No. 5 Auburn defeats No. 20 Kansas State: Recap, updates, and fun stuff!

“Hello. Hello, sir. Up here.”

The elderly Auburn couple is wandering through Aggieville, the cluster of college bars and shops in Manhattan, Kansas. They look up.

Bill Snyder may not be the sharpest dresser. He wears a windbreaker to every game, and that fashion choice — combined with his dress pants — has intrigued Twitter users who presumably don’t watch much Kansas State football. But this is nothing new for Snyder, who wears a windbreaker every game.

This year, Snyder is wearing a Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl windbreaker after his team demolished Michigan in that game last season. Tonight, he stuck with that theme.

Kansas State isn’t helping itself so far. The Wildcats fumbled in their own territory to lead to an Auburn field goal, and then drove down the field only to throw an interception at the goal line ... that bounced off a Wildcat.

That has K-State fans looking like this:

Auburn was forced to punt in its first drive against Kansas State, and the drive nearly got a lot worse ... until the punter saved the day. Matthew Shiel, a freshman from Australia, scooped up the punt and used the skills he learned during high school rugby to get the punt off.

It could have changed the quarter, too. Auburn got a fumble on K-State’s ensuing drive and started the scoring off with a field goal.

The sign all the way on the right:

There’s a lot of weird, awesome stuff going on in the Little Apple tonight in preparation for Auburn-Kansas State, the week’s biggest game and only one on a Thursday. Perhaps none weirder than TIGER TAILGATE:

Those tigers don’t even look like they’re having a good time. This reminded us of something we saw just this weekend: a Mizzou Tiger Tailgate:

Sure, we’ve seen Auburn Pope before, most famously in Atlanta for the SEC Championship ...

... but have we ever seen him 1,000 miles away from Auburn?

“Roll,” as in Alabama proclamation “Roll Tide.” “Snyd,” as in Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder. “Came to K-State just to root against Auburn,” as in it’s frankly insulting to Alabama fans and all the rest of us to imagine a sports fan doing anything else with his or her time. There’s a college football game featuring a team you don’t like. Go to it. That’s that.

“Roll Snyd” appears to be an especially popular one in Manhattan tonight, what with an SEC West team in town and all.

Thursday night college football is back with a vengeance, with a marquee matchup between two conference contenders gracing our televisions. No. 5 Auburn travels to take on No. 20 Kansas State and head coach/magician Bill Snyder, after bye weeks for both teams.

Auburn started the year with a 45-21 victory over an improved Arkansas squad, and followed that up with a 59-13 win over San Jose State. The Tigers’ offense continues to fire on all cylinders, and they remain one of the favorites to make the playoff at the end of the year.

The Auburn Tigers are 11-0 straight up and 9-2 against the spread in their last 11 games as the betting favorite. Auburn will be an 8.5-point road favorite this Thursday night visiting the Kansas State Wildcats.

Kansas State is a tough team to play against at home, and as such rarely finds itself in the role of home underdog. But going up against a powerhouse team like Auburn, Kansas State may be outmatched. The Tigers look like a solid pick at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com.

The Auburn offense does a lot of its damage with tempo, shifts, motion, and varying alignments as window dressing on what amounts to a simple scheme. It becomes easy for opponents to get lost and give up leverage or miss assignments. Between the Tigers’ tempo, unique brand of option football, and overall talent, teams can’t keep up.

Don’t expect the Wildcats to fall prey to these tactics. They face rapid tempo in the Big 12 just about every Saturday, they face a diverse option offense all offseason in practice, and they are one of the more detail-oriented teams in the nation.