2014 Pre-season Rankings: #6 Auburn Tigers

SportsRatings 2014 College Football Pre-season Top 128

Auburn Tigers  (SEC #2; West #2)

#6	2013 Results	AP #2 USA #2	Strength:#10  Success:#2  Overall:#5
		Record: 12-2	Bowl: Lost to Florida State 34-31 (BCS championship)
	2014 Outlook	Picks: AP #6 | USA #5 | Lindy's #6 | Athlon #5 | Steele #6
		Record: 9-3	Bowl odds: 99.1%   Playoff odds: 2%

There's a pretty broad consensus that the Tigers are either just inside or outside the top 5. The coaches and Athlon have Auburn #5; the sportswriters, Lindy's, and Phil Steele put them #6.

Offense 6 ret. starters	2013 Scoring Offense: #12 (raw) #7 (adjusted for opposition)
	2014 Projected Scoring Offense: #6 (adjusted)

The ground game can't be as strong without Tre Mason, but the passing game will make up for it and keep the offense just as potent.

Passing Game	2013 Passing Rank: #110 (raw) #103 (adjusted)	2013 Sacks Allowed (adj.): #25
	2014 Projected Passing Rank: #70 (adjusted)	2014 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #27

Auburn did not have a balanced offense last year and won't be this year, but the passing game won't be an afterthought or something used as a surprise tactic. Nick Marshall (1,976 yards, 14 TDs, 6 int) has room to grow in his senior year as a passer and he has nearly all his targets back. Sammie Coates (902 yards, 7 TDs) leads a group of six returning players who had over 100 yards. Marshall should have a more productive year and for insurance backups Jeremy Johnson (422 yards, 6:2) and Jonathan Wallace (720 yards, 4:4 in 2012) are back.

Rushing

2013 Rushing Rank: #2 (raw) #1 (adjusted)

2014 Projected Rushing Rank: #3 (adj.)

The Auburn running game was an awesome thing to behold last year as it got stronger and stronger each game, finally overtaking Ohio State as the #1 opponent-adjusted ground game in the nation. The big reason was Tre Mason (1,816 yards, 23 TDs) who was unstoppable late in the season. Mason is gone but QB Nick Marshall (1,068 yards, 12 TDs) is back along with Corey Grant (647 yards) and Cameron Artis-Payne (610). The offensive line returns three starters: Chad Slade and Reese Dismukes are seniors and Avery Young is a sophomore. Another sophomore starter, Alex Kozan, was back but needed back surgery and is out for the year. Even without Mason the ground game will be potent as Grant averaged 9.8 yards per carry and Marshall and Artis-Payne over 6 ypc each.

2013 Adjusted Stats:	Rush Defense: #40    Pass Defense  per-game: #78   Per-attempt: #39
Defense 5.5 ret. starters	'13 Scoring Defense: #51 (raw) #23 (adjusted)	'13 sacks: #37	'13 picks: #71
	'14 Projected Scoring Defense: #28 (adjusted)	'14 sacks: #55	'14 picks: #71

The big loss on this side of the ball is defensive end Dee Ford (10.5 sacks) and with him gone the pass rush is far less effective. The defensive line returns two starters but also probably loses projected starter Carl Lawson who is out with an ACL injury for at least half the season. One of the two pure linebackers returns, and back at the defense's "Star" position (linebacker/safety hybrid) is Robenson Therezie, but he has "eligibility issues" and may or may not play this year. The secondary has two starters back including Jonathan Mincy (14 pass breakups) but they lose Chris Davis (15 pass breakups). Overall it's a mixed bag with the defense slipping only a small amount in our estimation, mostly due to the fact that they were underrated at #23 in 2013 because of all the injuries they suffered.

Special Teams/Situations

• Kicking Game:  Both kicker Cody Parkey (15 of 21 FG) and punter Steven Clark (42.6 average) are gone.
• Return Game:  Both Chris Davis (18.7 average on punt returns) and Tre Mason (26.3 on kickoffs) had a touchdown return last year, and both are gone this year.
• Turnovers projection:  We don't predict a big change in Auburn's turnover profile.
• Injury correction:  The defense was injury-plagued and therefore underperformed, which means they should be better off this year than many would expect.

