D.J. Lagway's 333 yards died on third down

Fourth and goal at the Auburn 5 with nine seconds left, and D.J. Lagway found Gavin Freeman at the goal line for the touchdown that pulled Baylor within a point. Dave Aranda kept his offense on the field. Lagway rolled right and threw a quick out to tight end Matthew Klopfenstein, and Eric Winters stopped him inches short. "We were prepared for it. Once I saw him go, I went too," Winters told AuburnTigers.com. "As soon as he caught it, I wrapped him up."

Replay reviewed the previous play for a runner down by contact and upheld it. The clock is reported two ways, nine seconds by the Associated Press and 11 by AuburnTigers.com. It was Winters' second goal-line stop inside a minute: at 0:59 he met Dawson Pendergrass, 25 carries for 88 yards and no touchdown, at the Auburn 3 and held him to a yard. He was SEC co-defensive player of the week, per Auburn Wire.

All three of Byrum Brown's interceptions were caught in Baylor's half

"Man, I take more blame for the picks than, to be honest with you, Byrum," Golesh said in the ASAP Sports transcript. "That's on us as much as anybody, really on me trying to force it a little bit." Reggie Bush II intercepted Brown at the Baylor 4 at 7:20 of the second. At 0:03 of the half, Devonte Tezino tipped one and Devon Jordan took it at the Baylor 11. Micah Gifford got the third at the Baylor 45.

The middle one ended a drive that had reached the Baylor 13. The play-by-play records where each ball was caught and not the coverage that produced it, so what Brown was reading on any of the three is not recoverable here. Right after Gifford's, at 11:46 of the fourth, Brown drove Auburn back and ran it in from 11 yards at 3:21, after Chas Nimrod's 26-yard catch at 4:36 reached the Baylor 18. The Auburn Observer reports it was the first three-interception game of his career.

Brown threw for 259 yards on 35 attempts and carried 21 times for 27, which reads like a quarterback who cannot run and is not one. Four of those carries are sacks, since college scoring charges a sack as a rush attempt, and only Tezino's eight-yard drop of him is itemized here, so the corrected rushing line cannot be printed. Auburn's standing complaint about quarterback play, which Hugh Freeze tied to Jackson Arnold when he was fired, does not cleanly extend to a passer Golesh imported in January who ran for 1,008 yards at South Florida last season.

D.J. Lagway threw 54 times and converted five third downs

Lagway came from Florida and this was his first game for Baylor, the loudest question either fanbase carried into Atlanta. He threw 54 times for 333 yards and two touchdowns, and by expected points his night was the second most valuable of anyone on the field. He also went 5 of 18 on third down and lost 10 yards on three carries on a braced ankle. The arm showed up. The down that ends possessions did not.

Freeman caught 12 of 17 targets for 154 yards and a touchdown, a career high per Sports Illustrated, and his night was worth better than fifteen points of expected value, more than any other player produced. Read that column against the other names beside it rather than against a league norm; none is attached here. Jadon Porter took 5 of 10 for 77 and finished in the red by the same measure. Louis Brown had 5 of 9 for 62 and the touchdown at 1:30 of the second.

Eleven tackles for loss did not get Baylor off the field

Auburn converted 10 of 18 third downs and Baylor converted 7 of 22, in Joe Klanderman's first season running the Baylor defense. Jeremiah Koger went 3 of 3 there, 66 yards on five catches, and his 30-yard catch on third and 1 at 9:14 of the first set up Alex McPherson's 43-yard field goal. Keshaun Singleton, 89 yards on seven catches, went 2 of 3. Brown himself was 9 of 16.

Baylor's front created more negative plays than anything Auburn's did. Tezino sacked Brown twice and added two tackles for loss; Garrick Ponder had a sack and two and a half stops behind the line, Daniel Cobbs a sack and one more. The Baylor Lariat counted 11 tackles for loss and three takeaways. Auburn's only sack came from Xavier Atkins, who also had two tackles for loss. Rhett Armstrong's 22-yard field goal at 7:12 of the fourth was what all of it produced.

Elijah Melendez outproduced Winters everywhere the number can look

Melendez took 3.8 points of expected value off the board across seven negative plays, more than any other Auburn defender. Winters' column reads 2.0 across four. That column cannot see the play that ended the game, because a two-point try sits outside expected points, and it does not price Winters' strip of Lagway at 10:05 of the first at its full swing either, which was close to four points on one snap, more than Melendez's whole night.

The claim survives anyway, narrowed to what it covers. Over sixty minutes rather than two snaps, Melendez led, though the distance between 3.8 and 2.0 in a single game is one game's margin and not a verdict. He is a sophomore, one of Auburn's five captains and a Freshman All-SEC pick last season on 29 tackles and two interceptions, per Auburn Daily. At 0:17 he and Dallas Walker IV dropped Pendergrass back to the Auburn 5, which is why the touchdown was a five-yard throw.

D.J. Durkin has the title, the money and the adjustment quote

Freeze was fired Nov. 2, 2025, and Durkin, coordinator since Jan. 31, 2024, ran the last three games as interim head coach. Golesh, announced Nov. 30, retained him on Dec. 2 and then hired Tim Banks as co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach on Dec. 12, after five seasons running Tennessee's defense. Auburn pays Durkin $2.7 million and Banks $500,000. Nothing on the record says who called Saturday's defense. Durkin holds the title and the quote: "We had to adjust our leverage and alignments to defend the type of routes we were getting."

Aranda went for two and the record does not settle it

"There was no hesitation with that. We referenced the book and the book said to go for it," Aranda told Sports Illustrated, adding that "a bunch of guys getting Band-Aid up" factored in; Lagway played through an ankle sprain and returned with it braced, per the AP. Dan Wolken defended the call in Yahoo Sports: "Analytically, it was the right call." Brad Teague, on SI's Baylor site, wrote, "I'm kicking the PAT." Neither cites a number, and nothing in this game supplies one, so the disagreement stands where they left it.

"I thought the two fourth-down stops defensively to be able to go with the turnovers was the difference in the game," Golesh said. The other one was Rayshawn Pleasant's, breaking up Lagway's throw for Porter on fourth and 2 from the Auburn 16 at 6:09 of the third and ending a 10-play, 58-yard drive with nothing. Baylor leaves with Jacob Redding's torn ACL, per the Lariat, and Lagway day to day. Durkin's unit is the one thing on that sideline that has not been rebuilt.