By now I'm sure you've heard or read that we will be facing the Big 10's Northwestern Wildcats in the 2010 Outback Bowl. We will be playing the first football game of the 2010s decade. Even though the game is still almost a month away, I thought I would take the time to look up some numbers and stats about our future foes. Analysis after the information...

Schedule:

Towson			W 47-14
Eastern Michigan	W 27-24
@Syracuse		L 34-37
Minnesota		L 24-35
@Purdue		W 27-21
Miami OH		W 16-6
@Michigan State	L 14-24
Indiana		W 29-28
Penn State		L 13-34
@Iowa			W 17-10
@Illinois		W 21-16
Wisconsin		W 33-31

Offensive Stats:

		Value	Big 10 rank	NCAA rank
PPG		25.2	7		t-76
Total YPG	386.0	6		56
Rushing YPG	119.92	8		95
Passing YPG	266.1	2		29
3rd downs	47.98	2		9
4th downs	53.33	t-4		t-50

Defensive Stats:

		Value	Big 10 rank	NCAA rank
PPG		23.3	6		t-47
Total YPG	343.8	5		43
Rushing YPG	123.0	6		35
Passing YPG	220.8	7		68
3rd downs	34.64	3		25
4th downs	40.00	2		t-30

Miscellaneous:

			Value	Big 10 rank	NCAA rank
Turnover Margin	+0.42	t-3		t-32
Penalty YPG		46.6	7		35
Time of Poss		30:39	t-4		t-44

*All statistical information above taken from cfbstats.com, and schedule taken from ESPN.com*

The first thing that jumps out to me, statistically speaking, is that Northwestern is really great at converting third downs. Converting almost half of your third downs is a fantastic statistic. I assume that means that they've had alot of third and short or third and manageable, so if we want to stop their offense, we need to keep from giving up yardage on first and second downs. The second thing that jumps out to me is that the Wildcats finished the season on a hot streak, winning their last two over upper-tier Big 10 schools Iowa and Wisconsin. I actually remember watching some of the NU-PSU game, and remember that it was pretty close until Northwestern's quarterback, Kafka (aside: can't wait for all the "metamorphosis" puns), left the game with an injury, and the Nittany Lions won going away. So even though they lost early games to Syracuse and Minnesota, the Wildcats had a real metamorphosis over the second half of the season (aha!). The rest of their stats seem to be rather pedestrian, except for a woeful 119.92 rushing yards per game. We have to be able to shut down their passing game if we want to win the game and notch the first win of the decade.

Now that I've laid that out for you, what do you think about our opponents, and what do the numbers above tell you? I'm really curious to see what Acid Reign has to say about them, and I'm even a little worried I may have stolen his thunder!

War Eagle! Beat Northwestern!

It's hard to believe that 13 weeks and 12 games have come and gone, and we are just a bowl game away from the long, empty stretch that is the college football offseason. There is, however, one more SEC game before bowls are announced, and it is the championship game between the hated Florida Gators and the even more hated Alabama Crimson Tide. Personally, I think this is going to be an extremely boring game featuring almost zero offense, and even though I'm in the minority, I also believe that if/when Texas gets by Nebraska in the Big 12 championship game, they will beat whichever SEC team they meet in the BCS title game, and probably handily. One interesting thing to consider is, what if Nebraska beats Texas? Would the loser of the SECCG get a rematch in Pasadena over TCU or Cincinnati? I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility. It's a moot point since Texas is going to win by 40+, but it's something to think about. As for my prediction for the SECCG score...

Alabama 13
Florida 17

Well, folks, it's here. It's Iron Bowl week. It's 11-0 Alabama against 7-4 Auburn. It's national title contenders against up-and-coming, better bowl position contenders. Ask nearly anyone, and they'd say Auburn has about 0% chance of winning this game. Personally, I think this sums it up pretty nicely:

As for the last score predictions thread, I don't think anyone here predicted us to lose to Georgia. I still can't believe we blew that game! Anyways, that's in the past now, and we need to focus on this week. So, Track 'em readers, what says ye? Honestly, even if you're the biggest homer ever, if you seriously think we're going to win this game, you're mental. Obviously, we can win this game. Even the biggest Bammer homer ever would have to agree to that. But UAT just looks too strong and Auburn is just too thin to predict that. Here goes...

Alabama 31
Auburn 13

Well, we've reached the most important two three weeks of the season, it's Amen Corner time! I hesitated putting this thread up, because we've been successful the last two weeks with kerr doing it, but here goes anyways. This week's closest to the pin actual score wins a New Year's Day bowl appearance!  How exciting! I don't have the time or the inclination to go through the Furman scores thread to see who was closest, but I highly doubt anyone predicted the Paladins would score 30+ on us, even if it was on our walk-ons and tuba players. My guess for the Bulldogs?

