All week long, Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze said that despite next week’s Iron Bowl looming large, Saturday’s matchup against the New Mexico State Aggies would have he and the Tigers’ full attention.

After all, the Aggies were coming to Jordan-Hare Stadium riding a six-game win streak and were piloted by the same starting quarterback who was responsible for six total touchdowns against a Freeze-led Liberty team last season.

Freeze said he believed two things: New Mexico State was one of the best Group-of-5 teams in the country and that the Aggies had the potential to sting the Tigers.

And Jerry Kill’s New Mexico State team proved both to be true Saturday as the Aggies stunned the Tigers 31-10 from Jordan-Hare Stadium Saturday night. The loss was Auburn’s first ever to a Conference USA opponent and the first to a Group-of-5 team since 1991, when it lost to Southern Miss.

Meanwhile, Saturday’s result gives New Mexico State its first win over a SEC opponent in program history.

Here are the takeaways from Saturday’s disaster, which snapped the Tigers’ three-game win streak and dropped them to 6-5 (3-4 SEC) on the year.

Auburn falls victim to nightmarish, penalty-ridden start

Auburn couldn’t have asked for a better start last week against Arkansas.

Come Saturday afternoon, however, the Tigers couldn’t have asked for a much worse start.

With New Mexico State quarterback Diego Pavia starting under center despite being listed a “day-to-day” earlier in the week, the Aggies’ offense generated an 11-yard, 75-yard opening drive that ended in a 9-yard touchdown pass from Pavia to running back Kordell David.

Twice in New Mexico State’s opening drive, Auburn was tagged with defensive pass interference penalties — two flags that were just the first of 16 thrown in the first half of Saturday afternoon’s game.

Auburn finished the first half having tallied six penalties, totaling 45 yards.

Meanwhile, the Aggies were far from innocent, either. New Mexico State had 10 flags thrown against it in the first half, totaling 90 yards.

With the game’s flag-happy officials doing the Tigers no favors, Auburn was slow to so any sign of life against New Mexico State as it opened Saturday’s game seemingly lacking rhythm on offense and answers to the Aggies on defense.

New Mexico State out-gained Auburn 126 yards to 15 yards in the first quarter, while Pavia tallied 90 passing yards to Payton Thorne’s one passing yard.

The Tigers’ offense found a bit more success in the second quarter as it put up 101 yards of total offense and found the end zone via a 33-yard touchdown connection between Throne and tight end Rivaldo Fairweather.

However, come halftime, Auburn found itself trailing New Mexico State 10-7 and being out-gained by the Aggies 194-116.

Aggies dominate time of possession, sting Tigers with silently balanced attack

While the New Mexico State offense entered Saturday’s matchup against Auburn with a relatively balanced offensive approach having put up 2,267 rushing yards and 2,356 passing yards on the season, the Aggies’ offense felt all but balanced against the Tigers.

Of New Mexico State’s 194 yards in the first half, 127 came through the air as Pavia went 12-for-18 with a touchdown. At one point, Pavia completed six straight passes, of which all went to different receivers.

Come the second half, the trend continued as Pavia piloted the Aggies on another touchdown-scoring drive on their first possession, this time needing 10 yards to travel 80 yards.

Pavia went 4-for-5 through the air, totaling 50 yards and his second touchdown pass of the night — a 17-yard connection to Star Thomas, which gave the Aggies a 17-10 advantage with 5:03 to play in the third quarter.

However, while a majority of New Mexico State’s offensive yardage came through the air and it never felt like the Aggies used a balanced approach, they did.

In the first half, New Mexico State ran 14 rush plays to its 18 passing plays. In the second half, the the Aggies ramped up their ground game, running 22 rush plays to its 10 passing plays. New Mexico State averaged 6.7 yards per rush in the second half.

And it was their silent, but balanced attack that allowed the Aggies to eat away at the play clock and dominate the Tigers in time of possession.

New Mexico State’s offense had possession of the ball for 19:36 in the first half and 18:52 in the second half, totaling 38:50 to Auburn’s 21:10 time of possession.

The Aggies offense ran 65 total plays to the Tigers’ 45 on Saturday.

Auburn’s offensive front has disastrous showing

After being critical of Auburn’s offensive line after the win at Vanderbilt, Freeze thought the Tigers’ guys up front did well in last week’s win against Arkansas. Those guys along the offensive front paved the way for the Tigers to dominate the trenches against the Razorbacks.

Come Saturday’s game against the Aggies, however, the group struggled — and it struggled bad.

The Auburn offensive line was responsible for four of the Tigers’ six first-half penalties as Izavion Miller, Jeremiah Wright and Dillon Wade were each hit with holding penalties, while Wade was also called for a false start.

Come the start of the second half, the Tigers’ offense couldn’t even get two plays off before Miller was called for being an ineligible man downfield, which backed up the Auburn offense five yards.

Meanwhile, the Tigers’ offensive front struggled to get any sort of push against the Aggies’ defensive line.

After Auburn running back Jarquez Hunter tallied 144, 183 and 109 rushing yards in his last three performances, Hunter only mustered 27 rushing yards on eight carries Saturday.

Thorne ended the night as Auburn’s leading rusher with 38 yards on the ground on 17 carries.

As a whole, the Tigers’ averaged just 2.5 yards per carry on Saturday.