The thought of Auburn football playing in the 2021 College Football Playoff has all but faded away following yesterday’s loss to Texas A&M at Kyle Field.
But not 100%. There’s still an (astronomically) outside chance the Tigers could end up playing in either the Cotton Bowl or Orange Bowl…and National Championship after that.
That said, it’s going to take a big push over the season’s final month, and other SEC squads will need to help the cause.
Here are 3 outcomes that must happen in order for Auburn football to remain in CFP contention:
Auburn football takes care of business against Mississippi State and South Carolina before winning the Iron Bowl
Alabama has their one SEC West loss, and it was to yesterday’s orange and blue conquerors Texas A&M.
If the Tigers retain their one SEC West loss in the standings heading into the Iron Bowl, taking care of business against Mississippi State next week, the SEC West crown is in play when the Tide come to town on November 27th.
Of course, avenging last year’s loss to South Carolina as well will be what keeps AU in the CFP conversation. Even a win over Alabama wouldn’t be enough to propel a four-loss Auburn to one of the top four postseason slots.
Assuming AU can win as the presumed favorite the next two weeks (which, truly, we shouldn’t), the Iron Bowl will take on extra meaning in 2021 as the game that decides who goes to Atlanta. That’d be the only proper way to reintroduce America’s fiercest rivalry game to a full-capacity crowd in the Yellowhammer State.
Texas A&M must lose to either LSU or Ole Miss
Texas A&M is the only team that can say they beat both Alabama and Auburn football during the 2021 season.
That said, they also own unsightly losses to Arkansas and Mississippi State as well, so their path to the SEC West crown runs through the Crimson Tide.
Aggie fans need Auburn to take the Iron Bowl, but the Tigers need TAMU to go down in one of the season’s final weeks.
No knock to Prairie View A&M of the SWAC, but we believe that the team bested suited for the job is either Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss–coming off a two-score victory over former Rebels coach Hugh Freeze’s Liberty–this coming Saturday or in Death Valley during the last weekend of the regular season in the LSU finale of ‘Coach O’ on the sidelines.
Just one Aggie loss puts the Tigers back in the mix for the SEC West crown should they run the table to close out the year. And it’s a far from impossible result given the presence of Ole Miss Heisman candidate Matt Corral and the emotions that should be sweeping Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge on November 27th.
Auburn football must upset Georgia in the SEC Championship game
Look, this is all a long shot. Running the table in and of itself will be difficult with Mississippi State clearly proving capable of playing spoiler (Ask Texas A&M and Kentucky) and South Carolina even showing some backbone with their beatdown of Florida last night. Then of course, there’s the big bad ‘team up north’, though they didn’t look so intimidating last night against LSU at home.
But when it comes to the upset of all upsets, basically any team beating Georgia before the CFP would qualify as such this year. Hell, even beating the Bulldogs then would still qualify as a massive surprise.
It’d be extra massive for the Tigers to be the team to dethrone the Dawgs from the top of the SEC because of the way UGA marched to the Plains and ran all over AU in every conceivable way on October 9th.
The SEC Championship game in Atlanta would probably lean black and red, meaning Auburn would have to march into hostile territory to unseat a squad that has not had a single hole poked in it all year.
That said, make all of this a reality, and the CFP rankings committee is going to have an awfully tough time keeping Auburn football out of the Orange Bowl or Sugar Bowl come New Year’s Eve.