College Football Picks: Auburn vs Mississippi State - Week 2 Betting

A phenomenal second weekend of college football betting kicks off Thursday night on ESPN with a key SEC West Division showdown between the #21 Auburn Tigers and the upstart and home-standing Mississippi State Bulldogs. Kick-off is scheduled for 7:50pm EST Thursday and online sportsbooks have opened with Auburn as a 2-point road favorite in college football picks with a total of 57. Auburn quarterback Cameron Newton is the man to watch for the Tigers. Newton earned SEC Offensive Player of the Week honors for last week’s performance in which he ran for 171 yards and 2 TD’s while passing for 186 more yards with 3 additional TD’s as the Tigers beat Arkansas State 52-26.

“I don’t know if I have seen an individual performance better than Cam Newton’s,” said Arkansas State head coach Steve Roberts. "He did some nice things when maybe something wasn’t there,” said Auburn head coach Gene Chizik. “He turned some bad plays into good ones.” The big concern for Auburn is defense as they allowed 323 yards passing last week and allowed Arkansas State to get the money as 31.5-point underdogs in college football odds while the game soared over the total of 52.5. Mississippi State showed plenty of offense in their own right as they clobbered Memphis last week 49-7 as 21.5-point home favorites with the game clearing the total of 47. Junior QB Chris Relf split time with freshman Tyler Russell and the two combined for 372 yards passing with sophomores Chad Bumphis and Brandon Heavens each catching 2 TD passes.

Head coach Dan Mullen has continued to demonstrate that the Bulldogs are an up and coming team that gets better each week. He was very pleased with the performance of his young team and added that he is “expecting a big time atmosphere here Thursday night.” Chizik expects Mississippi Sate to come out aggressive on offense. “They will take some shots down the field so you have to be very sound in what you are trying to do,” said Chizik. “It’s going to be a very important game for both sides so it’s going to be a hard fought battle. It’s going to be critical that we go over there and play to the best of our ability to give us a chance to win.”