Here's how my advance for today's Auburn-Ball State football game starts:

AUBURN, Ala. — Like every football coach in the country, Auburn’s Gene Chizik refuses to admit to looking ahead on the schedule, not wanting his players to follow suit.

So when the subject came up this week about getting some of the Tigers’ star players rested for the heart of the SEC season, Chizik didn’t bite, not with Ball State scheduled to arrive at Jordan-Hare Stadium tonight.

“If it was a perfect world and it ended up that way, we would be OK with it, but we’re certainly not looking at it like that,” Chizik said. “We prepare for every game to be a last-two-minutes-of-the-game win, and this won’t be any different.”

It likely won’t be that close. Despite the standard coach speak, Auburn (3-0) enters today’s game as a 33-point favorite against the Cardinals (0-3). Without coach Brady Hoke and quarterback Nate Davis, who both left in the offseason, Ball State is a shell of the team that started last season 12-0.

The Tigers have won both of their games against Ball State: 30-0 in 2001 and 63-3 in 2005.

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