Saturday, January 7, 2012

Counting Down the Champions, #8: 2010 Auburn Tigers

[ Sorry for the delay. A combination of holiday travel and a stomach bug held this up, but here we go. ]

Date TFG RBA Away Team       TFG RBA Home Team Plays Odds
TFG / RBA
2010/09/04 103 / 104 Arkansas St. 26 at  33 /  33 Auburn 52 181  91.9% /  86.8%
2010/09/09  31 /  32 Auburn 17 at  39 /  35 Mississippi St. 14 157  40.1% /  63.8%
2010/09/18  21 /  22 Clemson 24 at  31 /  26 Auburn 27 174  52.7% /  55.0%
2010/09/25  22 /  19 South Carolina 27 at  28 /  22 Auburn 35 158  55.9% /  40.0%
2010/10/02 105 / 109 LA-Monroe 3 at  23 /  24 Auburn 52 151  94.1% /  90.5%
2010/10/09  19 /  20 Auburn 37 at  54 /  44 Kentucky 34 157  64.6% /  61.5%
2010/10/16  18 /  22 Arkansas 43 at  17 /  17 Auburn 65 172  61.6% /  54.8%
2010/10/23   9 /  12 LSU 17 at  16 /  14 Auburn 24 159  47.6% /  57.2%
2010/10/30  15 /  13 Auburn 51 at  47 /  48 Mississippi 31 159  61.8% /  70.2%
2010/11/13  18 /  21 Georgia 31 at  13 /  11 Auburn 49 151  61.2% /  51.4%
2010/11/26  13 /  12 Auburn 28 at   3 /   4 Alabama 27 158  25.5% /  23.5%
2010/12/04  14 /  18 South Carolina 17 vs  13 /   8 Auburn 56 158  50.7% /  56.1%
2011/01/10   5 /   4 Oregon 19 vs  10 /   7 Auburn 22 182  42.9% /  65.2%


Auburn Tigers
Year WinPct SoS Off. Def. Pace
2010 0.833 10 0.662 3 30.4 2 16.0 28 166.8 55

Justin
We've discussed this team a few times before. Their whole season was highly improbable, they often won by the skin of their teeth, and they had an absolutely atrocious defense. But just to recap some of the "highlights" of the Auburn season:
What got them through this season was a combination of an efficient offense and a series of freakishly lucky plays. This team wasn't dominating in the way that many of the later teams on our countdown were, and they deservedly end up at the bottom of this list.

Auburn Tigers
Year WinPct SoS Off. Def. Pace
2010 0.957 7 0.545 25 26.1 1 13.0 36 158.9 117

Eddie
Our freshest national title memories come first in this countdown. There's little question that Auburn is the worst national champion of the last decade. Sure, they went undefeated, and that counts for something. However, that understates the way that they managed to go undefeated -- winning close games. The Tigers beat (35) Mississippi State by three, (22) Clemson by three, (45) Kentucky by three, (4) Alabama by one, and (4) Oregon by three. Some of those teams were pretty good, so why the disrespect? First, Auburn didn't play a lick of defense in 2010, and RBA favors teams that play good defense. Second, great teams whip opponents. Auburn simply didn't do that. They were marginally favored in several games and scraped by -- just as expected -- suggesting to the computer that they were properly ranked.

Follow us on Twitter at @TFGridiron.