Auburn's win in Athens deserves the hype, but look at how it happened. Gunner Stockton turned it over 3 times, and the last one, a fumble off a collision with his own center with 58 seconds left, put Auburn in range. A roughing-the-passer flag on Brown with 14 seconds left got them 15 more yards, and Alex McPherson hit from 34 as time expired. It's the biggest win of Alex Golesh's time at Auburn, and Georgia handed over a lot of it.
For LSU, this whole season has been decided by home and away. Both losses in the last 5 came on the road: 32-24 at Ole Miss and the 35-34 overtime loss at Kentucky. At Tiger Stadium they beat Texas A&M 35-6, McNeese 63-14 and now Mississippi State 31-0. A defense that has given up 0, 6 and 14 at home gave up 32 and 35 away from it, and Jordan-Hare at 11 AM local is no friendlier than either of those places.
McNeese63-14
Auburn has been streaky at home too. It ran Southern Miss off the field 43-8 and ground out a 21-15 win over Vanderbilt, but it also lost a 44-39 shootout to Florida on this same field. The Tennessee loss was the one where the offense went quiet, with 14 points in Knoxville. Their best result so far needed 3 takeaways and a gift at the end. Against a Leavitt offense that went 38 dropbacks without a turnover, Auburn probably won't get handed 3 short fields again.
Both teams sit at 2-2 in the SEC, so whoever loses is fading out of the conference race by late October. Weather won't matter: the forecast calls for 69 degrees, clear and light wind. Leavitt's form against the Auburn defense that just rattled Stockton is the matchup to watch, and so is whether LSU's road defense is the one that showed up in Oxford and Lexington or the one that just pitched a shutout.