LSU football: History of a storied rivalry with Auburn

LSU football is an 8.5-point favorite over Auburn on Saturday, according to FanDuel Sportsbook as of Tuesday night. The line has shifted numerous times in favor of the visitors over the last couple of days. It opened up as a 6.5-point line, but each team’s performance at the weekend has oddsmakers thinking twice about their initial spread.

LSU fans are understandably skeptical of this line regardless of the reasoning behind it. The Bayou Bengals’ faithful have gotten their dreams crushed too many times to know better than to assume a win is ever guaranteed against Auburn. The Tiger Bowl is one of the Southeastern Conference’s most storied rivalries after all. Despite not being the most fierce, it’s been one of the most consistently competitive games in the SEC for decades.

LSU football: History of the Tigers’ storied rivalry with Auburn

Both LSU and Auburn have established their fair share of rivalries over the years. The former has bad blood with teams such as Arkansas, Florida and Tulane. Meanwhile, the latter has a bitter hatred for Georgia, Georgia Tech and Ole Miss. Both programs despise Alabama.

Despite not being one another’s biggest regular rivals, one would be hard-pressed to find a rivalry as fierce as the Tiger Bowl. Don’t believe me? Just ask the ground beneath Tiger Stadium or the former barn across from Jordan-Hare Stadium that’s now an oral history to many fans. These programs have combined for some of the most memorable moments in college football history over the years.

The great thing about when these two teams get together every year is there is a possibility for history. No matter how fantastic one program is or how bad the other is at the time—the Tiger Bowl is almost always a close contest until the final whistle. 12 of the last 20 games played between LSU and Auburn have been decided by one score or less.

All-time, the Tigers who hail from the banks of the Mississippi River hold the advantage. LSU has a 31–24–1 record against its noisy neighbors to the east. Alas, those same navy and orange Tigers have won the last two meetings between the schools. A win on Saturday will see the series tied at five a piece over the last decade, as well.

The aforementioned history of the series is exactly why a lot of LSU fans are waiting until the final whistle to celebrate a victory. Bryan Harsin will be coaching for his job under difficult circumstances while Brian Kelly leads his team into a hostile environment for the first time.

The residents of Baton Rouge won’t allow themselves to count their chickens before they hatch and assume a -8.5 spread in favor of the Bayou Bengals guarantees a victory on the Plains. Not in this stadium, not in this weather, not in this rivalry game. If history—realistically speaking, the last two decades—has taught us anything, it’s that anything is possible when these two storied rivals get together for the Tiger Bowl.