Vanderbilt reaches bowl eligibility with road win at Auburn

Gritty Vanderbilt (6-3, 3-2 Southeastern Conference) used special teams, third-down defense and late-game clock control to get a 17-7 road upset of Auburn (3-6, 1-5) on Saturday afternoon and become bowl-eligible for the first time since 2018.It’s the Commodores’ first win at Jordan-Hare Stadium ever, and its first road win over Auburn since 1948, snapping a string of nine-straight road losses in the series.Vanderbilt didn’t complete a pass in the second or third quarter and had a long rushing play of seven yards.But Commodore quarterback Diego Pavia (9-of-22, 143 yards, 12 carries, 26 yards) sucked the life out of the Tigers at the end, engineering a game-clinching drive that took 8:53 off the clock and ended with a 4-yard touchdown pass to Eli Stowers with 4:18 left.Vanderbilt punter Jesse Mirco had eight punts for a 52.9-yard average and had a big hand in handing Auburn poor field position.The Commodores held Auburn to 2-of-13 on third downs.With the game tied at 7 in the third quarter, Mirco hit a 44-yard punt that was downed at the Auburn 2. The Tigers failed to move it past the one after their ninth-straight failed third-down conversion.Auburn punter Oscar Chapman smacked a 59-yard rocket in return, but Vanderbilt’s Martel Hight returned it 39 yards to the Tiger 21, setting up Taylor’s 31-yard field goal from the left hash with 1:05 remaining in the third quarter.Taylor added a 26-yard field goal with 5:18 left, but Auburn’s Keldric Faulk was whistled for a personal foul for gaining illegal leverage in trying to block the kick.Exactly a minute later, Pavia hit Stowers in the flat and he banged his way into the end zone from 4 yards out, culminating a 14-play, 78-yard drive.

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