Auburn vs. LSU Football Pick with Analysis
10/22/11
#1 LSU hosts the defending National Champion Auburn Tigers Saturday afternoon. LSU is a hefty -22 point favorite with a posted total of 46.5. A big differeNCe from last season when Auburn, playing at home, was a -5.5 favorite!
We’ll try and keep this write up short and to the point. When we look at a Game like this, between two programs with a storied past and recent success, like, uh, winning a national title, we zero right in on the underdog and look for ways to make a case to take the boatload of points. After all, Auburn is an SEC program that recruits well and has traditionally been a winning program. They get talent.
But they haven’t made it easy to make a case for them here. They started the year 3-0 scoring 30, 42 and 41 points. That was against very weak opposition and unfortunately they GAve up 38 and 34 in two of those and almost lost straight up. As the Schedule got more difficult, the point production decreased. Their last 4 Games they scored 24, 16, 14 and 17 points. In two of those Games, they GAve up 38 points. When you’re looking to make a case for a big dog, you need a team that can put points on the board and Auburn has not proved they can do that against a top defense.
If you’re looking to find fault with LSU it would have to be with their Schedule and it hasn’t exactly been weak. Credit them for kicking off the year against Oregon, a 40-27 win. Oregon’s lowest point total of the year. West Virginia and a wounded Florida are their other two wins over top opponents. Not the most difficult daNCe card, but not the easiest either.
Our model says blowout city here, predicting a 43-8 LSU win. We’re not in the habit of laying -22 points in college football Games in general, so we’re not about to do it here against a program like Auburn, reGArdless of what the numbers say this year. That being said though, if we’re forced to make a play here, it has to be on LSU. LSU -22