Auburn will square off against Massachusetts at 2:30 p.m. CDT Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn.
Consecutive Auburn coaches have won their first season-opening game with the Tigers. Hugh Freeze will try to continue that streak on Saturday. The most recent Auburn coach to lose in his first season-opening game was Doug Barfield, whose Tigers lost a road game to Arizona 31-19 on Sept.
11, 1976. The intervening six Auburn full-time coaches began their tenures with victories. Pat Dye defeated TCU 24-16 in his first game in 1981, Terry Bowden defeated Ole Miss 16-12 in 1993, Tommy Tuberville defeated Appalachian State 22-15 in 1999, Gene Chizik defeated Louisiana Tech 37-13 in 2009, Gus Malzahn defeated Washington State 31-24 in 2013 and Bryan Harsin defeated Akron 60-10 in 2021.Massachusetts players transferred from Power 5 programs during the offseason, including safety Dashaun Jerkins, who played three seasons at Vanderbilt and one at Ole Miss. Eight of the transfers came from Arizona, where UMass coach Don Brown was the defensive coordinator in 2021.Consecutive victories for Auburn in home games against unranked non-conference opponents. The most recent non-SEC team to come into Jordan-Hare Stadium unranked and upend the Tigers is South Florida, which scored a 26-23 victory on Sept. 7, 2007. Both Auburn and South Florida went 9-4 that season.Victories, 27 losses and two ties for Auburn in season-opening games. The Tigers have won their past five season-opening games.Games have been played by Auburn since it was most recently shut out, the second-longest streak in school history. Auburn’s most recent shutout loss came 49-0 to Alabama on Nov. 17, 2012. Auburn’s record scoring streak lasted 149 games, starting with a 55-16 victory over Richmond on Oct. 4, 1980, and ending with a 17-0 loss to Alabama on Nov. 26, 1992. Auburn’s current scoring streak is the 10th-longest in SEC history, and its record streak is the ninth-longest.Games as a college head coach for Hugh Freeze. By number of games, he’s the most experienced head coach that Auburn has hired. Jack Meagher in 1934 and Terry Bowden in 1993 had been head coaches in 101 games when they came to Auburn. Freeze has a 103-47 on-the-field record as a college head coach.Passing yards and 96 rushing yards for QB Taisun Phommachanh in Massachusetts’ 41-30 season-opening victory over New Mexico State last week to lead the Minutemen in both categories. Phommachanh was at Clemson for three seasons and Georgia Tech for one before joining UMass.September games for Auburn when the Tigers take the field on Saturday. Auburn has a 184-60-5 record in the ninth month. The Tigers are 118-23-1 at home in September.Passing yards and 46 TD passes for Auburn QB Payton Thorne over the previous two seasons while playing at Michigan State. In 2021 and 2022, Auburn had 5,193 passing yards and 26 TD passes.
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