No. 15 Texas A&M football suffered a 43-41 loss to Auburn in four overtimes at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday night.

A week after manhandling a lesser opponent in New Mexico State, the Aggies’ defense was tested right out of the gate, with freshman wide receiver Cam Coleman, a former A&M commit, hauling in two passes for 34 yards, including a 31-yard grab that put the Tigers at the Aggies’ two-yard line. Senior running back Jarquez Hunter wrapped up the 10-play drive with a two-yard effort to break the plane and bring in the first score of the game.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Marcel Reed was tasked with leveling the playing field, a heavy responsibility in such a hostile road environment. The Fightin’ Farmers had their true freshman Swiss Army Knife in athlete Terry Bussey, who racked up 23 yards in their opening drive. But, the yards were an exercise in futility, as graduate kicker Randy Bond’s 54-yard missed field goal stalled any further momentum.

A second drive from the Tigers was a quick one, taking only two plays to get a struggling Auburn into the end zone again. Coleman torched the Aggies’ defense easily with a 63-yard touchdown catch, forcing A&M into a deeper 14-0 hole.

“I was on the sideline keeping everybody’s heads up,” junior defensive tackle Albert Regis said. “We all were. From my perspective, individually, I was going around, telling everybody, ‘Keep [your] composure. We’re not out of it yet. We’ve been in situations like this before and we’ve battled back.’ It caught up to us at the wrong time.”

With the odds stacked further against them, Reed and the Aggies avoided a three-and-out situation to start their next drive and worked through third-and-10 with a dime to senior WR Jahdae Walker to earn a fresh set of downs. Reed hit Walker again on third down, creating a sense of urgency for the Southeastern Conference title game hopefuls. But things went from bad to worse for A&M when Reed threw an interception at the Auburn 12-yard line.

“I really think they just came out playing harder than us,” Reed said. “We weren’t focused and we weren’t executing the plays that were called.”

The first quarter came to a close with the Tigers facing a third down on their own 15. A home run hit by graduate QB Payton Thorne to senior Penn State transfer WR KeAndre Lambert-Smith for 60 yards set up a 15-yard Coleman touchdown, threatening to bury the Aggies early at 21-0.

“Ball went over our head,” coach Mike Elko said. “It just went over our head. You can’t let the ball go over your head. It was three explosive pass plays.”

A facemask penalty on the Auburn defense provided an ideal start for the A&M offense, which had yet to capitalize on its first two drives. A subsequent holding call on the offensive line made the difficult circumstances more challenging, but the Aggies were again driving into Tiger territory thanks to a few clutch catches by junior WR Noah Thomas.

A must-make fourth down conversion by junior RB Amari Daniels was reviewed and confirmed, making it first-and-goal for A&M. Bussey capped off the all-too-necessary drive for the Aggies with a one-yard rushing touchdown, digging into the deficit at 21-7.

The third quarter necessitated a change of pace for the disoriented A&M squad, which came out of the locker room longing for a complete half of well-rounded football to get back in the game. Elko and Co. did just that behind Reed’s efforts, who went a perfect 5-for-5 for 56 yards on the first drive of the half, including a spectacular 14-yard touchdown catch from Thomas with an Auburn defender draped over the Pearland native.

Defensive coordinator Jay Bateman’s unit needed to move quickly to curb any Auburn response, which was accomplished by forcing a three-and-out.

A second touchdown connection between Reed and Thomas was the product of a one-play, 73-yard drive, where the quarterback threaded the ball through two defenders to the receiver to even the score at 21.

“I thought [Reed] battled in that environment,” Elko said. “… I thought he did a really good job keeping it going, not getting outside of himself, not forcing the football, not doing things that sometimes young kids do in those types of situations to get it all back at once. From that perspective, I thought he did a nice job.”

