Tre Mason was going to get into the end zone.
No matter what it took, the Auburn junior tailback wasn’t going to be denied in that moment. His moment.
Balancing on top of center Reese Dismukes after seemingly being stopped a yard shy of the end zone, Mason extended his right arm those final 12 inches, just enough to allow the tip of the ball to graze the chalk.
Watching from his back, Dismukes yelled: “He’s in. He’s in.”
“I was greedy for those six points,” Mason said. “I knew I wasn’t on the ground because I was on top of (Dismukes), so I just kept rolling, and I stretched out for those points.”
Mason ran six times for 36 yards on Auburn’s game-winning 75-yard drive, including reaching into the end zone for a 5-yard touchdown to send No. 24 Auburn to a 45-41 upset over No. 7 Texas A&M in front of a nationally televised CBS audience Saturday afternoon at Kyle Field.
“I feel like this is one of the highlights of my entire life, beating a team like this coming from a (3-9) season like last year, this is just a great feeling,” Mason said.
Mason rushed for 108 of his season-high 178 yards in the fourth quarter, including breaking free for 53 to set up a 2-yard touchdown by Cameron Artis-Payne on Auburn’s previous offensive series to go ahead 38-34 with 9 minutes remaining.
“I feel like coach (Gus) Malzahn has a lot of trust in me, and I have to give him reason to trust me,” Mason said. “When it’s crunch time, put me in the game, I’m going to do something to help this team win.”
Auburn and Texas A&M (5-2, 2-2 SEC) combined for 1,217 yards of offense, with the Tigers racking up 615 yards on 85 plays, including 227 in the fourth quarter while limiting the Aggies to just 114 in the final frame.
“Toward the end of the game they put their big-boy pads on, and we couldn’t slow them down,” Aggies defensive coordinator Mark Snyder said of Auburn. “They took the game and the clock from us. We couldn’t get off the field.”
Once Mason and the Auburn (6-1, 3-1) offense did their job, it was on the Tigers’ sometimes-maligned defense to follow suit and hold dynamic Aggies quarterback Johnny Manziel from returning the favor.
Backed up to its own 18 after a 22-yard pass from Manziel to receiver Mike Evans, Auburn called a timeout with 43 seconds remaining.
Amping up the pressure, Tigers senior defensive end Dee Ford sacked the defending Heisman winner twice for a combined 30 yards, including dragging him down for negative-22 on fourth-and-13 to clinch Auburn’s second come-from-behind victory this season.
“I (knew I) could make plays like he can make plays,” Ford said. “That was my big thing, if I wanted to be a big-time player, big-time players make big-time plays at big times.”
That late pressure spoiled a big day for Manziel and Evans, who connected 11 times for a career-high 287 receiving yards and touchdowns of 26, 64, 42 and 33, the last capping a nine-play, 82-yard drive to put A&M ahead, 31-24, with 4:06 left in the third quarter.
Auburn junior quarterback Nick Marshall finished 11-of-23 passing for 236 yards and two touchdowns through the air while adding 100 rushing yards and two more scores in his second-consecutive game eclipsing the century mark on the ground.
“I’m proud of our players, with how far they’ve come (and) what they went through to get here, and to see the smiles on their face to have a sense of accomplishment from a big game on the road, it just makes you feel good as a coach,” Malzahn said. “It tells me we’re going in the right direction.”
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