We are one day away from the start of Auburn’s college football season. It is time to finalize your tailgating plans and make sure you have all the TVs set up to watch.
With the game so close, Auburn Athletics wanted to remind everyone what to wear for the game against Mercer. Also, the soccer team earned another hard-fought tie against a top 25 opponent and Neville Arena was recognized as one of the toughest places for opponents to play by opposing coaches in a new poll.
Find out more about these stories and more in the Friday edition of the Auburn Morning Rush.
Wear white against Mercer
Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
Auburn is opening the season Saturday against the Mercer Bears in Jordan-Hare Stadium and the game will be a White Out. The game, which is scheduled to start at 6 pm CT, will open Auburn’s 130th season of college football and the second under Bryan Harsin.
No. 11 Soccer ties No. 21 West Virginia
Jacob Taylor/AU Athletics
No. 11 Auburn soccer earned their third straight draw Thursday, tying No. 21 West Virginia 0-0 at the Auburn Soccer Complex.
The Tigers are now 2-0-3 on the season and have recorded four shutouts to start the season. Goalkeeper Maddie Prohaska now has 17 career clean sheets, the fifth most in program history.
“I thought we played miles better than we did last game,” head coach Karen Hoppa said. “Our offense was clicking, and we created a ton of opportunities. Credit to West Virginia’s goalkeeper, she was brilliant, robbed us of a couple. We just lacked the composure on a couple of good chances, but it’s coming. The improvement is there. We just have to continue to connect and then finish on the opportunities that we do have.”
Auburn outshot the Mountaineers 13-4 but were unable to convert any of their seven shots on goal.
Neville Arena voted one of the toughest road environments
Jake Crandall / USA TODAY NETWORK
CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander have surveyed roughly 100 college basketball coaches about various topics and are slowly releasing the results. Thursday’s was about the toughest places to play and Neville Arena made the cut.
Checking in as a Tier 3 arena, 7.4% of coaches surveyed listed it as one of the three toughest places to play on their ballot. One anonymous coach praised Bruce Pearl for getting Auburn’s fanbase so involved.
Small, but so hard to go into their facility and win. Fans are super-engaged, and Bruce (Pearl) does as good as any coach in the country bringing excitement to their program with his shenanigans with student engagement.”
Shenanigans are the perfect way to describe Pearl and how he has energized the fans and turned Neville Arena into such a tough place to play.
Tigers Twitter Roundup
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