Auburn vs. Texas A&M 2017 live stream: How to watch online

The Auburn Tigers’ College Football Playoff hopes may be on life support, but their path to a New Year’s Six bowl runs through College Station. The nation’s No. 14 team will face an inconsistent Texas A&M Aggies team with hopes of keeping their SEC West title dreams alive. Kickoff is scheduled for noon ET and will be broadcast on ESPN (live stream).

Auburn already has two losses, but running the table to an SEC title — and beating Alabama and Georgia along the way — may still be enough to launch them into the FBS’s final four. The Aggies, on the other hand, are playing for bowl placement after a 5-3 start that’s included quality wins (South Carolina, Florida) and heartbreaking losses (UCLA, Alabama). Beating the Tigers at home would be an immediate resume-topper for A&M’s 2017 campaign.

The then-No. 10 Auburn Tigers were upset by LSU, 27-23 on Saturday, thanks to a 20-point comeback from Ed Orgeron’s team in Tiger Stadium. This means a huge boost of confidence in what Coach O’s doing, but just looking at the numbers, this was an incredible comeback.

In fact, Auburn had a damn 96 percent chance of winning the game when it went up 20-0 in the second quarter.

Three months before Texas A&M’s 34-point collapse against UCLA, topped in college football history only by 2006 Northwestern’s 35-pointer against Michigan State, Kevin Sumlin’s athletic director put him on blast.

“Coach knows he has to win and he has to win this year,” A&M athletic director Scott Woodward said while live on the SEC Network

For all the big matchups we’ve had over the past decade or so, there may be no opponent that have been as quietly pivotal as Texas A&M has been. It was the springboard to a great 2013 season, and the saving grace down the stretch in 2015. We hope that this year’s edition of the game will provide a similar propulsion into Amen Corner.

Alabama ran for 232 yards against Texas A&M. Mississippi State dialed it up for 228. When the Aggies get beat in SEC play, it’s against teams who can grind them down on the ground. Auburn fits that bill; the Tigers boast a top-20 run game after gaining nearly 238 rushing yards per game this fall.

Texas A&M will get an unexpected boost Saturday, however. A broken scapula will take the Tigers’ leading rusher Kerryon Pettway out of the equation for Saturday’s game and beyond.

Beating a solid top-25 Auburn team would keep Kevin Sumlin in College Station for at least one more season. It’s going to take a Herculean effort, but the Aggies have the talent and the home field advantage to notch their biggest win of the year.