This Music City Bowl was always going to be the Transitive Rose Bowl, for two simple reasons:
Auburn wins Transitive Rose Bowl with one of biggest bowl beatdowns ever
The Tigers, who beat Washington, beat the hell out of the team that beat Ohio State.
Important illustration by Alex Kirshner
- Music City Bowl participant Purdue was the only team to beat Rose Bowl participant Ohio State, and did so by 29 points.
- Music City Bowl participant Auburn beat Rose Bowl participant Washington more convincingly than anybody else did (it was both in regulation and by more than three points, so there you have it).
Therefore, Auburn’s record-tying, 63-14 annihilation of Purdue establishes the Tigers as 2018’s true lords of Pasadena, regardless of what actually happens on New Year’s Day.
In fact, I think Auburn should pull a 2017 UCF and have a Rose Invitational victory parade, based on the Rose Bowl Colley Matrix. You can ignore the previous sentence if you want.
But enough of that stupid joke I prepared before the game even began. Let’s talk (briefly) about what took place during the game.
Well, the first half gave Auburn the new record for points scored in any half of any bowl game ever, with 56. So that’s good. Also, Purdue only had seven. So that’s even better. These are not misprints.
At the half, Auburn QB Jarrett Stidham had 335 passing yards and four touchdowns, both the highest of his entire Auburn career in any full game against an FBS opponent. (He’d had slightly bigger numbers in a couple full games against FCS teams and at Baylor.) Again, that was at the HALF.
Stidham neared the all-time bowl record for passing yards in a quarter, with his 250 in the first 17 minutes approaching 2014 CMU QB Cooper Rush’s 255 in a quarter against WKU. Auburn’s QB would finish with five touchdowns in 21 attempts.
Moving on.
Auburn didn’t punt until 18 minutes remained in the game. The score was 63-14 at the time.
Auburn put freshman QB Joey Gatewood in with eight minutes to go, his first college action ever. The score was still 63-14.
Gatewood then led Auburn inches shy of tying two all-time bowl scoring records: 70 total points and a 56-point margin of victory.
(2018 Army tied both those marks against Houston this bowl season. Idk what to do with this information.)
Either way, the Tigers very easily could’ve punched in a last-minute score, but Gatewood kneeled it at the goal line as the clock wound down.
Most importantly of all, this game assures Auburn stays off a pretty bad list.
Miami will claim the title of 2018’s Most Overrated Team, thanks to its loss to fellow Overrated Team Wisconsin.
Preseason top-10 Auburn likewise had a disappointing season overall, but walking away with a 78-point transitive victory over Ohio State and a head-to-head-win over Pac-12 champ Washington is a nice pair of bookends.
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