AUBURN | It seems like so long ago now, but it’s been just six weeks since Auburn played one of its most pivotal games of the season.
The Tigers were 2-0 and hosting No. 22 Penn State in a game that could put AU back in the Top 25 and in position to compete in the top half of the SEC.
The Nittany Lions put those dreams to bed quickly winning 41-12 at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
AU has lost four of five games since that 2-0 start and now sit at another pivotal point of the season.
This pivot point certainly doesn’t carry the same weight as a month and a half earlier, but will go a long way in determining how the Tigers finish up the 2022 season.
Auburn, 3-4 overall and 1-3 in the conference, hosts Arkansas, which has an almost identical record of 4-3 and 1-3 in the league. A win by either team puts them in position to finish at .500 or above and guarantee a bowl bid.
A loss, especially for Auburn, would likely doom the program to a second consecutive losing season for the first time in 23 years and the second time since the end of the Doug Barfield era/start of the Pat Dye era in 1980-81.
In fact, you have to go back to the Earl Brown era from 1948-50 to find a single Auburn coach that had back-to-back losing seasons.
That’s not the kind of company second-year coach Bryan Harsin wants to be included in, but it is what it is.
When you take a reasonable look at Auburn’s remaining schedule, a loss at Alabama Nov. 26 is likely. AU hasn’t won there since the Camback in 2010, and most of the ensuing losses have been blowouts.
That combined with a loss to Arkansas Saturday would give AU six losses, a .500 season at best, with the task of running the table against Mississippi State, Texas A&M and Western Kentucky to avoid a losing record.
Not impossible but not likely considering the current state of the program.
A win against the Hawgs, however, means the Tigers need just two more wins. AU will likely be favored against WKU so an upset at MSU or a home win over reeling TAMU would get AU to .500.
The threshold for a bowl bid is now 5-7 so that only requires two more wins, which means AU could conceivably go back to the Birmingham Bowl, or somewhere similar, having beaten just two Power 5 teams.
Wouldn’t that be a blast.
But all that “positivity” would likely be put to rest with a loss to Arkansas Saturday. It would bring those Earl Brown/Bryan Harsin comparisons to the forefront.
It’s extremely unlikely any Auburn coach could match the impotence of Brown’s 3-22 record over three seasons — they wouldn’t last that long — but without a major turnaround, it could be Harsin’s futility that other coaches will be measured against in the modern era.
The pivot point kicks off in just a few hours.
