It’s that time of the year.

The time when, between five weeks of fall practice and nine weeks of games, Auburn has been in constant motion for almost four months.

Right about time for a bye week.

“It’s definitely well-needed,” Tigers head coach Gene Chizik said. “We’re a beat up team. We’re a tired team. So I think it’s coming at the right time. I think it’ll be good for our team.”

It’ll certainly help a player like Emory Blake — who said he played at “about 75 percent” Saturday against Ole Miss, his first meaningful game action in nearly a month — continue to get on the mend.

Or a player like middle linebacker Jake Holland, who has been battling a plethora of bumps and bruises for the past four weeks.

And Auburn’s got some momentum to carry into its week off after a 41-23 win over Ole Miss on Saturday.

The offense returned to form after two off weeks, putting up its first 400-yard performance since posting 435 yards in a 38-24 loss to Clemson on Sept. 17.

Blake had a lot to do with that, catching five balls for 71 yards and a score in his return to supply a downfield threat and help open up the run lanes for Mike Dyer.

“When we’ve been successful here offensively, we’ve been able to do either/or (run or pass),” Chizik said. “If we decided this was a great time for a pass play, we’d throw it. If it was a great time for a run play, we’d run it. That’s always the goal.”

The defense put the clamps on after a lackluster first half, holding the Rebels to 4.7 yards a play after the break and surrendering only a touchdown with the second-team defense as the game clock ran out.

Eltoro Freeman, who stepped into the starting spot over Holland starting with the Florida game Oct. 15, had a lot to do with that, recording a team-high 11 tackles and two sacks.

He also played a pivotal role in limiting Ole Miss quarterback Randall Mackey’s scrambling opportunities, as the Tigers limited him to 9 yards on 13 carries.

Chizik said that was a big part of Auburn’s preparation for the Rebels: studying Mackey’s tendencies when he’s flushed from the pocket.

“We worked the scrambles, we worked a lot of the pass-rush lanes and how we’re going to keep him contained,” Chizik said. “We did a nice job of that because that was worrisome going into the game. He had done that against everybody — a bunch of really good teams, he had gotten out there and created some damage out there on the perimeter.”

Auburn’s secondary also bounced back from a lackluster performance against LSU and cracked down on big plays in the passing game, holding Mackey to 157 yards, a pick and a score on 15-of-27 passes.

Ole Miss tried repeatedly for the home-run ball. It just never found one.

“We feel like the week before we had a lot of those teachable moments in our secondary,” Chizik said. “We worked on it all week and they really did a great job of going in the game and shutting that part of their game plan down.”

The Tigers’ brutal October is over, and they navigated the stretch 3-2.

After the bye week, Auburn gets a Georgia team that’s won six in a row and the Iron Bowl, with a homecoming date against Samford sandwiched in between.

The 6-3 Tigers, thanks in part to a strong showing Saturday, are not short on confidence heading into the home stretch.

“We can win every game on the schedule. That’s how we feel. No one will tell you any different,” cornerback T’Sharvan Bell said after the Ole Miss win. “Our goal is to win out and make it to the Cotton Bowl.

“We don’t see any reason why we can’t do that.”