Auburn football: Jboy projects fourth place finish in SEC West

A little too often, pundits have been projecting Ole Miss to finish ahead of Auburn football in the upcoming 2021 season.

Luckily, Jake “Jboy” Crain is not one of them.

The SEC analyst weighed in on how he thought the upcoming schedule was going to play out for all 14 teams in the greatest conference in college football. As usual, Alabama and Georgia sat atop the SEC West and SEC East respectively.

The Tigers finished fourth in the SEC West behind the Tide, followed by LSU and Texas A&M:

LSU is expected to right the wrongs of last season, when new backup TJ Finley struggled to keep the defending national champions afloat in the absence of Myles Brennan. Their third-ranked Class of 2021 recruiting class nationally is the impetus to their recovery, as is the QB battle between Brennan and Max Johnson.

Texas A&M also had a top 10 recruiting class in 2021, finishing with the fourth highest total of 4-star commitments. Under fourth-year head coach Jimbo Fisher, the Aggies are expected to take another step forward toward College Football Playoff contention.

Auburn football finishing behind them is no surprise, but seeing them ahead of the Rebels from Oxford was a pleasant surprise, even if it shouldn’t be.

Ole Miss has an NFL quality QB in their ranks with possible 2022 Draft #1 selection Matt Corral leading the charge. They also had one of the worst defenses in the nation last season. Projecting a drastic step forward on the point prevention side is asking a lot out of the team’s four 4-star defensive recruits.

October 30th will be a pivotal game on both Ole Miss and Auburn football’s schedules, with that game likely moving one of the two teams into a position to qualify for a NY6 bowl should the CFP be out of reach.

Jboy is a smart man seeing the Tigers pull that one out at Jordan-Hare Stadium on the Plains.