Greg McElroy sees Ole Miss handling Auburn on Saturday, but he doesn’t think it comes easy.
On his Always College Football podcast earlier this week, the former Alabama quarterback laid out his read on a Week 9 SEC matchup that sends Auburn to Oxford for a 12:45 p.m. ET kickoff on SEC Network.
The game pairs two teams trying to steady themselves after rough losses: No. 12 Ole Miss, now 5-2 overall and 3-2 in SEC play, and Auburn, 4-3 and 2-3 in conference action.
Ole Miss is coming off a painful trip to Texas, where the Rebels nearly clawed all the way back from a three-touchdown hole before falling short against Arch Manning and the Longhorns. Auburn, meanwhile, went the opposite direction last week, getting thumped at home by LSU after its stunning Week 7 win at Georgia.
McElroy thinks the Rebels respond better than the Tigers, but he expects Auburn to hang around for a while.
“I think (Ole Miss) wins the game, 33-23,” said McElroy, who also believes last week’s loss at Texas “took an emotional toll” on the Rebels. “But I think Auburn will keep it relatively close.
But it’s going to be totally at the mercy of Ole Miss. If they play clean football, they’ll run away from this thing big.”
He still picked Ole Miss to get the job done, though not in dominant fashion. In McElroy’s view, the Tigers can stay in striking distance as a double-digit underdog, but the Rebels control the outcome if they avoid mistakes.
McElroy offered his own breakdown of the matchup, and the Kalshi market is also weighing Ole Miss’s chances to rebound and get back in the win column at home.
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