It’s Auburn week, and Friday’s show led with a take, not a hedge: this is a Trinidad Chambliss get-right game. We laid out three reasons Ole Miss wins on Saturday, three keys to victory, the players worth watching, and what the FanDuel line is telling us before landing on a final score. Here’s the recap. Hotty Toddy.
Reason 1: A Chambliss Get-Right Game
No pretending the Texas trip didn’t happen — Trinidad Chambliss went 25-of-52 for 250 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions, and he was 6-of-18 with two of those picks by halftime. But the matchup in front of him on Saturday is the whole point. Auburn just lost 38-17 at home to LSU and surrendered 387 passing yards, with one corner getting picked on for 10 catches on 10 targets and 114 yards.
Per Sports Illustrated, Auburn’s defense ranks 60th in the country in EPA per pass and 85th in success rate. That is a secondary you can throw on, and Chambliss has thrown a touchdown pass in 20 straight games — two shy of Chad Kelly’s school record. If he’s anywhere close to the version we saw against Missouri, Ole Miss is going to be in the high 30s.
Reason 2: The Defense Has to Own the Quarterback Run
Auburn’s offense runs through quarterback Byrum Brown, who already has 487 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns. Pete Golding’s one-word charge on Monday was “eliminate” the quarterback run game, and the cautionary tape is the fourth quarter at Texas, when the Longhorns ran for 121 yards from the 10:30 mark on.
Realistically Brown gets loose once or twice; that’s fine. The killers are the eight-yard runs on second-and-7 that keep the chains moving and wear a defense down. Keep his gains small, make him a thrower on third down, get bodies to the ball, and spy him without losing rush lanes. The quarterback who beats you is the one who escapes the pocket and finds nothing but grass.
Reason 3: Win the Clean Game at Home
Every Ole Miss loss this year has shared a theme — turnovers, missed tackles, dumb penalties. The formula Saturday is simple to say and hard to do: protect the football, tackle well, and don’t give Auburn a way in. The backdrop helps. Ole Miss has won 15 straight at home since 2021 and is 38-13 in Oxford over five seasons, and the crossover with Locked On Auburn said it plainly — Auburn needs help to win this game. Take the help away and there’s not much left.
In the backfield, Kewan Lacy is out with a shoulder injury, so the load shifts to the next group, with freshman Shekai Mills-Knight in line for carries. A run game that works on first down is the best friend of a quarterback coming off a three-interception night, so handing it off early and often is part of getting Chambliss right.
What Vegas Is Saying — and the Score
On FanDuel, Ole Miss is a 13.5-point favorite with a total of 56.5, and a moneyline that works out to roughly an 83% chance of a Rebels win. The market has leaned harder toward Ole Miss since Monday — the spread up a point, the total down a point — after opening around 10.5. The show reads the market; it doesn’t tell you what to bet. Where did all of it land? Steven’s number: Ole Miss 38, Auburn 17.
Also on the Show
The week’s crossover with Locked On Auburn framed the Rebels as the clear side, and the 10-million-view celebration kept rolling. Kickoff is Saturday at 11:45 a.m. CT on the SEC Network in Oxford — get there early if you can, because Georgia is just eight days away and this team can’t afford to look past Auburn.
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