The energy in the quaint college town that is Auburn began to shift Friday morning.

If you needed to go downtown for any reason on Friday, you’d need to grant yourself some extra time as parking was an absolute nightmare.

Come Friday night? Forget about it.

Live music played outside of Toomer’s Drug Store, fans filed into the iconic Johnston and Malone Book Store to pick up last-minute Auburn gear and families posed for pictures and picnicked in the front lawn of Samford Hall.

The Plains were buzzing as members of the Auburn Family came from far and wide to be a part of the first true night game of the season at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

And that energy bled into Saturday night’s game – just as Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin knew it would.

“I just think that place – having played it here and having played it at Alabama – just sometimes has some magical things happen in it,” Kiffin said of Jordan-Hare Stadium on Monday.

And though Auburn fell to No. 13 Ole Miss 28-21 Saturday night, giving the Tigers their fourth-consecutive loss of the season, that magic Kiffin reference was still present Saturday night.

The magic of Jordan-Hare Stadium jabbed at the Rebels quick and came in the shape of a pair of false start penalties that were whistled against the Ole Miss offense in its first drive of the game.

The voodoo of Auburn’s homefield struck again in the middle of the second quarter as Ole Miss lined up for a 27-yard field goal. But Ole Miss kicker Caden Davis would never get the chip shot off the ground as his holder, Charlie Pollack, fumbled the snap. Pollack went on to throw the ball, which was intercepted by Zion Puckett.

To add to the madness, Ole Miss’ final punt of the first half traveled all of 12 yards.

“It happens in this stadium,” Kiffin said in a halftime interview with ESPN. “Weird things happen. We screw up the field goal, bad punt, but, you know, to be tied at half, and we played a really ugly half, and weathered their storm.”

The 13th-ranked team in the country brought its own platter to Auburn Saturday, polished it up, plopped a win in the center of it and extended it out to Auburn.

All Hugh Freeze and the Tigers had to do was grab it.

Instead, after Ole Miss committed its second false start during its first offensive drive, followed by a holding penalty to give the Rebels a 3rd-and-22 situation, the Auburn offense allowed Quinshon Judkins to rip off a 21-yard rush.

On 4th-and-1 on the plus side of the field, the Kiffin decided to gamble early and keep his offense on the field. It paid off as Judkins took off for another 17-yard gain. The Rebels would go on to score with an 11-yard passing touchdown from Jaxson Dart to Zakhari Franklin.

“We continue to lose the battles on third and fourth down and that’s disappointing,” Freeze said following the game.

Then came the botched field goal, which kept the score in a 14-14 stalemate.

Instead of using the momentum — with Robby Ashford under center — the Auburn offense spit and sputtered before going three-and-out for the third time in less than two quarters. The Tigers finished the night with six three-and-out drives.

Even then, Auburn still had Ole Miss’ shanked punt to try and take advantage of.

After Ole Miss punter Fraser Masin sent a punt just 12 yards down the field, Auburn’s offense was primed with great field position, taking over possession just outside midfield at its own 45-yard line.

The Tigers were gifted an opportunity to take some sort of lead – whether it be three points or seven points – into halftime.

The ensuing play, however, featured an interception thrown by Robby Ashford, who targeted a double-covered Ja’Varrius Johnson in the Ole Miss endzone.

By the second half of play, the Rebels had somewhat settled into the uncomfortable environment that is Jordan-Hare Stadium. And as such, Auburn missed the boat on using its homefield’s magic to its advantage.

But boy, if the boat wasn’t waiting patiently in the harbor.

“I was excited about this chance,” said Hugh Freeze, who mentioned several times in the days leading up to Saturday’s game that he was looking forward to his first true night game at under the lights of Jordan-Hare. “What a crowd we had.”

And here’s the thing, it’ll take a lot – A LOT – for Auburn fans not to show up in the masses on any given Saturday, but especially a Saturday night under the lights.

However, as indicated by the boos that rained down on Pat Dye Field in the third quarter, the Auburn fanbase’s patience is thinning, and it’s thinning at an alarming rate.

“It was an incredible night and really felt like we would be in this game for the entirety,” Freeze said. “And it’s just we couldn’t and we had our chances.”