Saturday’s game against LSU is ‘do or die’

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Saturday’s game against LSU is ‘do or die’ for Auburn

Today 8:01 AM

3-4 minutes

Every game is important, but with a loss to Florida marring Auburn’s otherwise impressive record, the upcoming game against LSU is taking on more importance.

“Let’s just be honest,” safety Jeremiah Dinson said. “Where we want to go, the goals that we’ve got for the team, we need this one. So, man, it’s really do or die this week.”

The “goals” that the Tigers have are to go to the College Football Playoffs and then win a national championship. But Auburn didn’t enter the season as a likely playoff contender according to Vegas.

Before the season started, Auburn’s odds to win a national championship were +8000 according to FanDuel Sportsbook. BetOnline.ag had Auburn finishing with 7.5 regular season wins and gave it a 50/1 chance to win the College Football Playoff title.

Then the Tigers kicked off the season with a win over a ranked team.

By beating then-No. 11 Oregon, it had the best win in the country after one week of college football, and the AP Poll moved it up six spots to No. 10 with the victory.

The Tigers added another win against a ranked opponent when it beat then-No. 17 Texas A&M at Kyle Field on Sept. 21 and once again, Auburn’s ranking jumped.

It moved from No. 8 to No. 7 and its odds increased from +8000 to +4000 according to FanDuel Sportsbook.

Auburn continued to take down opponents and were 5-0 to start the season.

On October 5, the Tigers had their first top-10 matchup versus then-No. 10 Florida. They went to The Swamp and were taken down, which led to their first drop in the AP Poll. Auburn fell five spots from No. 7 to No. 12 while Florida took its place at 7. After the loss, their chance to win the College Football Playoffs went from 25/1 to 66/1 according to BetOnline.ag.

Now Auburn’s on the road again for its second top-10 matchup of the season. This time it’s facing the No. 2 team in the country — its highest-ranked opponent yet in the loudest environment yet.

They’re double-digit underdogs to the LSU Tigers and haven’t won at Tiger Stadium in 20 years.

“I think with the way things stand this is a really important game to win,” quarterback Bo Nix said. “We’re definitely not going in there thinking about losing the game. We’re going to do whatever we can to win the game and bring it home.”

Auburn is 6-1, so it’s bowl eligible, but it doesn’t just want to go to a bowl. It wants to go to a national championship. LSU is “another team in our way” to get there, defensive end Marlon Davidson said.

The stakes are even higher because LSU isn’t the only ranked team in Auburn’s path to a title. Auburn also has to face No. 10 Georgia on Nov. 16 and No. 1 Alabama on Nov. 30.

The Auburn Tigers have what it takes to win, Davidson said, if they go out and play fast and physical and hit “on all cylinders at the right time.”

But they have to find it in them to finish. They’ve lost in close games the past two years because they couldn’t finish, coach Gus Malzahn said.

Auburn knows what’s at stake — the chance to make history, the chance to go to the playoffs, the chance to win a title — and it’s not taking that lightly. It knows what it has to do.

“You just lay it all on the line and just play til that clock hit triple zeroes,” Dinson said.