The Mountain West doesn’t play the SEC all that often, and they should probably keep it that way. The San Jose State Spartans traveled from California to Alabama to face the No. 5 Auburn Tigers and got smacked, losing 59-13.
Coming into the game, Auburn was coming off a 45-21 win over SEC West rival Arkansas. That game was tied at 21 at half before Nick Marshall entered the game after serving his half-game punishment for getting ticketed for possession of marijuana. Marshall jump started Auburn’s offense against Arkansas and he continued his play against the Spartans.
Marshall started the game with a 49-yard run up the middle of the Spartans defense but fumbled in the end zone, which was recovered by San Jose State for a touchback.
After getting the ball back, Marshall connected with Ricardo Louis on a four-yard, play-action pass for the first touchdown of the game to cap off an 11 play, 67 yard drive.
San Jose State responded quickly, with senior quarterback Blake Jurich taking advantage of a blown coverage with a 75-yard pass to Tyler Ervin for a touchdown.
Auburn retook the lead, then went up 14 with back-to-back touchdown runs by Cameron Artis-Payne.
That’s when it got out of hand for San Jose State, who punted on the next possession to have Auburn’s Quan Bray return it 55 yards for the score. The Tigers were up 28-7.
Then, guess who, Artis-Payne struck again with a 31-yard run to get down to the Spartan goal line before punching it in with a one-yard touchdown run. Both teams finished the quarter by exchanging field goals to go into halftime 38-10.
The Spartans seemed to be getting their legs under them on the second half’s opening drive, with a run of 16 yards and a pass of 42 yards to get in field goal range before Austin Lopez shanked the attempt. It was all Auburn after that, with Marshall running in a 27-yard touchdown and Jeremy Johnson and Roc Thomas running in a pair of touchdowns from the goal line.
San Jose State entered the game 1-0 after opening the season with a 42-10 win over North Dakota. Jurich threw for 250 yards and three touchdowns in his first game, but Jurish comleted 16-of-27 passes for 218 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. The Spartans couldn’t get the ground game going, rushing for 62 yards on 44 attempts (1.4 average).
On the other hand, Auburn’s ground game could not be stopped, racking up 355 yards on 49 attempts (7.2 yards per carry). Marshall finished with 203 total yards (101 passing, 102 rushing) and two scores. Artis-Payne had 112 yards on 16 carries (7.0 yards per carry) and three touchdowns.
Auburn keeps rolling, moving to 2-0 on the season. They have next week off and return Thursday, Sept. 18 at Kansas State. Also with a bye week, San Jose State falls to 1-1 and will try to bounce back in Minnesota on Sept. 20.