Pickens Volunteers for Big Plays : Tennessee: He has touchdown receptions of 87 and 67 yards in 30-21 victory over Auburn before 97,731.

As Auburn Coach Pat Dye noted, Tennessee’s Carl Pickens didn’t catch many passes, but he made them count.

Pickens caught four passes for 172 yards, including touchdowns of 87 and 67 yards, to help No. 5 Tennessee to a 30-21 victory Saturday over the 13th-ranked Tigers before 97,731 fans, the largest crowd ever to see a game in Neyland Stadium.

Andy Kelly completed 23 of 35 passes for 355 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Volunteers, 4-0 overall and 2-0 in the Southeastern Conference, in the last of 36 consecutive meetings against the Tigers (3-1, 1-1).

“Kelly had a great night and Pickens is the kind of guy who makes a quarterback confident, when you can throw it up there for anybody to get and you know he’s going to come down with it,” Dye said. “Pickens, I don’t think he caught but three or four passes, but they were big ones.”

Kelly had a 15-yard touchdown pass to Tavio Henson to go with the long scoring strikes to Pickens. The 87-yarder was the longest pass play in Tennessee history.

“It was an exciting game,” Tennessee Coach Johnny Majors said. “I don’t think the fans can complain. They certainly got their money’s worth.”

With Tennessee backed up to the 13 after clipping on a punt return, Kelly hit Pickens at the Auburn 40 on the Volunteers’ first play of the second half.

Pickens shook off cornerback Fred Smith at the Auburn 35, and scored with less than three minutes gone in the half.

“I think that was the turning point. We tried to come out in the second half and score early and that’s what we did,” Pickens said. “We got our momentum going right there, and once we did it was kind of hard to stop.”

After Tennessee added a 34-yard field goal by John Becksvoort to take a 20-7 lead, Smith got a measure of revenge when he picked off a Kelly pass and returned it 21 yards for a touchdown on the second play of the fourth quarter to trim Tennessee’s lead to 20-14.

But Kelly and Pickens got it right back on a 67-yard scoring pass on the next possession to make it 27-14 with 13:19 left to play.

Auburn drove 65 yards to score on quarterback Stan White’s five-yard bootleg with 7:48 remaining to pull to within 27-21.

The Volunteers responded with a 66-yard drive that consumed 6:03 and led to a 26-yard field goal by Becksvoort, his third of the game, for the final margin with 1:48 remaining.

Freshman James Stewart went over 100 yards for the third time with 141 rushing for the Volunteers.

Tennessee’s defense held Auburn to 103 yards rushing.