While Gus Malzahn received a seven-year, $49 million extension immediately following Auburn’s regular season run last season, it’s not an exaggeration to say his job may have been on the line just over two months prior.

If you go back to Oct. 14 in Death Valley, Auburn’s latest loss to LSU on the road positioned Malzahn directly over the guillotine on The Plains. Malzahn’s Tigers blew a 20-point lead in that game and the program’s offensive gameplan, which is supposed to be Malzahn’s strength, was being called into question once again after the unit was shutout in the second half by LSU.

The feeling in the locker room after the game was of pure devastation, according to starting quarterback Jarrett Stidham.

“Any time you are up 20 points, on the road, in Death Valley, you are feeling pretty good. Then, all of a sudden, it turned the wrong way and we — I think they scored 23 unanswered points. It was just a tough game to swallow, honestly,” Stidham said during his appearance at SEC Media Days.

While many teams could have folded following such a huge disappointment, which gave Auburn its second loss of the season — essentially knocking the team out of the College Football Playoff picture at the time (or so it seemed), the Tigers instead hit the reset button and started a win streak arguably as impressive as any produced in the nation last season.

In fact, Stidham believes the disappointment experienced by the Tigers that day in Baton Rouge directly resulted in the team’s five-game winning streak — which included two wins over No. 1-ranked teams (Georgia and Alabama).

“I don’t think we would have been in the position at the end of the season if we hadn’t have lost that game,” Stidham said. “From a leadership standpoint, we got together after that game and we kinda had to turn around the season because that was the lowest of the low. For us and the team, all the players, coaching staff, support staff, it was a pretty low point in the locker room after that game. The next day, we came to work, watched the film and got better and we hit that run from that game on.”

He repeated for good measure.

“I don’t think we would have been in the position to play for the SEC Championship Game without losing that game,” the quarterback reiterated.

To repeat that level of success, Auburn will have to rely on Stidham’s leadership immediately next season as the team opens the season in Atlanta against Washington before returning home to play Alabama State and LSU spanning the first three weeks of the season.