Tennessee-Florida, Alabama-Ole Miss, Texas A&M-Mississippi St., Auburn-LSU all in Week 6 Vegas SEC Predictions
Vegas SEC Predictions Week 6
No. 15 LSU Tigers at No. 5 Auburn Tigers
Line: Auburn by 7.5
This is a revenge game for both teams, in different ways. Auburn, at home, wants to make up for last year when LSU was their only loss during the regular season. LSU, meanwhile, simply still needs to recover from its bad loss two weeks ago and get back in the mix for SEC championship talk.
LSU may be in decent shape since it appears to have found a quarterback in Brandon Harris. Harris looked decent against Mississippi State, and he came across as highly efficient and smart against New Mexico State. His play has helped his team find a running game, and Leonard Fournette could start living up to his hype. To beat Auburn, Harris has to keep doing what he’s been doing, allowing for a balanced offense under Les Miles and Cam Cameron. But the defense also has to step up. John Chavis’s group looked loss against the Mississippi State spread offense, and while it has great talent, it has got to be prepared for those complex offenses. Auburn is going to be no different, and in fact, it has the personnel to be even better. So the defense has got to be ready.
Auburn, meanwhile, needs to keep going for big plays the way it has been over the past few weeks. The defense appears to be better than it was last year, but it will have to show up again with LSU finally finding balance in its offense. Auburn’s offense can’t have the same mistakes it had against Kansas State, and Nick Marshall and the receivers have to immediately start connecting and take advantage of an LSU defense that’s highly talented but may struggle against the spread offense. Doing that, though, involves not having dropped passes and not turning the ball over. LSU feeds off of turnovers, and it has got a loaded secondary, so Auburn has got to stay balanced and complex to win this game.
Prediction
With so much talent in the SEC West, somebody has got to be the odd man out. We know Arkansas is one of those odd teams out, but it looks like LSU will have to be another one, and that’s going to show after Saturday. The Chavis-coached defense is going to have too much trouble defending the Auburn spread, and while LSU will move the ball on Auburn, there’s now a scouting report on Harris. He won’t be as good as he has looked so far, and Auburn will win a close one.
Auburn: 31 LSU: 28