Battered and bleeding, standing on cramping and wobbly legs, Auburn's defenders were burdened with a seemingly impossible task on Sept. 17, 1994.
The Tigers’ 13-game winning streak seemed all but over. LSU led 23-9 with in the fourth quarter at Jordan-Hare Stadium, and Auburn’s offense struggled to make first downs. If Auburn was to win, the defense was going to have to do it.
The defense won it all right, in a fashion that lives still in Auburn lore and LSU infamy.
Five times in the fourth quarter Auburn defensive backs intercepted Jamie Howard passes. Three times, they returned them for touchdowns, turning an almost certain defeat into one of the more implausible victories in school history.
The final score was 30-26, finally left there in lights after Chris Shelling intercepted Howard one last time in the end zone to end a bizarre afternoon before a crowd of 84,759. In Terry Bowden’s second season as coach, Auburn marched on toward what would be a 20-game winning streak.
"Defense! Defense!" the crowd screamed as Auburn's weary players made their way to a dressing room celebration. "Defense!" Bowden called back as he disappeared from sight.
"I think we've seen something maybe historic," Bowden said later. "I've never been in a game like that. I've never seen one. We couldn't get a first down. Our offense offered no help, no chance of coming back."
No, it didn't. But the defense did.
Redshirt freshman safety Ken Alvis grabbed the first fourth-quarter Auburn interception and took it 42 yards for a touchdown. He fought his way through two tacklers to the end zone. Cornerback Fred Smith took another Howard pass 32 yards to tie it up.
LSU, pulling itself together, marched 70 yards in 13 plays to its final points, a 22-yard Andre LaFleur field goal, for a 26-23 lead with 5:42 left.
Facing third-and-eight with just more than two minutes left, LSU probably could have won the game by being conservative and punting the ball away. But Howard dropped to throw again. His passes tipped by linebacker Jason Miska. Brian Robinson, incredibly, snatched it out of the air and fled 41 yards to the winning touchdown.
"I think this is the biggest day in my Auburn career," Robinson said when it was over. "I saw the ball in the air and my eyes got really big. Once I had it, I knew I was going to score."
The defense's own heroics made for a painful fourth quarter. Auburn's offense was on the field for only six snaps in the final 15 minutes. The defense had to fight through numbing fatigue.
When it was over, LSU offensive coordinator Lynne Amedee snarled that the better team didn’t win. He said Auburn was in an unsound defense. It was a loss that probably sealed the fate of LSU coach Curley Hallman.
Wayne Hall was the Auburn defensive coordinator that day, and he says it was a game that will be with him always.
“That was probably the most fun I ever had in football,” Hall says. “Coach Amedee said we were in an unsound defense. It was unsound because Brian Robinson was completely out of position when he made that play.
“The thing about it is, the way the offense was playing that day, if there is any one of those we don’t run in, we probably don’t win.”
LSU had 21 first downs to Auburn’s eight and 407 yards offense to Auburn’s 165. The Bayou Bengals ran 89 offensive plays to Auburn’s 53 and had the ball for 37:50 to Auburn’s 22:10.
“You get one like that in your career, when there’s absolutely no way you should win and you win anyway,” Bowden says. “It was the most improbable victory in that 20-game winning streak.”
Even after Robinson’s dramatic return, there was more drama. Robinson, it seemed, had ended the game when he intercepted Howard's pass inside the final minute. But, with his coaches and teammates screaming for him to get on the ground, he fumbled it back at the 46. Two plays later, Shelling grabbed Auburn's sixth interception of the game and put an end to the thing.
"This is probably the most disappointed I've ever been in my coaching career," Hallman said when it was over. "I don't know that I've ever been in a game like this. It's hard to handle, but you have to handle it."
