Auburn travels to Norman, Oklahoma for the school’s first ever football game inside the Sooner State. This makes for Oklahoma’s 3rd home game of the season so far. Their lone trip away from home was at Temple last week when they beat the Owls 42-3. Tough stuff.
Auburn has already traveled to Big 12 land in their opening week game at Baylor. Auburn won that game by 14 points. With Baylor, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M next week, Auburn will play three of their first give games in Texas or Oklahoma. I love SEC scheduling.
As lopsided as the scheduling may be, it does mean Auburn has road experience against a P4 team with a good quarterback and an excited stadium calling for their heads. By the stats, Auburn has already played the best quarterback they will face through their first four games (that’s including Oklahoma).
Sawyer Robertson of Baylor’s season stats: 1005 yds, 10 TD, 2 INT. Auburn beat him by 14 on the road.
John Mateer of Oklahoma’s season stats: 944 yds, 5 TD, 3 INT. These numbers came against Illinois State, a lackluster Michigan, and Temple.
Note: Jackson Arnold’s stats in three games where he needed to throw nearly zero passes: 501 yds, 4 TD, 0 INT.
I’m not sure if you’ve been watching any predictions or previews about the game this week, but every time John Mateer’s name is mentioned he gains 47 points in the Heisman ranking. Look, the guy may be really good. He probably is good. But he has five touchdown passes and has thrown a pick in every game this season. He has beaten Illinois State, Michigan, and Temple. What are we looking at exactly?
It reeks of a massive case of blind hype building. It’s one of those situations where people subconsciously build on to what they heard another guy say without seeing literally any footage or checking a stat. And it grows every time someone opens their mouth.
Again, he is good. But watching this phenomenon this week was very interesting. It felt forced. It felt like something we could be laughing about in Week 10.
But whatever, Jackson Arnold is going back to the place that blamed him for an awful offensive line, an entire room of wide receivers being hurt, and an offensive coordinator being fired midseason. He has plenty to play for. He has plenty of idiots to quiet.
I just watched two student newspaper writers on Finebaum literally destroy Arnold on national TV. Stuff about throwing the ball backwards and throwing picks. Check the stats. Jackson had 3 interceptions in 10 games and 246 pass attempts last year. Mateer accomplished this feat just last week with his 3rd interception in as many games.
Auburn beat Baylor on the road and it means nothing anymore. Oklahoma beat a very mediocre Michigan and then won at Temple last week and in just 5-6 days they are now a championship contender with the Heisman frontrunner.
Again, it feels like the type of hype we’re laughing about by the end of the season. Remember Arch Manning? Yeah, like that.
Jackson Arnold will go into Oklahoma with a quiet swagger. The Auburn offense will drain the life out of the clock with their run game and Jackson will throw just enough and when needed. The Sooners will have a big exciting score to start the game, but that’s about it. Reality wins.
They ain’t really SEC yet. All the talk will look dumb. The better quarterback wins.
Auburn 31, Oklahoma 21
