AUBURN, Ala. (AP)—Chris Todd passed for 287 yards and tied a school record with five touchdown passes to lead Auburn to a 54-30 victory over winless Ball State on Saturday night another rain-delayed game for the Tigers.
Auburn (4-0) trailed 7-0 early, but rallied with an impressive offensive showing, gaining 487 yards.
Todd’s aerial show included touchdowns of 46 yards and 65 yards to Terrell Zachery in the second quarter. Zachery had five catches for 122 yards.
Onterio McCalebb rushed eight times for 86 yards for Auburn.
Kelly Page passed for 101 yards and one touchdown and ran for another to lead the Cardinals (0-4).
Auburn continued its impressive early season offensive showing. The Tigers have scored 181 points so far this season, the most ever for Auburn in its first four games.
Kickoff was delayed for 30 minutes because of heavy rain and lightning. It was the second week in a row that storms had delayed the start of an Auburn game. Last week’s game against West Virginia was delayed for more than an hour by rain and lightning.
Todd’s five touchdown passes tied the Auburn record set by Daniel Cobb in an overtime game against Louisiana Tech in 2001.
In addition to the two long scoring passes to Zachery, Todd had scoring passes of 26 yards to Darvin Adams, 36 yards to Mario Fannin and 6 yards to Tommy Trott.
Ball State refused to give up, scoring 20 points in the second half, mostly against Auburn substitutes.
Auburn backup quarterback Neil Caudle got into the game in the second half and scored on 52-yard run up the middle.
Ball State of the Midwest Athletic Conference put an early scare into the heavily favored Tigers of the Southeastern Conference, jumping out to a 7-0 lead less than three minutes into the game. The score came after Auburn’s Anthony Gulley fumbled a Ball State punt and Kyle Hoke recovered at the Auburn 18. The Cardinals scored four plays later on a 2-yard run by Miquale Lewis.
Auburn got it’s offense going late in the first quarter after Josh Bynes recovered a fumble by Cardinals’ quarterback Kelly Page. The Tigers then drove 29 yards in five plays, scoring on a 6-yard pass over the middle from Todd to Tommy Trott. It was Trott’s third career touchdown catch and first since 2006.
Auburn quickly turned the game into a blowout after that, scoring 23 points in the first 7 minutes of the second quarter. The offensive burst included the two touchdown bombs to Zachery and an impressive 65-yard run by McCalebb to the Auburn one-yard-line. McCalebb scored on a 1-yard run a play later.
Ball State’s only other score in the first half came on Ian McGarvey’s 33-yard field goal.
Auburn’s Wes Byrum kicked a 33-yard field goal at the end of the first half. It was his sixth field goal in six attempts this season. The six consecutive field goals is a career best for Byrum.
Head to Head - Week 4
| Team | Total Yds | Pass Yds | Rush Yds | First Downs | 3rdD% | Pen./Yds | Turnovers | Time of Poss. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ball State | 260 | 114 | 146 | 19 | 33.3% | 4/23 | 2 | 35:56 |
| Auburn | 560 | 306 | 254 | 21 | 40.0% | 9/86 | 2 | 24:04 |
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19 Comments
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6-6 at the end of the season- look at your schedule and that is easy to figure out.
Roll Tide...............................................................
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WAR DAMN EAGLE!
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Over rated means you're supposed to win and you don't..
Ummm, you mean like Ohio state, USC, Cal, Penn state??? Oh look!!! TWo teams from each of them!!
Ole Miss loses, and it's the SEC that's over rated!! Ok, riiiight!!
The SEC had 4 teams in there, so they're twice as likely to lose.
It's 4-1 in losses with 4 to 4 in teams.
The SEC is playing well, and the pac and big 10 have stunk up September.
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The system stinks.
People refuse to let over rated teams like Penn state... 4 weeks, all home games, no covers vs the spread + first tough team they lose to = over rated.. Why are they still ranked? Didn't they also get killed in their bowl game??? Oh yeah, put them in the top 10 anyhow, you cheaters!!
Cal pretty much the same thing, they play the teams that have been very bad and then play a good team and get completely wiped out... but still in the top 25!!! Why? Because there are some who vote by conference, and they NEED to have so many pac teams, so many big 10 teams, etc.
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AU may not have beaten a great team, But compared to last year, They have improved.
WDE ALL the way.
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Ole Miss and Ga. have shown how overrated the SEC teams are this year. SC will be a 5 game loser yet again. LSU no where near a REAL top 10 team. Alabama and Florida are the ONLY legitimate teams in the SEC and Alabama will beat down Florida in Atlanta. Alabama is a powerful Defensive team. This will be Saban's best and I'd look for Bama to put together an unbelievable run, about like USC of the past 10 years. As long as Saban hangs around. What a powerful team. Great coaching. Saban is a genius. Auburn is a 5 loss team, at least 5.
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1 - 19 of 19