Auburn will travel to Waco, Texas, to battle Baylor in a crucial Week 1 showdown on Friday night.
The Tigers are slight road favorites despite entering the season with coach Hugh Freeze on the hot seat. Auburn has new personnel on both sides of the ball this year as it looks to take a step forward in Year 3 under Freeze.
Here’s a full breakdown of Auburn vs. Baylor, complete with betting odds, intel on both teams and a couple of predictions.
Auburn vs. Baylor betting odds
Here are up-to-date betting odds for Auburn’s Week 1 clash at Baylor:
Auburn fact sheet
- Despite going just 2-6 in conference play last season, Auburn finished with one of the best offenses in the SEC. The Tigers averaged 6.1 yards per play vs. SEC opponents, good enough for third in the conference.
- Auburn seemingly improved at quarterback this offseason as it brought in Jackson Arnold from Oklahoma. However, Arnold had a statistically shocking season in 2024 for the Sooners and the vibes out of Auburn have not been good this summer. Freeze has publicly said he’s asked Auburn’s defense to ease up on him in practice and later said Auburn could play as many as 3 quarterbacks in the opener vs. Baylor.
- Auburn did bring in one of the absolute best transfer receivers in the country this offseason in Eric Singleton Jr. Combined with Cam Coleman and Malcolm Simmons, Auburn’s WR room isn’t just underrated — it might be regarded as the best in the country by season’s end.
- Defensively, Auburn allowed 4.96 yards per play last season in conference games — good enough for 4th in the SEC.
- Per Bill Connelly’s postgame win expectancy metric for 2024, Auburn won about 2.8 fewer games than expected — dead last in FBS.
Baylor fact sheet
- Baylor coach Dave Aranda found himself on the hot seat last season but the Bears rallied around him and were able to keep this staff in place for another season. Baylor finished the 2024 regular season on a 6-game winning streak before losing to LSU in the Texas Bowl.
- The emergence of Sawyer Robertson as a potentially-elite college quarterback may have saved Aranda’s job. Robertson averaged 9 yards per attempt over that 6-game winning streak and posted a TD-to-INT ratio of 17-to-4.
- However, none of Baylor’s wins over that stretch came against any of the Big 12’s elite tier — a group of 4 teams who all went 7-2 in conference play last season.
- Baylor’s defense was vulnerable to explosive plays in 2024. It ranked 35th in defensive success rate but 82nd in EPA-per-play defense, according to Game on Paper. It finished in the 27th percentile in rushing explosiveness and the 15th percentile in passing explosiveness.
- Baylor is in the top-25 of returning production on both offense and defense, according to ESPN’s metric.
2 best bets for Auburn vs. Baylor
I like fading Auburn in the fourth quarter. This pick largely comes from not believing in Hugh Freeze late in games. Historically, his offense has been strongest at the beginning of a game before lagging in the second half.
We’ve also seen this chess match play out before with Freeze and Aranda. In 2016, Freeze was the head coach at Ole Miss while Aranda was the DC at LSU. After going into halftime tied 21-21, Ole Miss was shutout in the second half. The Rebels averaged over 7 yards per play in the first quarter and then 3.86 yards per play in the 3 quarters after that. That resembles a pattern we saw last season — Auburn averaged 5.9 yards per play in the fourth quarter but nearly 7 yards per play in the first 3 quarters. The later in a game it gets, the more Freeze’s offense has a tendency to slip.
Pick: Baylor +1.5 in the 4th quarter (-166 on FanDuel)
As noted above, Baylor really struggled with conceding explosive plays last season. That’s a specialty for Freeze, particularly early in games. I think Auburn will be trying to draw up some big gains early in this game and Singleton is a prime candidate to be on the receiving end. He has elite speed and was 1 of 6 ACC receivers to catch 7 passes of 30+ yards last year despite playing in a run-heavy Georgia Tech offense.
Pick: Eric Singleton to record 44+ receiving yards (-118 on DraftKings)
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
