Auburn’s 14-10 win over Cal on Saturday night wasn’t pretty.

Prior to Auburn’s win over Cal, teams that committed four turnovers and neglected to tally at least 15 first downs were just 1-65 since the 2018 season.

Now such teams are 2-65 with the Tigers being one of them.

“You just don’t win many games like that, so we’re very fortunate,” said first-year head coach Hugh Freeze. “I know this: I don’t know that I’ve ever had a season when you didn’t have a game where you felt like you easily could have lost that game, but boy, our kids found a way.”

While it felt like the Tigers nearly did everything in their power to give the game to Cal, the Golden Bears might not have helped themselves in the days leading up to the cross-country matchup.

Cal running back Jaydn Ott poked the bear on Wednesday, giving Auburn the kind of material that’s perfect to put on display around the locker room.

“There’s a lot of focus on the name ‘Auburn’,” Ott said in a media interview Wednesday. “But what I’ve seen on film is not really in comparison to what their name is. I just want to get that into my guys’ heads that a name doesn’t mean anything. At the end of the day, they’re still human, and we have just as much of a chance as they do to go in there and get the win.”

In his first game of the season against North Texas, Ott rushed for 188 yards and two touchdowns, so maybe some of the confidence was warranted.

Little did he know, however, that word got back to Auburn’s locker room and some of the players didn’t think too kindly of it.

Ott’s words weren’t a huge topic of conversation or affixed to the walls of Auburn’s locker room, Freeze said.

“I did mention it in my pregame talk,” Freeze said. “I don’t think that’s the reason we stopped the run. It certainly did get them some motivation, for sure.”

Against the Tigers, Ott rushed for 78 yards and touchdown while only averaging 3.9 yards per carry and posting a game long of just 14 yards.

Following the game, Auburn defensive lineman Marcus Harris took a jab saying, “I guess they were supposed to run the ball on us or something.”

With Ott leading the charge, Cal rushed for 141 yards against the Tigers – a mark well below its 361 rushing yards from the week prior.

“We don’t take things like that lightly in terms of how we prepare,” Auburn linebacker Eugene Asante said. “And, you know, when chatter comes — it comes with the game. Some guys are overconfident. Some guys are cocky or arrogant. I’m not saying that Cal is that way, but it just comes with the game. But when we heard it, it really motivated us.”

Asante and cornerback Keionte Scott are two guys who really get riled up by outside chatter, said Auburn freshman cornerback Kayin Lee.

While they might not pick a fight or go out of their way to seek the outside noise, when they hear it, it digs at them.

“They’re going to back it up,” Lee said. “We’re all going to back it up every time.”

Scott didn’t have a bad game as he recorded three tackles. But Asante? Asante backed it up.

With 12 tackles, 1.5 tackles for a loss, a sack and two quarterback hurries, Asante played hero ball Saturday night as Auburn leaned on its defense with deadweight as the Tigers’ offense sputtered.

Asante’s effort was enough to earn him SEC Co-Defensive Player of the Week honors.

Ahead of Saturday’s showdown in Berkeley, Calif., Freeze approached Asante to discuss Ott’s jabs, Asante told reporters Monday.

“To be honest, I appreciate (Ott) for saying what he said. I appreciate him for speaking his mind and being truthful of how I feel,” Asante said.

“Some players come up here, they: ‘You know, we’re playing a really good opponent.’ And they lie, but he just said what he felt. Like, the truth. What he thought was the truth. So I appreciate him. It helped us a lot.”