TLDR: One team just won on a field goal with 33 seconds left. The other has lost 5 straight and just dropped homecoming to a Vanderbilt team that hadn't won an SEC game all year. Auburn and Mississippi State meet in Starkville on Saturday, November 14, and only one of them has a little margin left to work with.
Auburn (5-4) visits Mississippi State (4-5), which has lost 5 straight, in a game with real bowl-eligibility weight. A win clinches 6 for Auburn, and a loss pushes State to the edge. Auburn comes off a 4th-quarter comeback led by Byrum Brown. State is far more dangerous at home than on the road, but it keeps losing close games, the latest a 2-point homecoming loss to Vanderbilt.
Auburn's offense starts with Byrum Brown, who scored 3 touchdowns in the second half against Arkansas after the Tigers went to the locker room down 10-3. Auburn scored 17 points in the 4th quarter to erase a 10-point deficit, and Alex McPherson hit a 43-yarder with 33 seconds left to win it 26-23. Freshman Shadarius Toodle also had a debut that Auburn's own site called one of the most dazzling in program history, which gives Mississippi State a new name to prepare for on short tape. Eric Winters' fumble recovery at the Arkansas 10 with 2 seconds left ended it.
Mississippi State has nothing that feels like that right now. The Bulldogs fell behind Vanderbilt 16-0 at halftime of their homecoming game, then scored 2 touchdowns in 52 seconds to get within 2 in the 3rd quarter. Vanderbilt answered with back-to-back field goals. State drove to the Commodores' 8-yard line late, couldn't punch it in, and settled for a field goal in a 25-23 loss. That's 5 straight losses, and a Vanderbilt team that had lost 5 in a row got its first SEC win in Starkville.
The stakes are plain. Auburn is 5-4 and 1 win from bowl eligibility. Mississippi State is 4-5 and needs 2 more wins, so a 6th straight loss would leave the Bulldogs needing to win out. Local coverage after the Vanderbilt loss already called State's bowl chances increasingly uncertain. Whoever wins this one has a much easier final stretch.
The case for State is how differently it plays at home and on the road. In its last 2 road games, at LSU and at Texas, the Bulldogs scored 3 points total. At Davis Wade they put up 23 on Alabama, 15 on Oklahoma and 23 on Vanderbilt. The losses at home were to good teams or by a single score. This offense can move the ball in Starkville. What it hasn't done is win there.
Auburn swings between extremes. This is the team that went to Georgia and won 27-24, and the same team that lost by 21 at home to LSU and by 30 at Ole Miss in back-to-back weeks. The defense that gave up 83 points across those 2 games then held Arkansas to 23 and won it on a late takeaway. It's hard to know which version will show up, and that's the main question in this game.
The forecast shouldn't get in the way: 49 degrees, clear skies, 10 mph of wind and no rain expected. If State keeps it close, the game probably comes down to the 4th quarter, where Auburn just scored 17 and State just stalled at the 8.
