Auburn’s latest bowl projections are starting to settle into a familiar place: Birmingham.
After a 38-17 loss to No. 13 LSU in Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn is still in the mix for its first bowl appearance since 2023.
The Tigers still have a chance to change the conversation, starting Saturday at No. 12 Ole Miss in the final game of their brutal October stretch.
From there, Auburn closes the regular season with three games it should like better on paper - Arkansas, Mississippi State, and Samford - before finishing at No. 10 Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
An upset in Oxford remains on the table, but the broader picture is clearer if Auburn handles the three November games in which it is favored. That would give the Tigers their highest win total since 2019, when they won nine games. With that in mind, several national projections this week point Auburn toward a postseason trip.
USA TODAY Sports keeps Auburn in the Birmingham Bowl for the third straight week, with Erick Smith projecting a matchup against Memphis. The two teams have met three times, with Memphis holding a 2-1 edge, though Auburn took the most recent meeting in the 2015 Birmingham Bowl, winning 31-10.
ESPN splits its latest forecast between two destinations. Kyle Bonagura again sends Auburn to the Gasparilla Bowl against USF, while Mark Schlabach keeps Auburn in Birmingham but changes the opponent from NC State to Illinois.
Illinois enters this week 4-3 and has UCLA, Iowa, and Northwestern left on its schedule, all of them ranked teams. NC State’s situation has changed after the school fired longtime head coach Dave Doering, leaving its bowl outlook uncertain.
CBS Sports also moved Auburn back to Birmingham after sending the Tigers to the Music City Bowl last week. Brad Crawford projects Auburn to meet Boston College in the JLabs Birmingham Bowl on Dec.
- If that happens, it would be Auburn’s first postseason game against an ACC opponent since the 2014 BCS National Championship Game.
Athlon Sports went from one extreme to another. Last week, Steven Lassan had Auburn facing Cincinnati in the Independence Bowl.
This week, he shifts the Tigers back to Birmingham and pairs them with NC State. The Wolfpack are 3-4, though ESPN projects them to win two of their final five games, including this weekend against California.
On3’s Brett McMurphy offers a different destination altogether, sending Auburn to the Liberty Bowl to face Houston.
Auburn has played in the Liberty Bowl twice, against Ole Miss in 1965 and Arkansas in 1984. The Tigers have also faced Houston twice in postseason play, most recently in the 2021 Birmingham Bowl, a game Auburn lost.
In Other News...
Auburn's Offense Just Took Another Hit Before Ole Miss Matchup
Auburns receiver room got a little thinner heading into a tricky SEC road test, with Jeremiah Koger ruled out for the matchup against Ole Miss. He now joins Tai Buster and Hunter Herring on the injury report, leaving the Tigers to piece together their offense with another available option off the board as they prepare for one of the leagues more demanding environments.
Ole Miss is dealing with its own roster issues, too, and the availability report has already trimmed the Rebels down by 10 players, including running back Kewan Lacy. Even with both teams shorthanded, the absences matter on a weekend when depth and flexibility can swing the tenor of a conference game, and Auburn will have to find answers without one more name it was hoping to have. [Read more 🡒]
Auburns Defense And QB Situation Suddenly Look Far More Fragile
Ole Miss walked out of Vaught-Hemingway Stadium with a 45-15 win over Auburn, and the Rebels did it with a quarterback who kept the Tigers off balance in more ways than one. Trinidad Chambliss made his mark through both the air and on the ground, while Ole Miss coach Pete Golding had plenty of praise afterward for Chambliss and offensive coordinator John David Baker, whose plan helped keep Auburn chasing the game from early on.
For Auburn, the bigger concern was how little rhythm the offense found while Byrum Brown was under steady pressure. The Tigers never got much going on the ground, and the combination of a shaky quarterback situation and a defense that bent far too often made the loss feel bigger than the score alone. It left Auburn with more questions than answers at a point in the season when stability is supposed to matter most. [Read more 🡒]
Auburn's Second-Half Collapse Just Raised Bigger Questions About This Offense
Auburns trip to Oxford ended with a lopsided 45-15 loss to No. 12 Ole Miss, a result that did more than just deepen the frustration from one rough afternoon. It also marked the Tigers first two-game losing streak under coach Alex Golesh, with the offense again unable to keep pace after showing flashes early enough to keep the game within reach.
Byrum Brown finished with 195 passing yards, but Auburn never found enough consistency to put real pressure on Ole Miss, where Trinidad Chambliss controlled the game with 263 passing yards and three total touchdowns. The bigger concern now is how quickly Auburn can reset before Arkansas comes to Jordan-Hare Stadium on November 7, because the margin for error on that side of the ball has started to shrink. [Read more 🡒]