdown. Auburn, 31-14, 7:28 to go.

After a Tigers three-and-out, Dexter McCluster took the Rebels’ first play from scrimmage 79 yards to give Ole Miss the chance to cut the lead to 10 with 6:17 to go.

But kicker Joshua Shene shanked the extra point — Antonio Coleman was credited with the block — and junior Demond Washington saw an opportunity to run really fast in the opposite direction.

“I (saw) him shank it, I (saw) somebody block it, I (saw) the ball rolling and I (saw) it was my chance to get it and score with it,” Washington said. “I just picked the ball up and I was saying in my head, ‘Nobody’s gonna catch me.’”

Nobody did. Washington took the ball back more than 90 yards for a defensive 2-point conversion to extend the Tigers’ lead to 33-20, their first defensive 2-point conversion since Brad Ware in 1998.

Washington’s sprint was just part of the more than 330 return yards the teams also combined for over those 15 minutes.

The quarter ended on a Tate carry for a loss of a yard, and neither team scored in the final 21:17.

“I went through every emotional high and low you could go in 15 minutes,” Chizik said. “Course, it seemed like 15 days.

“It was pretty incredible.”

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