Auburn 27
Georgia 20

War Eagle!

That was alot of fun. NOT!

Tonight's game got ugly in a hurry. Stupid penalties killed any momentum we could have gained in the first half, and by the time the offense got semi-rolling in the second half, we were down 24. Kick coverage once again was abysmal and a liability. Once again we couldn't move the ball through the air, allowing LSU to key on Ben Tate. And we gave up the most passing yards Jordan Jefferson has ever thrown. Gene Chizik was absolutely right when he said "They beat us in about every phase of football game, from the beginning to the end and probably everywhere in between." This team was undermanned, which we all knew going in, and also underprepared, which is the most disappointing part of the outcome.

I figured we'd see more Wildcat this week with Todd's problems last week, but in my opinion it did more to prevent the offense from getting any rhythm than any good it did (which wasn't alot). Todd once again was subpar throwing the ball, only putting up a measly 3.3 yards per attempt. That's not going to cut it in the Sun Belt, much less the SEC. I'm wondering if we should cut bait on Todd and put Caudle in to try and build something positive for next season; it seems we might be best-served to start gearing up for next season anyways.

Eltoro Freeman had a whale of a game; 12 tackles and generally flying all over the field. He looked like an Auburn defender of the past few years rather than the timid, tackle-missing bunch we've seen this year. I thought we did a decent job of stopping the run and getting some pressure on Jefferson, but our secondary had more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese (it's 2 AM, give me a break when my jokes suck).

One last thing that ran through my head while watching the debacle was that we were witnessing all of our fears about Gene Chizik as a head coach come true. All the things we'd heard from bitter Iowa State fans about him have reared their ugly heads this week and last week, and it's not pretty. He looked generally disinterested tonight, which was different from the Chizik I saw in the big wins against Louisiana Tech and West Virginia. He just seemed like he would rather be somewhere else.

One final thought: Despite how poorly we've played in the last two games, if you're thinking of going to Jordan-Hare for the Ole Miss game, PLEASE DO. The last thing us fans need to do is abandon these boys who have poured so much sweat and blood into this program. If you're planning on going, get there early, stay late, and cheer your heart out. No matter how you feel about the state of the program or the play of the team, it's the least you can do.

War Eagle

So the last two weeks I've forgotten to post the game score prediction thread during the week; big thanks to kerr024 for doing so in my stead. However, the past two weeks have seen our Tigers' first two losses of the season, and while I don't actually believe that the author of Track Em Tigers' score prediction thread has any bearing on the outcome of the games, well, it certainly couldn't hurt to go back to what was working (insert causation vs. correlation argument here).

Anyways, I guess this week's winner can win free* shoulder surgery from Dr. James Andrews, and then a shot to be Auburn's starting quarterback. Not sure if anyone predicted Kentucky to win last week, so I don't think there's any award to be given for last week's game. As for my prediction...

Auburn 20
Louisiana State 24

* May not actually be free, must check with practitioner

According to ESPN's Chris Low, Mike Hartline suffered the injury in the Wildcats' loss South Carolina on Saturday. While you never want to see opposing players get injured, the reality of the situation is that Kentucky will be bringing an inexperienced quarterback -- either junior Will Fidler or freshman Morgan Newton -- into Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday night. Fidler has attempted 31 passes in his career, and Newton has yet to throw a pass for UK. My guess is that we will see a lot of the Wildcat (surprisingly fitting in this instance) formation with either Derrick Locke or Randall Cobb running the formation. I haven't seen much of Kentucky this year, so I don't know if they feature a Wildcat look; I would be willing to bet that they would install it if they don't have one with Hartline now out for the season.

Somebody, don't know who, is sleeping on the job. So here's a game thread. Wainwright vs. Kershaw. This is a must-win game if we want to last longer than one round (TWSS?) in the playoffs.

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Before we get to the predictions for this week, we have to award a Lane Kiffin moral victory to Jumpn_JackFlash for his decently close prediction of 59-24. I'm not sure how you can arrange to receive this, but hopefully your favorite team can help give Lane Kiffin's team another moral victory this weekend (as long as it doesn't come along with an actual victory)!

This weekend, and old-time SEC rivalry is renewed. The Tigers and Vols used to play every year until the 1992 SEC expansion ended the yearly rivalry. Having grown up in football mostly after this, I never really thought of AU and UT as rivals, in the sense that Auburn and UAT or UGA are rivals. I always figured they were sort of allies against the likes of Alabammer, Georgia, and Florida. However, ask most Auburn fans, and you'll get varying levels of hatred for the Vols.

Anyways, this weekend's "closest-to-the-actual" score winner won't be ranked in the top 25! No respect, I tell ya. As for my pick...

Auburn 31
Tennessee 22

War Eagle!