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:

• a dropped TD pass by Clemson in OT;
• a last-minute field goal to beat Kentucky;
• three Alabama turnovers inside the Auburn 5;
• four failed attempts by the Ducks to punch it in from the 1 (yet they went 2-for-2 in 2pt conversions);
• a failure of the Ducks to get the easy 3 on a 4th-and-goal from the 1; and
• a tackle that was (correctly) called not-a-tackle in the closing minute of the title game.

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.

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