Auburn has won two SEC games in a row, beating Vanderbilt 31-15 on Saturday in Nashville, Tennessee.

It was a weird first half in Vanderbilt’s odd stadium setup amid a major renovation project in both endzones. But Auburn pulled away for good early in the third quarter.

And for a second straight week, it found some success on offense. At least mostly.

Let’s breakdown three keys from the game:

Jarquez Hunter is finally the player Auburn expected him to be

Jarquez Hunter’s situation leading into this season was murky and unclear. He missed the first couple of Auburn fall practices and the opening game against UMass. During the summer, a sex tape was released allegedly showing Hunter. Soon after, Auburn announced some unnamed players were being suspended. It didn’t state why.

There’s still much that’s unknown from that saga. So for the sake of this, we’ll focus on what happened on the field, because it took a while this season for Hunter’s production to get going.

If he was available to play, Hunter came into this season expected to be Auburn’s go-to guy on offense and possibly the team’s best player. But he never had more than 59 yards over his first four games of the year.

Then, over the last three weeks, things have changed. Hunter at last looks like the player Auburn hoped for. He had 91 yards against Ole Miss, 144 yards against Mississippi State and 183 yards against Vanderbilt.

Hunter provided virtually the entirety of Auburn’s first-half offense with a 67-yard touchdown rush and a 56-yard touchdown rush. He showed both his speed and power as a runner on the two long scores.

Auburn’s offense still has flaws — namely the passing game. It’s been a strong rushing team all season even before Hunter gained some momentum. But having him at his best, and getting better as the season goes on, is huge for this offense. He could still be Auburn’s best playmaker — and that’s for an offense that needs a playmaker from anywhere.

The famously big-play-reliant Auburn offense

Auburn had touchdowns of 67 yards, 56 yards and 53 yards. For an Auburn offense that has struggled all season to be dynamic or explosive, it was instead a boom-or-bust offense Saturday.

When it wasn’t scoring a long touchdown, Auburn was averaging closer to three yards a play. Auburn made poor decisions — namely the first-half Payton Thorne interception on a ball that should have absolutely not in any circumstances been thrown. Auburn had bad drops — namely Omari Kelly dropping a pass that could have been a wide-open touchdown.

Drops were actually a serious problem for Auburn in this game. It’s already been a maligned receiver group. Outside of the interception, Thorne played a pretty good game and his receivers did not help him again. This has been a season-long issue not necessarily with drops, but more so just an overall struggling receiver group.

But then that was mixed in with the big plays. Those three touchdowns are also each of Auburn’s three longest-scoring plays of the season. All in one game. Sure, why not.

Now, Vanderbilt also has a bad defense. Its total defense is 115th out of 130 FBS teams in terms of yards allowed per game. So it’s easy to say Auburn took advantage of its competition here. But Auburn hasn’t always done that.

Certainly was not a perfect day for the offense. But it’s a group that has seemed anemic to big plays all season. It finally got some. And if not for drops it could have had more.

Auburn is moving closer to bowl eligibility

This may be the most important takeaway from today. Auburn is now 5-4. It is one win away from bowl eligibility with games against Arkansas, New Mexico State and Alabama remaining.

Auburn will be a heavy favorite against New Mexico State and at this point, beating the Conference USA team is all Auburn needs to go bowling.

Certainly not the time to assume anything. But for that non-conference game to mean something, Auburn had to win two SEC games.

After four straight losses against teams Auburn was expected to lose to, Auburn entered a lighter portion of its schedule with games against Mississippi State and Vanderbilt back-to-back. Auburn’s easiest route of getting to a bowl game required wins in those two games.

Auburn got the job done. It was favored to win each of these games. It is the better team on paper. But Auburn still had to do its part and it did.

Auburn is not at bowl eligibility quite yet, but it has been a much-discussed goal to get a bowl out of this season. And it’s less so about the bowl game itself. It’s more about the practices Auburn will get because it has a bowl game.

This team is young. This team is developing. The coaching staff dearly needs those extra weeks of practice as they try to piece this whole thing together.

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]