Ole Miss vs. Auburn 2017 final score: Tigers take care of business at home

The second half wasn’t as pretty as the first, but No. 12 Auburn picked up a 44-23 win over Ole Miss on Saturday afternoon.

It was another big day for Kerryon Johnson, who ran the ball 28 times for 204 yards and three touchdowns. (That’s a monstrous average of 7.3 yards per carry.) If Johnson can crank out numbers like these when he’s not fully healthy, imagine what he can do when he is.

Jarrett Stidham had another solid performance, completing 14-of-21 passes on the day. Two of those passes were for touchdowns.

On the other side of the football, Auburn’s defense gave up more than we’ve seen all season. Shea Patterson threw for 346 yards and two touchdowns, both of which came in the second half. Running back Jordan Wilkins had 13 touches for 65 hard-fought yards and a touchdown. Auburn fans haven’t seen many 100-yard receivers in recent games, but A.J. Brown did it with 10 catches for 109 yards. He was hard to defend for Auburn and will be hard to defend for anybody. Ole Miss ended the day with 429 yards of total offense: 83 on the ground and 346 through the air.

Despite being held to only nine points in the second half, Auburn finished the day with 561 yards of total offense. Over half of those yards came on the ground in another strong rushing performance behind an offensive line that seems to be gelling.

I would be remiss if I did not give a shoutout to Daniel Carlson, who became the SEC’s all-time leading scorer with 413 total points.

Here’s what the next four weeks look like for Auburn: at LSU, at Arkansas, bye week then at Texas A&M. The Tigers have momentum, and most would agree that Auburn should win all three of those SEC road games. I don’t disagree, but let’s just take it one week at a time.