The Auburn Tigers have impressed this season. A win at the Florida Gators will be huge, but do they have what it takes to run the table and get to Atlanta?
The SEC has five teams ranked in the top 10 in the latest AP Poll, including Alabama, Georgia and LSU in the top five. Coming in at No. 7 is the Auburn Tigers, who will face a huge road test down in Gainesville versus the No. 10 Florida Gators. After that test, they’ll await games vs. the SEC trio that represents a gauntlet for Gus Malzahn’s team to navigate.
Both former SEC rivals are 5-0 and will achieve bowl eligibility with a win down in The Swamp on Saturday evening. Auburn is a slight road favorite in this one, but Florida will certainly take that disrespect from Las Vegas to heart. This will be a huge opportunity for both teams on Saturday afternoon, with the winner getting a huge signature victory and a chance at a top-five ranking.
Though only three spots separate Auburn from Florida in the polls, both teams’ perceptions could not be more different. Auburn has already defeated two ranked teams this season in the Oregon Ducks and the Texas A&M Aggies to get to 5-0, while Florida’s best win might be a narrow victory over the in-state rival Miami Hurricanes in a neutral site affair in Orlando back in Week 0.
In short, Auburn is expected to win. If this game were at Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn would be more than a touchdown favorite to stomp the Gators down on The Plains. Florida will do its best to play spoiler, but getting three top-10 SEC foes in the next month probably means Dan Mullen’s team isn’t getting to a New Year’s Six Bowl this season.
After hosting Auburn, Florida has to go to Baton Rouge to take on the Bayou Bengals of LSU in Death Valley on Oct. 12. That’s a loss for the Gators if there ever was one.
Florida should rebound after certain defeat to LSU by clobbering their SEC East foe in the South Carolina Gamecocks, even if it is on the road in Columbia. Two weeks after that, it’s a tall task down in Jacksonville versus the archrival Dawgs a few days after Halloween. Florida could lose three of those four games. Just splitting the pair would be incredible.
As for Auburn, the Tigers will have a nice bounce to their season the rest of the way. Yes, they still have to play at LSU and will host Georgia and Alabama. However, none of those rivalry games are in consecutive weeks. When Auburn has a full head of steam, we’ve seen the Tigers take care of business versus both Georgia and Alabama at regular season’s end. Should we get ready for that?
Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here, but Auburn’s pathway to Atlanta is very real and looks to be a serious College Football Playoff contender at roughly the halfway point of 2019. First things first, Auburn needs to beat the Gators in The Swamp. Fortunately, they have the more complete team that is more than capable of getting by Mullen’s bunch down in Gainesville.
After that, the Tigers will have three weeks to get ready for a certain night game down in Baton Rouge with LSU. Of course, Auburn will have a cakewalk of an SEC game before playing the Bayou Bengals, as the Arkansas Razorbacks are largely listless under overwhelmed head coach Chad Morris.
Auburn could theoretically afford a road loss in Death Valley and still achieve all of their wildest dreams this year. Of course, the Tigers will then need LSU to have two SEC losses, but the Bayou Bengals still have teams like Alabama and Florida on the schedule. Those won’t be easy games for Joe Burrow and LSU.
Regardless of what happens in Baton Rouge, Auburn should be able to bounce back and throttle Matt Luke’s Ole Miss Rebels at home.
Auburn will again have another bye, plenty of time for them to get ready for their cross-divisional rival Georgia. While the Tigers never seem to have a real shot at winning in Athens, it’s never easy for the Dawgs to go into Jordan-Hare and come out victorious. Georgia got pulverized down on The Plains two years ago, as that was the Dawgs’ only regular-season defeat that season.
So let’s say Auburn is 9-1 after the Georgia game with their only loss on the road to LSU, what happens next? The Tigers get another cakewalk of a game when they host the Samford Bulldogs.
After that, it’s time to host the Crimson Tide in the Iron Bowl. Like it is with Georgia, Auburn struggles to beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa but is known to pick the Crimson Tide off at home from time to time. Auburn won’t need a Prayer at Jordan-Hare or a Kick Six to knock off Georgia and Alabama at home this season, as the Tigers match up well with the Dawgs and Crimson Tide.
With a menacing Kevin Steele defense and a promising true freshman quarterback in Bo Nix, Auburn certainly has the making of a team that can win the SEC West for the second time in three seasons.
At 11-1 (7-1) with a hypothetical road loss to LSU, Auburn would be a lock in the top three, as the Tigers would have regular-season wins over top-10 teams like Florida, Georgia and Alabama. Let’s not forget they’d have two other top-25 wins already on their résumé from when they beat Oregon on a neutral-site in Arlington and Texas A&M in College Station.
So yes, Auburn is at this point good enough to get to Atlanta as a one-loss SEC West division champion. The problem is the Tigers will have to face presumably Georgia in the SEC Championship at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta for the second time in three years. That game could go either way, but typically the first-time loser gets the better of the winner in a rematch.
Overall, Auburn has both a challenging, but a navigable schedule. It certainly has a rhythm to it, as the Tigers won’t face difficult back-to-back games until presumably the Iron Bowl and the SEC Championship.
Unfortunately for the Tigers, whichever team comes out of the SEC East will have had an easy game on rivalry week. Georgia will slaughter the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate. Florida will eat the Florida State Seminoles’ lunch in the Sunshine Showdown. Even the Missouri Tigers would have put a whopping on Arkansas in the Battle Line Rivalry.
Auburn is a team at roughly the halfway point that can run the gauntlet and get to Atlanta with one regular-season loss. Winning the SEC Championship won’t be easy, but if the 2019 Tigers are a team of destiny, then they’ll find a way to make the College Football Playoff for the first time in school history this January.
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