Mississippi State at Auburn Line

Written by Jack Jones

The No. 16 Mississippi State Bulldogs and Auburn Tigers kick off their SEC schedule Saturday at 12:20 EST. This will be a rematch from last year’s 17-14 victory by Auburn, one of their numerous close wins en route to taking down the national title. Auburn has won three straight and nine of the last 10 in this series. The Tigers own the all-time edge with a 59-23-2 record against the Bulldogs.

The point spread for this game is set Mississippi State -7 with a total set of 55.5 points. Clearly, odds makers don’t have much faith in Auburn after a poor performance in their opener.

Mississippi State

The Bulldogs had no problem defending their national ranking in their opener, topping an overmatched Memphis team 59-14 last Thursday. They’ll have two extra days to prepare for Auburn, and will be looking to build off a dominant offensive performance. Mississippi State racked up a school-record 645 total yards in the victory. QB Chris Relf threw for 202 yards and two touchdowns, while Vick Ballard finished with a career-high 166 rushing yards and three scores. It was the fifth time that Ballard has scored three touchdowns in a game in 13 career starts.

MSU does have some room for improvement defensively after allowing Memphis to reel off 338 yards of total offense. Jameon Lewis led the receiving corps with four receptions for 113 yards and a touchdown. Arceto Clark has two catches for 72 yards and a score, while Chad Bumphis caught one pass for 44 yards that resulted in a touchdown. Relf only went 12-of-26 for 110 yards against Auburn last season, and Ballard was held to 13 rushing yards on five carries. Both will need to play much better in this time around as the Tigers outgained the Bulldogs 350-246.

Auburn

While MSU cruised to victory, Auburn needed more heroics to keep the nation’s longest winning streak alive. The Tigers erased a 10-point deficit over the final two minutes to beat Utah State 42-38 on Saturday. They even needed a successful onside kick to pull off the win, which was their 16th straight victory. Michael Dyer scored the game-winner with only 30 seconds remaining, and finished with 57 rushing yards and a pair of scores. Even with the win, Auburn fell out of the Top 25. They became the first defending national champions since 1950 to be unranked after the first regular season poll.

Junior QB Barrett Trotter played pretty well in his first collegiate start, trying to fill the big shoes left by Cam Newton. Trotter went 17-of-23 for 261 yards and three touchdowns. The Tigers were outgained 448-364 for the game, and their inexperience clearly showed after losing so many seniors from last year’s national title team. Auburn certainly has issues up front along their offensive and defensive lines. They only gained 78 rushing yards for the game, and allowed Utah State to torch them for 227 yards on the ground. Nine of their wins during this 16-game streak have come by eight points or less.

Betting Trends

The Bulldogs are 4-0 ATS in their last 4 games as a favorite and 4-1 ATS in their last 5 road games. Certainly, asking them to win by a touchdown Saturday will be tough against the defending national champs.

Auburn is 6-0 ATS in their last 6 conference games. This is obviously a completely different team from last year’s squad, but an impressive feat in the SEC nonetheless.

The UNDER is 7-1 in Bulldogs last 8 conference games. The UNDER is 23-8-2 in Tigers last 33 games as an underdog. These are two solid trends for the UNDER, but the Tigers are 13-5-1 to the OVER in their last 19 home games.

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