SEC Outsider: Tigers of Auburn\LSU look to road block Alabama with spike stripes
Alabama's crimson ride is still, technically, on cruise control.
The nation’s best team, by far, is leading every respectable index except the Dow Jones Industrial.
Time to start checking hotels in Tampa Bay, site of this year’s national title game.
Room rates anyone? And someone please check YELP for some good restaurants.
Is Bern’s steakhouse still burning T-bones?
A month ago, Nick Saban’s team was tracking to become, maybe, his most dominant when measured against the weakest line of resistance. The SEC West was thin and the East was no more a threat than the MAC champion.
On Sept. 24, Auburn defeated LSU in a game that was almost comically inept.
The losing coach’s job was on the line and it came right down to the final play.
LSU thought it won on the last snap but couldn't beat the play clock down to zero.
Had Auburn lost, Gus Malzahn might have lost his job the next day.
Instead, it was LSU and Les Miles.
Alabama fans slept well that night. Auburn and LSU both had two losses and were out of the playoff chase.
A glance down the schedule indicated Alabama was a home win over Texas A&M, on Oct. 22, from pretty much clinching the pennant.
The Tide easily did that, 33-14.
But things have changed—radically.[membership level="0"] The rest of this article is available to subscribers only - to become a subscriber click here.[/membership] [membership]
Auburn and LSU have transformed from messes to successes and that has suddenly mucked-up Alabama’s clear line to undefeated.
The Crimson Tide’s remaining road to the SEC title game starts a week from Saturday at LSU, followed by home games against Mississippi State, Chattanooga and Auburn.
Things don’t look so easy now.
Auburn and LSU are both 5-2, 3-1 in conference and loaded with confidence.
Auburn’s Gus Malzahn, the nation’s eighth-richest coach, at $4.72 million per year, has started earning his coin. He subjugated his ego and turned play calling over to 33-year-old whiz-kid Rhett Lashlee.
The results are making jaws drop. Auburn has won four straight since its 1-2 start and last week crushed Arkansas, 56-3.
It wasn’t just that: The Tigers rushed for a school record 543 yards while holding Arkansas to 25.
“I told our guys that that was one of the most complete games that I think we’ve played since I got here,” Malzahn said after the win.
For the record, Alabama “only” beat Arkansas this year by the margin of 49-30.
The Auburn win over Arkansas was a statement victory. It re-established the Tigers as the nation’s premiere, run-dominated spread option.
Auburn averaged 9.5 yards per carry while allowing 0.8.
Five Tigers rushed for 60 yards or more, led by Kamryn Pettway’s 192 on 27 carries.
Quarterback Sean White needed only 12 pass attempts to complete this demolition.
“It seemed like every play we called worked,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Baton Rouge, the LSU Tigers put away Ole Miss, 38-21.
Ed Orgeron ran his “interim” record to 3-0, while star back Leonard Fournette returned from injury to, oh, run for a school-record 284 yards.
He averaged 17.8 yards per carry. The offense is no longer stuck in 1977 with the emergence of Purdue transfer Danny Etling, who completed 19 of 28 passes for 204 yards.
LSU has won three straight games while outscoring opponents, 73-7, in the second half.
Master motivator Orgeron seems fixated on not letting his third head-coaching opportunity slip away.
He failed at Ole Miss and fell short at USC, but beneath his indecipherable Cajun accent you can almost hear him saying, “not this time.”
Sitting at No. 19 in this week’s AP poll, LSU is probably out of the playoff chance…probably. The Tigers need to beat Alabama and Auburn to lose, but this is the one program you never count out.
LSU won the 2003 BCS title after starting No. 12 in the first standings. Four years later, 2007, LSU became the only two-loss BCS champion after rising from No. 7 to No. 2 on the final weekend.
So much for Alabama’s “cakewalk.”
Auburn is running over people again and Orgeron is coaching like a mad-man possessed. And remember, Alabama must come to Baton Rouge on Nov. 5.
“They are very well coached,” Coach O said of the Crimson Tide. “But so are we.”[/membership]