Auburn football: Paul Finebaum says Tigers must avoid “disastrous finish”

Auburn football has only two games left on their 2021 regular-season schedule, but this part of the season could end up being the hardest of all for the Tigers. In the devastating loss to Mississippi State at home this weekend, starting QB Bo Nix suffered a broken ankle, and starting kicker Anders Carlson tore his ACL, effectively ending the season for the pair.

One might say that Bryan Harsin’s first-year team has reached its lowest point this year sitting at 6-4 on a two-loss streak, but it’s likely that the way this team is remembered will be decided over the next two weeks. Did they pack it in and give up after losing games and teammates, or did they fight harder to salvage the rest of the season?

Per Saturdays Down South, SEC analyst Paul Finebaum says that while Harsin has done a good job holding the program together for most of the season, the Mississippi State loss changes things for Auburn football:

"“Overall, I think he’s held this program together well but it’s hard to find bouquets and flowers to send to a coach after a historic, epic meltdown. It definitely hurts; it hurts badly,” said Finebaum of the Mississippi State loss. “And now you just simply have to wait to see how the rest of the season plays out. You would expect them to go into Columbia and win. But if they don’t and then drop the Alabama game, this season has gone from a really great start to an absolute disastrous finish.”"

Two weeks ago this same team was gunning for a rematch with the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship, but after back-to-back SEC losses, the Tigers are hoping to come out 8-4 with a respectable bowl game. The season looks significantly worse for the first-year head coach if the Tigers finish 6-6.

Bryan Harsin and Auburn football will face a different set of challenges for the remainder of the season, but the Tigers are still completely capable of pulling off a couple more wins this year.