After the high of Athens and then a gut punch at home, Auburn is back on the road this weekend to close out a brutal October stretch.
The Tigers head to Oxford to face No. 12 Ole Miss, a 5-2 team coming off a 34-27 loss to Texas last Saturday. Auburn has already shown it can knock off one of the SEC’s heavyweights this season, but pulling off another one in this spot will take a lot of things breaking right.
The path to an upset in Oxford starts with the same formula that fueled Auburn’s biggest win of the year: take care of the football, win at the line of scrimmage and make the opposing quarterback uncomfortable.
One of the biggest questions is whether Auburn can win the turnover battle again. The Tigers are plus-2 overall this season, which isn’t elite, but it still means they’ve generally put themselves on the right side of that category.
Early in the year, turnovers were a real issue. Since the Tennessee loss on Oct. 3, though, Auburn hasn’t given the ball away once.
Against Georgia, it was plus-3, and that number was a huge part of the upset.
Ole Miss enters with a minus-1 turnover margin and 11 giveaways on the season. The Rebels also turned it over three times against Texas, so the door is open for Auburn if it can create some chaos again. To have a shot at another road stunner, the Tigers probably need to force multiple turnovers while keeping their own mistakes off the board.
The ground game is the next major swing factor. Auburn’s offense looks like a different operation when it can run the ball effectively. The Tigers are 3-1 this season when they average more than four yards per carry, and that was a big part of the Georgia win, when they piled up 192 rushing yards and averaged 4.2 yards per attempt.
Ole Miss has been vulnerable there. Texas gashed the Rebels for more than 200 rushing yards last week, and Ole Miss now sits last in the SEC in rushing defense at 161.14 yards allowed per game.
Auburn will need to get its run game going early, with Byrum Brown likely playing a central role again the way he did against Georgia. When Auburn is forced to lean on Brown to win from the pocket, the offense has too much trouble.
If the run game shows up early, that pressure eases fast.
Then there’s the challenge of slowing down Trinidad Chambliss. Ole Miss’ starting quarterback is as dangerous as they come, able to hurt defenses as a passer and as a runner.
There’s really no neat answer for him, but Texas offered a blueprint for making him uncomfortable. In that game, Chambliss threw a season-high three interceptions and completed fewer than 50 percent of his passes.
He was also forced to throw 52 times, a total that was inflated because the Rebels were chasing the game. Auburn probably won’t get the kind of cushion Texas did, but it can still try to create the same kind of pressure. Chambliss will also be without star running back Kewan Lacy, which could put even more on his shoulders.
If Chambliss is settled in all afternoon like LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt was last week, Auburn could be in for a long day on defense. If the Tigers can rattle him, though, they have a chance to drag this into the kind of game that keeps things interesting.
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 🡒]