Auburn football: FanSided puts Penn State on upset alert for Week 3

Auburn football’s biggest game yet this season is going down this weekend, and it will be the first true glimpse of what the Tigers can do. After running over both Akron and Alabama State, the team showed off new head coach Bryan Harsin’s style of play but have not gone toe-to-toe with any top-notch teams.

That all changes when the Tigers take on the Penn State Nittany Lions this Saturday on their home turf for what is traditionally the school’s biggest game of the year, the whiteout. Penn State enters the game ranked #10 after taking care of Wisconsin and Ball State to kick off their 2021 season while the Tigers head into Week 3 ranked #22.

Though Auburn football is the underdog this Saturday, no one is saying that the Tigers couldn’t take down the Nittany Lions. In fact, FanSided’s Cody Williams put Penn State on upset alert prior to their matchup with Auburn:

"[…] Auburn truly enters this game as an unknown quantity. Anyone telling you that they can glean something about the Tigers because they put up 60 points on Akron and Alabama State is lying to you. All that means is that they have the athletes to dominate the vastly inferior competition, not that they are on the level of Penn State.On top of that, though, Sean Clifford is another quarterback that hasn’t warranted a great deal of faith. I would argue he’s been better than Nix, but the margin isn’t wide. And if nothing else, Auburn has defensive talent to potentially force the Penn State quarterback into mistakes."

So a lot of the pressure this week rests on the shoulders of third-year starter Bo Nix. Will this be the year that he is able to play just as good on the road as he is on Pat Dye Field? Can the Auburn defense take down Sean Clifford? It’s very possible, so watch out for a big upset in Week 3.