Future Opponent Game to Watch: Missouri vs Auburn

On Saturday night at 6:45 Central Time No. 16 (5-1) Missouri heads down to Jordan-Hare Stadium to take on the Auburn Tigers (3-3). For the dedicated TDR readers out there, you’ll notice that I’ve profiled both of these teams earlier this season, Auburn for their matchup against Oklahoma and Missouri for their matchup against Kansas. So instead of doing a deep dive into some stats via Teamrankings.com and previewing each roster, let’s look instead at where these two teams stand heading into Saturday and some storylines to watch for. 

Two teams, two completely different season destinies 

Heading into Saturday night, these two teams could not be in positioned more differently. Missouri is in “the pack” of SEC teams in the hunt for a College Football Playoff spot with its lone loss coming against Alabama last week. Meanwhile, Auburn has played itself out of the College Football Playoff discussion and is sputtering at a .500 record. 

A win for Missouri gives it a solid road win to boost its resume. A loss for Auburn would be seen as a damaging loss to a “new money” SEC school and give the team its fourth loss before November. In its program history, Auburn has struggled to find that middle ground when its team is not a National Championship contender. Whether its program pride or College Football Playoff aspirations, a lot is at stake on Saturday. 

Which mobile quarterback can throw it better? 

Saturday night’s matchup features two quarterbacks who are extremely gifted with their legs in Auburn’s Jackson Arnold and Missouri’s Beau Pribula. 

Arnold enters the game with 983 passing yards, a 64% completion percentage, 5 passing touchdowns and 0 interceptions. Despite no interceptions, these numbers speak to a quarterback who has trouble throwing the football down the field. The only game where Arnold has more than 1 passing touchdown all year came against Ball State.

While carrying the football, Arnold has 83 carries for 247 yards and 6 touchdowns, a career high. The problem for Arnold however is that he’s only averaging 3 yards per carry. Because of his limited passing production and a leaky Auburn offensive line, when teams can shut down Arnold’s legs, they effectively shut down Auburn’s offense. 

Missouri’s Beau Pribula was thrust into the spotlight after starter Sam Horn suffered a season-ending injury on a designed run in Missouri’s 2025 opener. In his first year as a collegiate starter, Pribula has a 72% completion percentage, 11 touchdowns, 5 interceptions, and a 77.8 QBR, good for 22nd in the nation according to ESPN. 

Similar to Arnold, one of Pribula’s best attributes is his running ability. On the ground, Pribula has 51 carries for 182 yards and 4 touchdowns on the season. That said Pribula has been a much more efficient passer than Arnold and has over double the amount of touchdowns through the air. 

Although Pribula is the better passer between the two quarterbacks, all that glitters is not gold for Missouri’s quarterback. Against Power 4 teams this season, Pribula’s only game where he had more passing touchdowns than interceptions came against Kansas (Pribula had 3 passing touchdowns and 0 interceptions). In his two other games against Power 4 competition, Pribula threw for 1 touchdown and 1 interception against South Carolina and for 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions against Alabama. 

The Alabama game in particular should concern Tigers fans. In that game, Pribula completed 16/28 passes for 162 yards and had difficulty throwing the football down the field. It took Pribula all the way until the fourth quarter to eclipse 100 passing yards. And on third down, Missouri went 1/11 on the day. And all of this was in front of a home crowd. Late in the game, Pribula’s accuracy and arm strength waned as he sailed multiple throws and ended Missouri’s last series with an easy lollipop interception. 

Because of the strength of Missouri and Auburn’s defenses, whichever quarterback can take care of the football and execute on third down will win this game. Saturday presents a test for Pribula as his first true SEC road game. Regardless of how good the team is, Auburn at night is a tough environment, which could neutralize Pribula’s  talent advantage in this quarterback matchup. 

Two stout defenses 

While both of these teams have mobile quarterbacks and weapons at receiver such as Auburn’s Cam Coleman and Eric Singleton Jr. and Missouri’s Kevin Coleman Jr. and Marquis Johnson, the defenses are the deepest units on each team. The trenches on defense will decide this game.

Missouri’s pass rush has 16 total sacks in 2025, 4 of which came against Alabama last weekend. For Auburn, its defense has 18 sacks already in 2025. Both of these defenses can get after the quarterback, and whichever defense can throw off the timing of Arnold or Pribula will be in the driver’s seat and likely come away with a win. 

Can Ahmad Hardy rebound? 

Missouri’s Ahmad Hardy has solidified himself as one of the SEC’s best running backs in 2025. He has 115 carries for 782 yards and 9 touchdowns so far this season. Hardy is averaging 6.8 yards per carry on the year and is difficult to bring down with his physicality. 

Last weekend, Hardy had his worst game on the season with 12 carries for 52 yards in a 27-24 loss to Alabama. Good running backs are able to take pressure off their quarterback while on the road. If Hardy struggles to generate yards on Saturday, Auburn has a legitimate shot to muddy the waters and come away with a win. 

Hot seat Hugh 

If Auburn loses on Saturday, Hugh Freeze’s job will be in jeopardy. When Auburn hired Hugh Freeze, it envisioned greater success than Hugh Freeze had at Ole Miss. Those goals have fallen well short since Hugh Freeze’s first season in Auburn. College coaches who don’t perform have already started to get fired around the country. UCLA’s DeShaun Foster and Penn State’s James Franklin have already gotten canned this season. Florida appears to be on track to fire Billy Napier this weekend. Freeze could join that list with another loss. 

Prediction 

Despite starting strong, Auburn falls to Missouri in a nasty defensive slugfest 17-14. Hugh Freeze suffers is 4th loss of the year and is on firing block watch.