Coaching/Recruiting      2014 Recruiting Rank: #6          2013 Recruiting Rank: #12
Recruiting is even better in Gus Malzahn's second year, but playing for a national title will do that I suppose. They're still only 4th, believe it or not, in the SEC with this class. The best catches are running back Roc Thomas and linebacker Tre Williams, both from Alabama and both consensus 5-star recruits.

2013 Recap 
Auburn's 2013 was a lot like their 2010—they started slow and just kept getting better and better. They opened with three home wins, edging mediocre Washington State 31-24 and beating Mississippi State 24-20. They lost to LSU 35-21, and at this point they were tracking our 5-7 prediction exactly. But they beat Ole Miss 30-22, and two games later topped Texas A&M 45-41 and at 6-1 they were for real. Beating FAU, Arkansas, and Tennessee didn't impress anyone, but they were 9-1, and then the crazy lucky breaks started. They beat Georgia on a last-second, almost-intercepted, double-deflected touchdown pass, and if you thought they couldn't top that, they did the next week against Alabama with the "Kick Six" touchdown return of a missed field goal. They bulldozed Missouri in the SEC title game and were doing the same to Florida State in the BCS title game—for a while. FSU came back to win 34-31 but it was a hell of a journey from 3-9 to 12-2.

Last year's prediction: This one is embarrassing, but at least we are in good company—just about everyone, really, picked Auburn to be better but not BETTER. Right before we published our review Auburn announced some player suspensions that took the team from 6-6 to 5-7 in our projection, meaning we didn't think they'd make a bowl game in 2013 let alone play for the national championship. We ranked them #51, which was in line with the other "experts." No coach or sportswriter put them in the top 25 (not a single vote in either) ; unless you live in Auburn, Alabama and are a very optimistic person, you probably didn't put them in your top 25 either. We ended our review "Let's see how much magic Malzahn has in him." Apparently, a lot!

2014 Outlook

Auburn 2014 schedule & forecast
8/30	Sat	vs.	*Arkansas	87%	W
9/6	Sat	vs.	San Jose State	99%	W
9/18	Thu	@	Kansas State	75%	W
9/27	Sat	vs.	Louisiana Tech	99%	W
10/4	Sat	vs.	*LSU	71%	W
10/11	Sat	@	*Mississippi State	63%	W
10/25	Sat	vs.	*South Carolina	73%	W
11/1	Sat	@	*Mississippi	54%	W
11/8	Sat	vs.	*Texas A&M	81%	W
11/15	Sat	@	*Georgia	47%	L
11/22	Sat	vs.	Samford	100%	W
11/29	Sat	@	*Alabama	28%	L
Straight up: 10-2  Cume: 9-3  Bowl eligible: 99.1%

How can a team ranked so high be projected to go 9-3? Well, it doesn't help when you play three teams ranked just as high and play them both on the road. That's the situation Auburn is in when they face Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama all within the last five games of the season.

The early part of the season should be easy—even their opening week SEC opponent is Arkansas, not the toughest the conference can offer up, and it's at home. San Jose State and Louisiana Tech are pretty much freebies in the opening month, with a trip to Kansas State in between to make things interesting.

Then some tougher opponents emerge: LSU at home, Mississippi State on the road, and South Carolina at home should all be wins but beating all three of those is easier said than done. Then comes the first tossup game (Mississippi), followed by Texas A&M (they should beat the Aggies), and the 2nd tossup (Georgia). They get a break with Samford the week before Alabama; the Tide are the one team we distinctly favor over the Tigers. They will want revenge and it's a road game for Auburn.

It's very plausible that Auburn could be undefeated coming into Alabama, and we expect the Tide to be, making it one of the big games of the year. But Auburn also could have a pair of losses already, maybe more. There are so many tough teams in the SEC and Auburn plays a buttload of the best ones—all of the six best SEC teams other than Auburn themselves! That's why for our final odds we only give Auburn a 2% chance to play in the College Football Playoff—they've got a tough road.

Of course, we wouldn't have given them a 0.02% chance of playing for the national title last year and they made it, so 2% is practically a guarantee...!

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