Beating LSU in Baton Rouge for the first time in 22 years has become the defining win of the 2021 Auburn football season.
The competition isn’t exactly fierce. Besides last week’s spectacular come-from-behind victory in the final minute against Georgia State due to the injection of TJ Finley under center, 50 and 62 point blowouts over a MAC cellar dweller and a SWAC squad were the only other triumphs of the year. Moral victories at Penn State’s White Out need not apply here.
That Bo Nix–who was very much in danger of riding the bench for the year with another dud–essentially showed how high his ceiling can be in spectacular fashion, in a road win against a divisional conference rival that has eluded this program for two decades, makes it the defining night of Nix’s tenure on the Plains.
But life goes on. And the rest of the 2021 Tigers schedule is one that most teams in the country couldn’t handle.
Can Auburn?
Well, only time will tell. But in deciphering how tough the rest of the season looks, Fly War Eagle has went ahead and ranked the remaining teams on the Auburn football schedule:
#7th toughest remaining test on the Auburn football schedule: South Carolina
As AU embarks on its grueling gauntlet, the SEC West will present test after test as conference play continues.
South Carolina, the non-ranked SEC East team of the pair they must play, may be the most beatable team left.
That is not to say the Gamecocks won’t be…well….game when they host the Tigers for the second season in a row. So far, South Carolina has taken down an East Carolina team that looks improved from years’ past (as well as an FCS program) as well as a traditionally strong, though currently struggling, Troy Trojans. They even hung around with #16 Kentucky, losing by a touchdown.
Their other game being a Georgia beatdown notwithstanding, even the easiest opponent left is far from a pushover.