Jahdae Barron expresses confidence in struggling Texas K Bert Auburn

Auburn missed two go-ahead kicks late in the Peach Bowl, extending slump that started in the SEC Championship game.

Sideshow Doink.

As time expired in the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Day, the game-winning field-goal attempt from Texas Longhorns kicker Bert Auburn hit off the left upright and fell harmlessly into the end zone at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, giving the Arizona State Sun Devils a chance to win in overtime.

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian had just pulled Auburn aside and given him a pep talk that failed miserably, sparking criticism from Sarkisian’s former boss, Nick Saban.

“When I saw that happening, I said, ‘I never talked to these guys when they had to make a kick.’ Never. I didn’t want them to think it was a different kick than every other kick that they had to make and be so concerned about the outcome of making the kick, that they didn’t just kick with confidence and go through their normal rhythm,” Saban said on the Pat McAfee show.

The first miss of the season by Auburn from inside 40 yards came less than two minutes of game time after Auburn sent a go-ahead 48-yard attempt wide right.

In Auburn’s three seasons as the starting place kicker for the Longhorns, he’s only had three games with two missed field goals. The second came in the SEC Championship game loss to the Bulldogs and comes during a season in which Auburn’s accuracy has dropped to 64 percent, down from 82.9 percent last year and 80.8 percent in 2022.

It’s not the first time that Auburn has struggled during his Texas career, though — by early October last season, the Flower Mound product had already matched his number of misses from the 2022 season with five, including his first game with multiple miscues, a blowout win over Kansas that included misses from 50 yards and 47 yards.

At the time, Sarkisian expressed his confidence in Auburn, looking instead from improvement from the battery around Auburn — deep snapper Lance St. Louis and holder Ryan Sanborn.

Sarkisian’s decision paid off, as St. Louis and Sanborn improved their consistency and Auburn went on to make 19 consecutive field goals, setting school and conference records in the process.

But the fix isn’t so easy this time, as Texas special teams coordinator Jeff Banks told Burnt Orange Nation at Peach Bowl Media Day that he was happy with the holds for Auburn, who has been striking the ball well enough, just not accurately enough.

“I think he has the experience to make those kicks. I think when you get past 50, you’re looking at a tougher kick… I think it’s just been a little bit hit or miss, a little bit unlucky. He’s missed some field goals to the right, but not by very much — by four or five feet,” Banks told Burnt Orange Nation.

“It’s a good kick as far as contact, so that’s probably been the more frustrating thing. When you miss field goals and you hit the ball poorly, for me it’s like, that’s a shitty kick. You know what I mean? He hasn’t had a lot of those, it’s just missing it slightly to the right or to the left, so hopefully he can get a rhythm these next few games.”

It didn’t happen against the Sun Devils, nearly ending the season for the Longhorns.

And since kickoff specialist Will Stone hasn’t attempted a field goal in his three seasons on the Forty Acres, Sarkisian doesn’t really have any other options except to stick with Auburn, who still has the support of teammates like cornerback Jahdae Barron.

“He’s made a lot of amazing kicks for us in the past. He’s going to come up big when we need him. So if he could just block out the noise, he knows that we’re riding with him, that’s what the culture is here — no matter the ups and downs, we’re always going to pick somebody up,” Barron said on Monday.