The Auburn Tigers will get the chance this week to kick off their season in front of the whole country when they travel to Waco, Texas to face the Baylor Bears this week in a Friday night showdown.
After an offseason of line movement, Auburn enters as a slight favorite against a talented Bears team with a returning quarterback in Sawyer Robertson who’s capable of a big night.
After the way the last two years have gone to start the Hugh Freeze era on The Plains, more success this season is an absolute must.
And that success for the Tigers must start in week one.
Given Auburn’s annual SEC gauntlet, facing Alabama and Georgia every year, this is a chance to show the Tigers are a different team this year, but a potential force to be reckoned with as well.
Led by new quarterback Jackson Arnold in command of the offense, Freeze and his staff are facing arguably their most important game of the last three years.
If Auburn can go into Waco and grab a victory, it sets an incredible tone.
It likely leads to a 3-0 start with Ball State and South Alabama on the docket next, and more importantly sets the Tigers up nicely ahead of their brutal stretch on the road against Oklahoma and Texas A&M before hosting Georgia.
Auburn’s season is certainly not over if they don’t leave Texas with a victory. But it makes it a whole lot harder to reach the goals they have for the year and if they want to have any realistic chance of competing for a playoff spot.
Most importantly for Freeze, a victory would sell to the fanbase that his vision is starting to come together and instead of another year doomed to be filled with hot seat talk from the start, the Auburn Family would get behind their head coach right away and give him the confidence to know they have his back.
It won’t be the most important game the Tigers face this season and won’t have any impact in the conference standings, but it is certainly the most important game Freeze has coached in at Auburn so far and has a chance to dictate exactly what this season could look like moving forward.
When the Tigers kick it off on Friday night, they do so with the knowledge that they have to come out on top.
Michael Brauner is a Senior Sports Analyst and Contributing Writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @MBraunerWNSP and hear him every weekday morning from 6 to 9 a.m. on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5, available free online.
