A JERSEY GUY: No. 7 Auburn

The Tigers have had a rough summer with COVID-19, which might make playing football this fall easier.

The main headlines coming out of Auburn this summer dealt mainly with spikes in COVID-19 cases and assorted other issues which Tiger coach Gus Malzahn had to handle.

Summer is basically over, COVID-19 is still very much around, but Auburn football, well that's doing just fine, thank you, ready to take another run at Alabama and LSU in the wild, wild SEC West.

Malzahn has a new offensive coordinator in Chad Morris to help QB Bo Nix to continue his development as an elite SEC QB. He's not there yet, but there are signs.

The problem for Auburn is that only 5 starters return on defense and it would be foolish to underestimate this group of Tigers who aren't as good as Clemson's group, but should be better than LSU's decimated ambush of Tigers.