Auburn Tigers Set for Final Challenge of Long Road Trip

The Auburn Tigers have ground out a tough stretch of road games, but it's bringing valuable experience to a young team

The Auburn Tigers have gained valuable experience during their tough road trip / Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

Playing on the road is one of the hardest things to do in college football, particularly in the SEC.

From “The Swamp” in Florida to LSU’s “Death Valley,” the SEC is home to some of the most difficult road environments in the country. Even Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium has some notoriety for its atmosphere. However, Auburn hasn't been able to benefit from the home crowd in some time.

After spending the first five weeks of the season at home in the friendly confines of Jordan-Hare Stadium, the Auburn Tigers (2-5, 0-4 SEC) have played back-to-back games in hostile road environments, one at Georgia and one at Missouri. Both teams were ranked in the top 20 when Auburn visited.

This experience has been valuable for head coach Hugh Freeze and the Auburn Tigers who have been reliant on a significant number of freshmen this season.

Auburn’s next challenge is another road duel in Lexington, Kentucky against the Kentucky Wildcats (3-4, 1-3 SEC) at Kroger Field. While Lexington isn’t known to have the same tough environment some other SEC schools have, it gives them another chance to get more experience playing road teams in conference.

The Tigers are also trying to replicate the experience in practice as much as they can.

“Having experience in them (road games) certainly helps,” Freeze said. “Going to Georgia this year was our first real test with that and we’re playing a lot of young kids that probably haven’t experienced it yet. We certainly try to make practice as chaotic as you can.”

The Tigers changed some things up during their game against Georgia. These changes were beneficial for Auburn despite not coming out on top in that game. One of them was to utilize the huddle more to improve communication.  

“Just to make sure everybody's hearing clearly before we got to the line of scrimmage, what we anticipated doing,” Freeze said. “And you know, we didn't have a lot of problems with the crowd noise.”

Kickoff is set for 6:45 p.m. CT and SEC Network will carry the broadcast.