Auburn choked That Iron Bowl. Their offense wasn't even that consistent, they just had a number of explosive, big plays that tore apart that Bama defense, and it started with the mobile QB which has shown to give Smart run Defenses fits now by everything listed previously with the big slow run stopping DL, and just as big run stopping LBs and they put the DBs in bad one on one positions on islands against spread teams. Recipe for disaster. Of Auburn starts beating Bama regularly, ol St Nick may be shown the door if he doesn't bow out because they won't let that happen in Tide country. And ol St Nick is at it again with this recent recruiting class looking the same on defense, and they still can't find a competent QB because the guys that go there know they'll throw the ball very little as the run game is the bread and butter and Saban has said as much after the sugar bowl loss.
Right now Auburn's rankings are just based upon them almost beating Bama. I actually believed it for a minute that they are a national title contender next year. Then I thought about what they did this year:
1. They finished 8-5: This isn't an 8-5 where they struggled at the beginning of the year with a 'young team' and then found themselves and dominated. This was an 8-5 team that lost 4 of it's last 5.
2. The sole win in that last 5 was the Bulldogs. No, not Georgia (Georgia beat them the week before by a whopping 34-7), it was the mighty Bulldogs of Samford. That wasn't even a 72-3 beating, that was a 31-7 win. No, they didn't score 31 pts in the 1st quarter and then pull their starters. It's a team they couldn't score on in the first quarter (ended 0-0), and then went to half time up 17-7, before finding the end zone once in the 3rd and once in the 4th. Starters played well into the 4th quarter. When I think back on it, it was just classy of Gus to not run up the score like TCU did against them.
3. Best wins against LSU (7-6), Ole Miss (got exposed by TCU) and Kansas State, and we all know how great the Big 12 is post bowl season. But let's not get hung up on the wins and losses.
4. Let's talk about those Auburn players that braved the mighty SEC west last season. Starting at quarterback, Nick Marshall, accounted for about 3300 yards last year, will be replaced by junior Jeremy Johnson. Cameron Artis-Payne who rushed over 300 times last season for a whopping 1600 yards will be suiting up for the Carolina Panthers. His backup Corey Grant, who rushed for 360 yards last season will be suiting up for the Jags. Leading Receiver Sammy Coates is now a steeler, but they managed to hold on to D'haquille Williams, who was really option 1b in receiving last year, for his senior year, and while losing Quan Bray, they replace him with Ricardo Louis, the #4 receiver last year. This is pretty typical across the FBS, keep 2/4 of your leading receivers from last year.
5. Along the offensive line they will be replacing 3 of their 5 starters. At TE the starter and backup are gone, being replaced by a freshman. This means they lost starting QB, TE, 2/3 WR, RB and 3/5 OL, returning only 3 starters off a 'vaunted' offense can be difficult.
6. On the defensive line their lone returning starter was kicked off the team a few months ago, they also lost 2 of the backups along and D Line. So 4 new guys, 2 of them completely untested. They return 2 LBs and 2 DBs, so on the defensive side of the ball they only return 4 out of eleven guys.
Perhaps I am discounting Muschamp too much. Perhaps I'm discounting only losing to Bama by 11. I just don't see them wining the SEC let alone a national title.
