Auburn gigs Texas A&M to clinch third place in SEC West

The Auburn Tigers stays undefeated by beating the Texas A&M Aggies in College Station. This was a solid effort, good enough for third place in the SEC West.

In the second big game of the Week 4 slate on Saturday, the No. 8 Auburn Tigers improved to 4-0 on the year with their first conference win of the season. They handed the No. 17 Texas A&M Aggies their second loss of the season with a solid, all-around ball game, winning 28-13.

Auburn got its first meaningful road win of the season to help bring along the growing legend that is Bo Nix. Wide receiver Anthony Schwartz had an incredible 57-yard touchdown run early in the ball game to give Auburn an edge it never relinquished. Kevin Steele’s defense continues to be strong. Even Nix’s backup Joey Gatewood threw a touchdown pass in the ball game.

So Auburn should feel really great about its team right now? Sure, the Tigers are 4-0 and do hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over Texas A&M. However, Texas A&M is still at least a year away from being a force in the SEC West.

Auburn is a good team, but not a great team. So congratulations on the third-place finish in the SEC West because Auburn isn’t beating the LSU Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide in the division standings this season.

The truth hurts, but Alabama and LSU are on a completely higher level than Auburn in 2019. Alabama is still the team to beat in the SEC. While Auburn has been known to pick off their most hated rival down on The Plains, who’s to say the Tigers will even be playing for the right to play the SEC East champion in early December? Auburn’s schedule only gets tougher from here on out.

Of Auburn’s eight remaining opponents, four SEC teams are ranked in the top 10. We’ve talked about the home game versus Alabama at the end of the year, but the Tigers will have to walk into Death Valley in about a month to take on the No. 4 team in the country in the Bayou Bengals down in Baton Rouge.

In years past, Auburn could hang with LSU. However, the LSU offense has undergone an undeniable transformation with Joe Brady as the passing game coordinator and Joe Burrow looking more like a first-round quarterbacking talent with every snap he takes. Can’t say Auburn is going to win that one in Tiger Stadium on Oct. 26.

So Auburn will have a month to get ready for LSU? Not exactly, as the Tigers’ next two games are at home to the Mississippi State Bulldogs and on the road versus the No. 9 Florida Gators down in The Swamp.

Playing Florida in Gainesville will be tough, but Auburn could certainly find a way to win that game. That being said, there a potential for the Tigers to overlook Mississippi State the week before. Every SEC West win is precious and Auburn can’t afford to drop a home game to the Bulldogs if the Tigers want to keep pace with Alabama and LSU.

Okay, so that’s four of Auburn’s remaining seven SEC games. Who are the other three contests against and what are the Tigers’ chances of winning them? Those three would be at the Arkansas Razorbacks on Oct. 19, home versus the Ole Miss Rebels on Nov. 2 and home versus a cross-divisional foe in the No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs on Nov. 16.

Auburn should be able to handle Arkansas and Ole Miss very easily, as those are seen as the two worst teams in the SEC West this season. However, Georgia should be in the mix for an SEC East title at that point and pushing for College Football Playoff contention.

Auburn did beat Georgia the last time the Dawgs were in Auburn. That being said, Georgia has won their last two meetings, including the 2017 SEC Championship game in Atlanta a few weeks after getting trounced down on The Plains.

In short, Auburn is a solid team, but not a national title contender this year. Other teams like Alabama, Georgia and LSU are better. Florida feels like its counterpart in 2019 in the SEC East, as they are a team that can win about 10 games and maybe make a New Year’s Six Bowl as an at-large bid.

Saturday was an opportunity for Auburn to make its statement as an elite SEC team by throttling an underwhelming Texas A&M team. Unfortunately, the Tigers needed to recover a Texas A&M onside kick to hold on for the victory.

Alabama, Georgia and LSU wouldn’t have been in that position in the first place. Florida might have been and the Tigers in the same class in the SEC with the Gators. So congratulations well-ahead of time on the third-place finish in the SEC West, Auburn. Maybe it’ll translate into a Cotton Bowl Classic appearance versus the Group of 5 winner? Let’s look forward to that.