College football upset picks: Alabama and 5 teams on upset alert in Week 5

College football upset pick No. 4: Auburn Tigers

Rank: 22 | Opponent: at LSU Tigers | Time: Saturday, Oct. 2, 9:00 p.m. ET

If you need any indication of the issues going on with Bryan Harsin’s team in the head coach’s first year, barely surviving an upset attempt from Georgia State last week does the trick.

Now, an argument could be made that Auburn tried to sleepwalk through that game after an emotional loss to Penn State and also looking ahead to this trip to Death Valley to play LSU. But even in that spot, needing a last-minute touchdown (and a pick-six to make the final score look less embarrassing) to beat Georgia State shouldn’t happen at Auburn.

LSU is far from a perfect team as they deal with key defensive injuries to the likes of Derek Stingley Jr. But Max Johnson has shown a little life on offense and the home crowd will undoubtedly be behind this team in a major way to help give them some advantages in that capacity.

But really, this comes down to Auburn. We don’t know if it’ll be Bo Nix or TJ Finley starting at quarterback but, frankly, I’m not confident in either option given what they’ve both shown. Tank Bigsby might be the X-factor to avoiding the upset but the visiting Tigers have done nothing to make me think they can survive a trip to Death Valley.