Game Preview

Tomorrow's Auburn-Mississippi State game should be interesting for several reasons.
First and foremost, this is the official beginning of Auburn being "Chris Todd's team." That era can end with one bad game, though both OC Tony Franklin and HC Tommy Tuberville have said Todd will have a long leash. How will Todd look now that he has the reins of the offense? As good as he looked last week, we shouldn't forget it was against Southern Mississippi -- not exactly an SEC opponent. This will be a good test for Todd.

MSU is known to have a big, physical defense. That matched up very well with Auburn's I-formation, pro-style offense last season. How will it match up against Franklin's spread offense? The Bulldogs played against two spread offense teams last year -- Kentucky and West Virginia. MSU had two entirely different results in those games. The Bulldogs waxed the Wildcats in Lexington, but got destroyed by WVU. If Auburn can play well and get skill players to the edges, I think tomorrow could get ugly. It's all about MSU trying to keep the Auburn RBs between the tackles -- something USM and Louisiana-Monroe completely failed to do.

Remember that last year, MSU won at Jordan-Hare Stadium simply by running the football. The Tigers knew the Bulldogs were planning to run right at them, yet they couldn't stop the visitors. Auburn's front seven against the MSU offensive line will be a major key. If MSU can't establish the run game, it can't establish the play-action game.

I look for the Bulldogs to try some play-action early in the contest and then try to establish the run. Auburn used to try that strategy, but Brandon Cox didn't have the arm strength to make defenses pay for loading the box. Wesley Carroll has a stronger arm than Cox and has the ability to keep the Auburn defense honest. He will have to.

Robert Dunn might have an enormous impact on tomorrow's game without touching the football. If MSU, as Sylvester Croom promised, punts the ball away from Dunn all night, it could cost the Bulldogs 20 yards of field position at a time. The Bulldogs don't have the offense to give away field position, so my guess is sooner or later, they'll have to kick to Dunn. Can he keep his success going?