SZVETITZ COLUMN: Hot start fades as weather cools

Auburn didn’t have to wait until its Halloween home game against Ole Miss to have a Navy Nightmare.

The Tigers had one Saturday.

Making reservations for a bowl game will have to wait.

Maybe a while.

Auburn lost for the second time in as many weeks. But this one wasn’t bad like the 44-23, behind-the-woodshed beating the Tigers took from Arkansas last week. No, it was worse.

To Kentucky. At home.

What happened to Auburn’s offense?

What, the temperature drops below 50 degrees and it goes into hibernation?

Last week in Arkansas it was cold, and the Tigers’ were colder. Saturday it was 48 degrees at kickoff, and Auburn’s offense was a block of ice.

The Tigers amassed just 45 first-quarter yards, 107 for the first half and just 1 passing yard in the first 15 minutes.

Man.

Gus Malzahn’s chewing gum started green, but turned black and blue by the start of the second quarter.

How about 95 passing yards for the game?

How about 10 penalties for 76 yards, including six on one drive to start the fourth quarter and two on the final, must-have drive of the night?

Cold and getting colder.

The Ice Man sleepeth.

Zzzzz.

When Auburn needed a drive, the Tigers drove it right into the ground — four three-and-outs and three drives that went eight plays or longer resulting in no points.

How about when the Tigers needed a game-winning drive, a promising start was cut off at the knees by a hatchet with back-to-back false start penalties?

This wasn’t Malzahn’s Wild World of Fun offense. No way.

Kentucky 21, Auburn 14.

Yes way.

“We’re a work in progress,” Malzahn said. “We’re going through some growing pains.”

How does that game in Baton Rouge look now? It was a concern a week ago, now it’s downright frightening.

But this loss can’t be pinned on just one side of the ball.

No. For as badly as the Tigers struggled moving the football, the defense really struggled trying to stop it.

The Tigers gave up just 75 passing yards. That’s good, right?

Well, not when you couple it with the 282 yards of rushing the Wildcats shoved down their throats.

Hey, special teams was OK. Silver lining, right?

Not really.

A loss is a loss.

And now Auburn has two of them.

Predictable? Probably.

But not this way. Not by getting out-hustled, out-physicaled and out-offensed by, of all teams, Kentucky.

No offense to the Wildcats, but this is a team that hasn’t beaten Auburn since Simon and Garfunkel released “Sounds of Silence.” That was 43 years ago, by the way.

Saturday night at Jordan-Hare, the duo held a reunion concert, as you could hear a pin drop when Randall Cobb ripped the needle off the record in the fourth quarter when he scored the winning touchdown for Kentucky.

Hello darkness, my old friend.

MIKE SZVETITZ is sports editor of the Opelika-Auburn News. He may be reached at mszvetitz@oanow.com or 737-2513.