The LSU Tigers will be traveling to Jordan-Hare Stadium to take on the Auburn Tigers on October 24, but that matchup is hardly registering on the national radar. At the very least, it wasn't worth mentioning for CBS Sports' Carter Bahn while discussing the first gauntlet Lane Kiffin will take on at LSU.
Bahns mentioned matchups with the Texas A&M Aggies, Alabama Crimson Tide, and Texas Longhorns, and non-existent matchups with the Georgia Bulldogs and Oklahoma Sooners, to explain why Kiffin has the easiest slate of any first-year SEC coach.
There was not even a sniff of Alex Golesh's Auburn program in the explanation.
"No Georgia. No Oklahoma. Texas A&M, Alabama and Texas at home. That has to be music to Kiffin's ears as he seeks a CFP berth in his first year at LSU. Only four of the Tigers' opponents finished the 2025 season inside the AP Top 25, and if those are the only high-quality teams this squad faces in 2026, a trip to the playoff should be within reach. That Kiffin secured the No. 1 transfer portal class (by a sizable margin, no less) could make the Tigers competitive if not better than the few playoff-caliber opponents on their slate. This is a win-now setup for a program that expects nothing less," Bahn wrote.
Auburn can be an overlooked spoiler in 2026
Bahns had previously referred to the Arkansas Razorbacks, Florida Gators, LSU, and the Vanderbilt Commodores as "swing matchups" for Auburn in his write-up of the Tigers' slate, so not including them in a write-up on the Bayou Bengals' season feels wrong.
Then again, so does not mentioning the Ole Miss Rebels. What Kiffin did to the University of Mississippi, leaving in the middle of a CFP run, will one day warrant an ESPN 30 for 30. It was sick. It was twisted. In the grand scheme, it made no sense, and it puts everything at LSU oes now under the microscope. When LSU heads to Oxford, Kiffin may see even more scrutiny than a golf ball-throwing Neyland Stadium crowd back in 2021 when the Rebels traveled to Rocky Top to take on the Tennessee Volunteers.
AU has a coach who garners respect, but in the context of recent playoff teams, the Tigers are background players.
For now. Few teams stay at the top for long, and Auburn is long overdue to finally turn things around.
Why not 2026 for the Plains? The Tigers feel like the likeliest spoiler in the country, mainly because no one is seeing them that way right now, and in the shadows is where Auburn does the most damage.