The 2021 Auburn football season has wildly varying expectations depending on who you ask, but most level-headed objective opinions have a hopeful forecast for year one of the Bryan Harsin era.
Of course, you have your haters like the lads at The Score, but again, we’re looking for level heads here.
Our friend and popular pot-stirrer on Twitter (and noted Oklahoma fan) Big Game Boomer has quite the level head…especially considering his bias against the Alabama Crimson Tide.
In his latest list, BGB projected the cieling and floor of every Division I FBS college football program in the nation. For Auburn football, eight wins is his ceiling and seven wins is his floor:
Ceiling & Floor For Every College Football Team This Season pic.twitter.com/VD2zf9mgeu
— Big Game Boomer (@BigGameBoomer) August 19, 2021
Of couse, you have your early-season ‘gimmes’ like Akron, Alabama State, and Georgia State (which some even see as a trap game)–which some even see as a potential trap game–followed by an inter-division SEC matchup against South Carolina that register as must-wins. Of course, that wasn’t the case at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, SC last season.
Then you have your next tier of contests which should go the Tigers’ way, a pair of SEC West divisional matchups against Arkansas and Mississippi State.
The aforementioned games would already put AU at six wins for the season. Winning just one of their matchups against Penn State, LSU, Georgia, Ole Miss, Texas A&M or Alabama would get them to their floor.
Ole Miss’ chances hinge on the arm of Matt Corral, and their defense is suspect. Penn State may be limping into Week 3 with a couple of tough early-season tilts against Wisconsin and the defending MAC Champions, Ball State. LSU will be without #6-ranked 2017 QB Myles Brennan yet again in 2021 after an injury hotshot current Auburn football QB TJ Finley into the starting role in his freshman year last season.
Sure, Georgia and Alabama will be uphill climbs, but those games take place within the friendly confines of Jordan-Hare Stadium. Anything can happen in a homefield environment like Auburn’s.
As for Texas A&M, well, maybe Bryan Harsin won’t have the same difficulty his predecessors did, even with a collision in College Station on the docket.
So, in conclusion, BGB is spot on, just as he always is when asked about the best restaurants in Tuscaloosa are.