Auburn’s path to bowl season is still narrow, but it’s there. After knocking off Arkansas and ending a two-game skid, the Tigers sit at five wins and need just one more against Mississippi State, Samford or Alabama to lock up bowl eligibility for the first time since 2023.
The safest route is probably the next two games. Auburn has about a 50% shot at beating Mississippi State in Starkville, and even if that one slips away, the Tigers are said to have better than a 95% chance to handle Samford the following week. Either way, one more win gets them where they want to go.
And if CBS Sports’ Brad Crawford is right, that next step could send Auburn right back to where the season began.
In a projection published Sunday, Crawford slotted the Tigers into the Liberty Bowl against Baylor, setting up a rematch of Auburn’s Week 1 win. That would mean the teams meet twice without either game being played at home: the opener came in Atlanta, and the bowl would be staged in Memphis.
There’s also a different look to Baylor now. The Bears are being led by interim head coach Joe Klanderman after Dave Aranda, who was on the sideline in Week 1, was fired following Baylor’s loss to Kansas in late October.
That first meeting gave fans their earliest real look at an Alex Golesh Auburn team, along with the transfer-heavy roster that came with him from USF and other programs. It was a tight one from start to finish, with Auburn escaping 17-16 thanks to a game-saving tackle by safety Eric Winters, who stopped Baylor tight end Matthew Klopfenstein just inches short of the goal line on the final play.
It was also Byrum Brown’s first game with Auburn after transferring from USF, and the quarterback had a rough night through the air. He finished with 259 passing yards, three interceptions and no touchdown passes, though he did punch in the eventual winning score on the ground in the fourth quarter.
Since then, Brown has steadied himself. He hasn’t thrown an interception since before the bye week, a span of four games, which would make it tougher for Auburn to count on Baylor mistakes if these teams meet again.
If that rematch does happen, it would give Auburn a strange kind of symmetry: a season that started with a tense, one-point escape over Baylor could end with the Tigers back across from the Bears, this time with bowl eligibility finally secured.
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Alex McPhersons 43-yard field goal helped seal it after Auburn had already pushed across a late touchdown, capping a 17-point fourth quarter and sending the Tigers to 5-4. Now the focus shifts back home, where Mississippi State comes to Auburn next Saturday and the Tigers will try to build on a win that felt as important for belief as it did for the standings. [Read more 🡒]