First Glance: Auburn Tigers

Rubber, meet road.

By Robert Behrens@rcb05 Sep 18, 2023, 8:00am CDT

What You Need to Know:

Texas A&M is 2-1, beating two G5 opponents convincingly but falling 48-33 to the Miami Hurricanes. Auburn is 3-0, beating G5 (UMass), FCS (Samford) and Power 5 (Cal) opponents.
The game seems to match up strength vs strength and weakness vs weakness . You’ll have A&M’s No. 11 passing attack vs. Auburn’s No. 13 pass defense, while the other side will feature Auburn’s No. 89 passing attack against the Aggies’ No. 53 pass defense.
This is the SEC opener for both teams.

The Aggies opened as a 7-point favorite, and the line has now moved to 7.5. The over/under is 52.

A&M leads the all-time series 7-6, though Auburn holds a 6-5 advantage since the Aggies joined the SEC. A&M is looking to beat the Tigers for the second time in a row at Kyle Field after failing to notch a home win against them in the previous four attempts.
This is the third time the Aggies and Tigers have served as one another’s SEC opener. They are 1-1 in the previous two matchups, occurring in 2016 and 2019.
Famous Auburn alumni include athletes Bo Jackson, Charles Barkley, Cam Newton and Frank Thomas, actor Octavia Spencer, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, singer Lionel Richie, US Senator Tommy Tuberville, world class yeller Will Muschamp and the greatest player in NFL history, Al Del Greco.

Legitimacy: Texas A&M failed their first big test of the season at Miami. Auburn hasn’t had one yet (unless you count Cal, which to be clear, you shouldn’t). One of these teams will leave this game feeling pretty good about themselves. The other will have a lot of questions to answer.
Summer Freeze: Hugh Freeze currently has a two-game winning streak at Kyle Field (though two of them were vacated wins). A lot has changed since then (including A&M’s head coach and the school Freeze coaches for), but let’s hope his run of success stops here.
Red zone results: A&M and Auburn’s red zone efficiency (on both offense and defense) are remarkably similar. The team who can force field goals and convert their own trips into TDs will likely be team who comes out with a W.

Venue: Kyle Field (College Station, TX)
Kickoff: 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 23
TV: ESPN
The Paul Finebaum Show, Marty & McGee and SEC Nation will all broadcast live from Aggie Park in advance of the game.
Auburn’s SB Nation team site, College and Magnolia, appears to be no more, but we will partner with the E2C Network on some Auburn content later this week. Check them out.

Partly cloudy skies. High near 95F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 12% (#branding).