LSU vs Auburn Puts Alex Golesh’s Georgia Upset on Trial

Auburn entered Athens as a three-touchdown underdog last Saturday and left with its first win there since 2005. One week later, the prediction market Polymarket gives LSU about a 70% chance to win at Jordan-Hare Stadium, and the honest read on the LSU vs Auburn matchup is that the market has studied the Georgia box score a lot more closely than the Georgia scoreboard.

Alex Golesh, the first-year Auburn head coach, seemed to know the hype was coming. He tried to talk everyone down at his Monday news conference.

“Like, somewhere in the middle is probably the truth,” Golesh said. “I don’t suck, but probably not a genius either.”

Why Auburn’s Georgia win looks shakier up close

The win itself was a great story. Auburn fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter, scored 24 straight points, and won 27-24 when Alex McPherson hit a 34-yard field goal as time expired, set up by a late Gunner Stockton fumble. Quarterback Byrum Brown ran 26 times for 115 yards and a touchdown and threw for 150 yards and another score. Christian Neptune threw Auburn’s other touchdown pass.

The details tell a messier story, though. Georgia outgained Auburn by 74 yards, Auburn committed 11 penalties and dropped five passes, and the Tigers finished with the worst net success rate of any winning team in Week 7. A plus-3 turnover margin covered a lot of sins, and turnovers are about the least reliable thing to bet on twice in a row.

Golesh sounded like he agreed. He told reporters the entire Sunday staff meeting focused on what went wrong.

“Literally, the entire two-and-a-half-hour staff meeting yesterday was, here’s fundamentally where we suck,” Golesh said.

The roster also got thinner this week. Auburn dismissed linebacker Xavier Atkins, a second-team Walter Camp All-American last season, and Atkins announced he will enter the transfer portal. Auburn is 4-2 overall and 2-2 in the SEC, with losses to Florida and Tennessee, and the Tennessee loss opened with four straight three-and-outs.

LSU vs Auburn is a road test Kiffin keeps failing

LSU has its own baggage, and most of it travels. Lane Kiffin’s first LSU team is 5-2 and 2-2 in the SEC, and both losses came on the road, at Ole Miss and in a 35-34 overtime loss at Kentucky. The Tigers have lost eight straight road games, the third-longest streak in school history, and Kiffin is 14-16 in SEC road games across his stops at Tennessee, Ole Miss and LSU.

The Kentucky game showed where LSU still leaks. The Tigers gained 410 yards in Lexington but only 94 on the ground, and Kiffin chose to punt on fourth-and-1 from his own 43 with 1:46 left before Kentucky kicked the tying field goal. Road games tend to punish those choices, and Jordan-Hare will be loud for an Auburn team riding its biggest win in years.

After the Kentucky loss, LSU’s season looked like it was approaching a breaking point. LSU answered with a 31-0 shutout of Mississippi State, and quarterback Sam Leavitt threw for 289 yards and four touchdowns in his first turnover-free game of the season.

The shutout needs a small asterisk, though. Mississippi State played without starting quarterback Kamario Taylor and running back Fluff Bothwell, and backup Parker Puckett made his first career start. Kiffin brushed off the injury talk after the game, pointing out that LSU had its own long list of significant players on the sideline.

The pick comes down to turnovers

Auburn’s history against good teams at home is not pretty, either. Auburn is 1-9 in its last 10 home games against top-25 opponents, and the only way that number improves in LSU vs Auburn is if Brown keeps running the way he did in Athens and the defense keeps taking the ball away.

LSU has the better roster and the steadier quarterback right now, and Leavitt’s clean game against Mississippi State is the most encouraging thing this offense has shown since September. The pick in LSU vs Auburn is LSU 27, Auburn 20, which means roughly a 70% chance feels right, but the margin will be closer than the betting lines suggest.

If Auburn wins, Golesh gets the first true signature month of his tenure and LSU’s road losing streak hits nine. If Auburn loses, the Georgia upset becomes a great night rather than a turning point, and Golesh made it clear on the team bus after Athens that he knows the difference.

“There’s no shortcut to flipping a culture, man,” Golesh said.