AUBURN, Ala. — Arkansas learned the hard way not to step on Auburn’s midfield logo.

Auburn players walked to midfield for its pre-game prayer circle only to find Arkansas players standing on their midfield logo. Shouting matches ensued.

Then, on the first offensive play of the game, Auburn delivered the message it wanted: a 78-yard touchdown run. No. 21 Auburn went on to demolish No. 17 Arkansas 56-3, the largest win against a ranked opponent in school history.

“And then from the first quarter, from the first play, our whole team was ready to smack them in the mouth,” Auburn offensive guard Alex Kozan said.

The Tigers were already motivated to beat a top-20 opponent, but the incident before the game turned the dial from 10 to 11 inside Jordan-Hare Stadium.

“Definitely disrespectful,” Auburn quarterback Sean White said. “That’s just one thing we asked before the game, just don’t step on the AU. That’s something we value and they didn’t really care. We didn’t need any extra motivation. We had motivation anyway. That gave us a little extra juice.”

Auburn went on to rush for 543 yards, the most rushing yards by a team in the country this season and the most in program history in an SEC regular season game. Players quickly picked up their phones and tweeted out a variation of “#DontStepOnTheAU” moments after the victory.

“We’ve never had that happen before in our prayer circle, but, hey, we were wanting to win the football game and we were plenty motivated (already),” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said.

Auburn walked back into the locker room to dress for the game amped up. Speeches were shared in the locker room. “There were some serious things said,” Kozan said.

Arkansas defensive lineman Taiwan Johnson explained things from Arkansas' side.

"Every pregame we have a little captain's walk where we talk in the middle of the field, and I guess Auburn didn't really like it," Johnson said. "We were on their logo. We tried to defuse the situation, but it escalated, so we just got out of the way."

Kozan said his unit is filled with “gentlemen,” and when they asked Arkansas to move from the midfield logo, the Razorbacks started to talk trash. The Tigers retaliated.

“That got the whole team fired up,” Kozan said. “I’ve been a part of probably 30 SEC games now since I redshirted (in 2014). I’ve never seen a team do that. For us, we felt disrespected. We let them know it. Hopefully they won’t do that again. We taught them a lesson.”

An unusual scene before kickoff as Auburn & Arkansas were jumping around and hollering at each other near midfield. pic.twitter.com/gfSMExDUjI — James Crepea (@JamesCrepea) October 22, 2016