With three teams ranked among the eight best in the country and four teams in the top-17, the SEC West is easily the toughest division in the most difficult conference in America. Every game is going to be a dogfight and it starts on Saturday when the Auburn Tigers visit the Texas AM Aggies in the league opener for both sides. At No. 8 Auburn is the higher ranked team, but current college football odds put the Tigers as a 4-point dog. This game gets underway at 3:30 p.m. ET from Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, and can be seen on CBS.
College Football Odds at BookMaker.eu
Auburn Tigers +4
Texas AM Aggies -4
Over/Under 47.5
Auburn at Texas AM Odds Analysis
A series that has seen the road team thrive didn’t stop oddsmakers from making Texas AM a 4-point home favorite on the opening line. There’s been little movement on the spread since hitting the board with slight buyback to AM -3.5. This is a huge game in the SEC and the national landscape and you can bet there will be some action prior to kickoff. Early play has been on the total with the number falling from an opening 51 to a its current 47.5 with over 60 percent of the public backing the under.
Auburn Odds
The Tigers have won two straight and three of four in the series, and they are 3-0 straight up and 2-0-1 against the spread in three visits to Kyle Field since the Aggies joined the SEC in 2012. There was a minor letdown after Auburn got by Oregon in the opener with a less than scintillating 24-6 victory over Tulane two weeks ago. The Tigers were able to cover the 15-point spread in that game and they tuned up for this showdown by hammering Kent State, 55-16, last week, with a cover win on the 36-point line to improve to 3-0 ATS. It was also the first time Auburn cashed the over in three games.
Texas AM Odds
Playing FCS Lamar a week after losing to No. 1 Clemson was exactly what the Aggies needed to get ready for their SEC slate. There were some minor blemishes in the 62-3 rout of the Cardinals like red zone execution and stupid penalties, but overall it was a dominant performance albeit against a lesser opponent. The Aggies sat a number of starters in the second half and all were on the bench by the start of the final quarter, still they amassed 633 total yards with Isaiah Spiller emerging as the featured back with 116 rushing yards and a touchdown in the team’s first game without Jashaun Corbin, who was lost for the season. AM covered the 45-point line improving to 3-0 ATS for the year.
Key Stats
One area Auburn feels it needs to be great in to win this game is running the football. The Tigers put up decent numbers against Oregon and Tulane with an average of 4.3 yards per carry. They resolved any issues last week by churning out 467 yards, more than the first two games combined, for an average of 7.5 yards per tote. Three players – JaTarvious Whitlow, Joey Gatewood, Shaun Shivers – ran for over 100 yards, a first since 1983. It’s hard to imagine that kind of production against the Aggies, but improving on their 0.9 yards per carry from last year’s game gives Auburn a better chance while keeping freshman Bo Nix out of high stress situations.
Last Meeting
Auburn became the first home team to win a game in the SEC series with its come-from-behind 28-24 win last year. Despite failures moving the football for most of the game, the Tigers used a 14-point outburst in the final five-plus minutes to defeat the No. 25 Aggies. Jarrett Stidham tossed an 11-yard scoring pass to Seth Williams with 1:41 remaining for the deciding points. Texas AM dominated for three quarters and had a 423-278 advantage in total yards. However, three turnovers proved costly. Kellen Mond completed just 50 percent of his 32 passes for 220 yards with a touchdown and interception. AM’s defense limited Auburn to just 19 rushing yards on 21 carries yet lost the cover win on the late score. The Tigers closed as a 3.5-point favorite on the college football betting line with the teams cashing the over for the fifth time in the last seven games.
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