Saturday Predictions: Auburn at Vanderbilt

At 2-7, Vanderbilt is officially out of contention to make a bowl game. I guess, technically, Vanderbilt could make a bowl game at 5-7 if there aren’t enough bowl spots filled, but parlagi hasn’t been keeping up with that math.

Anyway, getting to 5-7 would still require Vanderbilt to win out, starting with this week’s home game against Auburn. Are our writers even confident that Vanderbilt can beat Auburn? What does the Hired Auburn Man think? Let’s find out.

Tom Stephenson

The thing is, Auburn isn’t very good. They’re 4-4 and their offense is kind of ass; last Saturday’s 27-13 win over Mississippi State was the first time they’d scored more than 21 points against a Power 5 team this season. There was a reason why going into this season I highlighted this game as one that Vanderbilt could potentially win.

And then I saw the product that Vanderbilt was putting on the field this season, and then I heard that Clark Lea is still undecided between Ken Seals and Walter Taylor at quarterback. I watched both of them play last Saturday and if Clark Lea is undecided on that, well, he’s probably punting on this season and seeing if he actually has anything with Taylor before they go into the portal in the offseason to try to solve the quarterback issues that have plagued the offense all season. Oh, yeah, and hopefully the offensive coordinator issues. I don’t think Auburn has a good offense and it won’t matter because lol how many points is Vanderbilt going to score here.

The Pick: Auburn 28, Vanderbilt 7

The SEC Upset Pick of the Week: Screw it, I’m taking Jacksonville State (+16) in the Battle of the Game Penises.

Andrew VU ‘04

As Early Cuyler reminds us...

Seriously, they suck hard by War Tiger standards. They’re 4-4 with a blowout loss to LSU. However, they lost to both Ugga and Ole Piss by only a touchdown each. Further, they just stomped all over Clanga.

They suck this year, but not as hard as we do.

The Pick: Auburn 27 - Vanderbilt 14.

The SEC Upset Pick of the Week: I honestly don’t see any upsets happening this week, but if one were to come to pass, it’s aTm over Ole Piss. The Grode Jars over the Grove.

Patrick Sawyer

I like that we have reached the “OC is blaming all the QBs as scapegoats, and the HC is buying it” portion of the season. The problem is pretty obviously the OC who consistently stays away from our best targets. During the Ole Miss, the broadcast mentioned that Vanderbilt has an explosive play on 20% of their drives. The SEC average is 13%. So why does our offense fail to score? Oh, yeah, cause our OC does things like calling for a very mobile and very large QB to go straight dropback and make a tight-window throw on 4th and 2 instead of using his best traits. TWICE. I defended Lynch as okay but not great, so I personally deserve to suffer through this. The players deserve much better though.

Anyway, Vanderbilt’s offense was averaging 21 points per game in SEC play then only put 7 on Ole Miss with a newly minted member of the QB controversy that already existed around Ken Seals and the injured AJ Swann.

Lost in all of that, the defense recovered from a horrid first half where they surrendered 26 points (10 on short fields) while giving up 301 yards to hold the Rebels to 7 points (started in Vanderbilt territory) on 130 yards. If the offense had done anything at all, they would have been in the game. Nope. Cannot let that happen.

Auburn meanwhile is as disastrous on offense as we are and in a similar fashion. They have plenty of playmakers, especially RB Jarquez Hunter, but they are battling with their own QB controversy. This is going to be ugly football. The difference is Auburn’s HC and OC trying to find ways to be effective with good athletes while Clark Lea and Joey Lynch actively stifle the playmakers Vanderbilt has.

The Pick: Vanderbilt 13, Auburn 23

The SEC Upset Pick of the Week: I don’t expect any upsets, but I’ll take Mike Wright to beat Kentucky for the 2nd year in a row because it would be hilarious.