Auburn Football: Game-by-game predictions for 2020 season

Despite losing a lot of talent to the NFL, Auburn football has a talented enough team and quarterback to contend for its first SEC title since 2013.

Auburn played perhaps the toughest schedule in the entire country, and yet it hung around the top 10 all season and finished 2019 with a 9-4 record that included wins over Pac-12 champion Oregon, Texas A&M and, of course, Alabama.

The Tigers have two big questions that they will need to answer if they are to be successful this season. One, can Bo Nix take the necessary leaps at quarterback to make the Auburn offense more dangerous? And two, can the Tigers replace all of the NFL talent they lost on the defensive side of the ball and the offensive line?

Auburn fielded one of the best defenses in the entire country last season, but lost the main stars of the defense in Derrick Brown, Marlon Davidson and Noah Igbinoghene and also lost four starters along the offensive line.

Gus Malzahn has recruited very well over the years, but that is a lot of new faces on the field. Nix was good as a freshman, but he has to make a lot of improvements to carry this team until they can find the right starters on the offensive line and secondary.

Here is how I think Auburn’s 2020 season is going to play out.