Urgency began to build for the Tigers, putting together a fast-paced explosion of offense in just over two minutes. Punishing runs from Hunter and a methodical passing attack from Thorne threatened to break the tie, but thanks to a missed field goal from sophomore K Ian Vachon, the game continued to hang in the balance.  

The Auburn defense got a much-needed stop following Vachon’s missed kick, swiftly forcing a three-and-out. 

Another 44-yard bomb from Thorne to Lambert-Smith pinned the Wrecking Crew to its one-yard line, reminiscent of the Aggies’ goal-line stand against Bo Jackson and the Tigers in 1986. Unlike that scenario, Hunter made it through the goalline, taking the lead back 28-21 — all in one minute and 36 seconds.

The following A&M drive had to put all the pieces together again to keep the game alive. However, a batted pass on third-down brought the third quarter to a close and kept Auburn in the driver’s seat to wreck the season for the Maroon and White.

The second play of the fourth quarter was a batted pass by junior Florida transfer linebacker Scooby Williams into the hands of senior UAB transfer cornerback BJ Mayes for an interception. Now at the Auburn 15-yard line, A&M was given a glimmer of hope to save its season, but only mustered three points behind the effort of Bond’s leg with a 32-yard field goal, bringing the score to 28-24. 

Pressure continued to boil up, as War Eagle took over at its own 25-yard line. The Aggies imposed their will this time, corralling Thorne into a sack on third-and-13 and forcing a punt to give A&M excellent field position.

A mixture of a dropped pass by redshirt sophomore tight end Theo Melin Öhrström and an ineligible man downfield penalty killed the drive as the Aggies turned it over on downs, now relying on the defense to give them another chance to score.

On their next possession, the Maroon and White rode the arm and legs of Reed, who led the offense with 76 yards. The drive was punctuated by a powerful eight-yard touchdown run from Daniels, which stole the lead from Auburn at 31-28. Coupled with a monstrous stand from the defense, A&M earned itself an opportunity to put the game away for good in the last three minutes.

“It’s tremendous heart and tremendous fight, for sure,” Elko said. “Nobody has a script for what happens. Nobody blinked and nobody backed up and we just kept fighting.”

A two-minute, 10-second drive that seemingly took hours tied the game for Auburn at 31, accomplished by a successful 29-yard kick from Vachon that tossed the two SEC foes into overtime. 

It began with a bang, featuring a 12-yard touchdown catch from Walker that carried defenders into the end zone as he crossed the goalline. Auburn then responded with a two-yard touchdown from Hunter, extending overtime into a second round.

The second overtime period saw the A&M defense back on the field, pinning Auburn into a fourth-and-19 followed by a 41-yard field goal by Vachon that kept the game rolling.

Ending the game was now delegated to Reed and the offense. Following a drive-stalling holding call, extending the game became Bond’s task. Thanks to a strong leg, the 42-yarder was made, and the game went into a third overtime period.

Incomplete passes from both the Aggies and Tigers brought the game to a fourth period, where the Fightin’ Farmers went on defense to begin. A magical catch from Lambert-Smith would be the game-winner, as Daniels dropped the game-extending two-point attempt.

“It’s hard to say you like anything when it doesn’t work,” Elko said. “… We ran the play we wanted to run against the look. I thought, on the first one, we needed to keep going. I think if we keep going, we’ve got a wide open guy in the back of the end zone, we just didn’t get over there in our reprogression. The second one, unfortuantely, we didn’t throw it and catch it.”

The Aggies return to Kyle Field on Nov. 30 for a regular-season finale against the Texas Longhorns at 6:30 p.m. With an SEC Championship appearance on the line, either A&M or Texas will be the lone survivor to head into title weekend against No. 10 Georgia.

“This one’s certainly going to hurt, and we’re obviously extremely disappointed,” Elko said. “We had ourselves in a really good position, and this is back to back road games where we haven’t been able to get it done. That part of it’s not going to go away, but obviously with who we play and what we’re still playing for, obviously there’s still going to be a lot of energy going into that stadium next weekend.”