BATON ROUGE — With Halloween right around the corner, is there a worse time to pay a visit to Jordan-Hare Stadium?

Lane Kiffin and No. 17 LSU football are about find out as they travel to Auburn for a renewal of an old SEC rivalry Saturday, Oct. 24 (11 a.m. CT, ABC). One of Kiffin's coaching mentors, former Alabama and LSU head coach Nick Saban, who obviously is quite familiar with Auburn, has said he believes Auburn's football stadium haunted.

Weird or "magical," as Kiffin put it earlier this week, things happen inside the venue and Auburn has snatched wins from the jaws of defeat plenty of times over the years.

All that is to say, LSU (5-2, 2-2 SEC) might need to contend with some juju Saturday at Auburn (4-2, 2-2).

But really, the game's outcome should come down to which team executes cleaner.

Here's what to know about the LSU-Auburn SEC contest.

Can LSU football QB Sam Leavitt keep a clean sheet?

When junior starting quarterback Sam Leavitt has avoided turnovers, LSU has easily won this season. Last time out against Mississippi State, Leavitt took care of the football and worked efficiently and smart. It paid off with a 31-0 victory.

Auburn has been opportunistic this season when teams have turned the ball over. Georgia fumbled late in the game last weekend, allowing Auburn to go down and kick a game-winning field goal as time expired to pull off the upset in Athens.

Kiffin said earlier this week that he and his staff will highlight the importance of ball security.

"As you breakdown your losses and close losses, they're usually not as much about how many plays they make," Kiffin said. "It's more the mistakes you make, and the penalties, more false starts and more turnovers than when you play at home."

LSU football offensive staff familiar with Auburn QB Byrum Brown

When LSU offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. was South Florida's offensive coordinator under then-head coach Jeff Scott, he helped open up the recruiting process to bring Brown to the Bulls. So Weiss is familiar with Brown's game as LSU gears up for this matchup.

"Really hard player to tackle, similar to playing (South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers) that way. They're different styles, but they're really strong through a lot of arm tackles," Kiffin said of Brown. "He seems really smart by the way that he plays."

Brown played for Auburn head coach Alex Golesh at South Florida before following him to The Plains out of the transfer portal.

LSU offense should get plenty of opportunities

It's hard to score if the offense doesn't have the ball or the ability to extend drives with it. Through six games, Auburn ranks 133rd in college football in time of possession. At 26:54, Auburn is dead-last in the SEC in time of possession.

But the situation is not quite like that with Ole Miss, which is second-to-last in the league in time of possession because it operates and scores quickly. Auburn scores just 26.8 points per game, which comes in 13th out of 16 teams in the SEC. While Auburn does convert third downs 46% of the time, its offense only converts touchdowns in the red zone at a 65% clip.

Defenses have racked up 23 sacks against Auburn and have caused 15 Auburn turnovers to this point.

All of that adds up to LSU's offense likely winning the time of possession battle. The onus, then, will be on LSU to cap drives with points.

Lane Kiffin vs first-year head coaches this season

It's a small sample size, but Kiffin has not found success against teams with first-year head coaches this season. It also happens that the two matchups with coaches in their first year at their programs were LSU's two road games so far this season.

Still, LSU lost both of those road games at Ole Miss against Pete Golding and at Kentucky against Will Stein. That same trend is presenting itself Kiffin again, this time it's Golesh at Auburn. Golesh was the coach at South Florida from 2023 to 2025 before taking the Auburn job over the offseason.

While at USF, Golesh hosted Saban and Alabama in 2023 and pushed the Crimson Tide to the brink before falling 17-3. So, this game likely won't be easy for LSU.

Kiffin will look to buck the trend against Golesh at Auburn this weekend.