2013 Pre-Season Preview: Auburn Tigers

2012 Record: 3-9 (0-8 in SEC)

Head Coach: Gus Malzahn (1st year at Auburn, 9-3 last season at Arkansas St)

Last Bowl Game: 2011 Chick-fil-A Bowl: beat Virginia 42-23

Stadium: Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, AL (capacity = 87,451)

Home Field Advantage: ranked 37th out of 69 BCS teams

Schedule Glimpse:

2013 Schedule Link

Out of Conference: 8/31 vs Washington St, 9/7 vs Arkansas St, 10/12 vs Western Carolina, 10/26 vs FAU

Toughest Home Games: 11/16 vs Georgia, 11/30 vs Alabama

Toughest Road Games: 9/21 at LSU, 10/19 at Texas A&M

Statistical Snapshot:

2012 Statistics Link

Stats to Fear: only caused 13 turnovers in 2012, converted on just 30.77% of third downs (last in SEC), allowed 37 sacks

Stat to Cheer: it's a new season (that's a stat, right?)

Advanced Stats (Football Outsiders 2012 FEI Ranking): 116th out of 124 teams

Personnel:

Phil Steele's Returning Starters: Offense: 7, Defense: 8, Special Teams: 2

Key Defensive Returnees: S Demetruce McNeal (90 tackles), S Jermaine Whitehead (86 tackles), LB Jake Holland (73 tackles), DE Dee Ford (34 tackles, 6 sacks)

Key Offensive Returnees: RB Tre Mason (1002 yds rush, 5.86 ypc, 8 TD), WR CJ Uzomah (7 rec, 19.43 ypr)

Top 2013 Recruits: DT Montravius Adams, DE Carl Lawson, DE Elijah Daniel, QB Nick Marshall, RB Cameron Artis-Payne

Verdict:

Gene Chizik rose faster and fell harder then maybe any other coach in SEC history. In just his second season as head coach at Auburn (and fourth season as a college head coach), Chizik took Auburn to a National Championship. Two years later, Chizik was out of a job. Gus Malzahn, who ran the Auburn offense from 2009 to 2011, comes back to the Tigers after a one year sabbatical at Arkansas State.

Under Malzahn, the Auburn offense was third in the SEC in scoring in 2009, first in 2010 and seventh in 2011. After he left, Chizik tried to mix up the offense and they fell to 13th. With Malzahn back, most of the players on campus were still recruited to run Malzahn's type of offense so they should be able to improve fairly quickly. But first they must find a QB. Former front-runner Kiehl Frazier, who played in nine games last year, has been ruled out of the QB race and is now moving to Safety. The other QB who returned to the Plains, Jonathan Wallace, is also said to be out of the running for now (but wasn't completely ruled out). The battle is now down to JUCO Nick Marshall (who played QB in high school but was recruited as a DB for Georgia until he was booted from the team) and true frosh Jeremy Johnson. Marshall is the more game ready of the two having ran a college offense last season (even though it was at the JUCO level) but Johnson could be the guy to carry Auburn in the future. I think Marshall gets the ball and Auburn really tries to lean on his ability as a dual-threat. The RB position is probably the only unit on this Auburn offense that you can look at and know exactly what you are going to get. Tre Mason returns and he's a solid option as he was the lone bright spot on this unit last season. There are also a couple of newcomers here in Cameron Artis-Payne and Johnathan Ford to keep an eye on. The leading returning receiver for Auburn is Quan Bray with just 14 receptions. This WR corps has a lot of "athletes" like Bray, CJ Uzomah and Trovon Reed that are still learning to play the position. The unit has talent but it's very raw. The OL returns 70 career starts but it also gave up 37 sacks last season. The offense will improve (it has to) and there will be flashes but I also think it will be wildly inconsistent.

Auburn's defense wasn't that bad last year, at least in most games. They actually allowed less points per game last year then in 2011 when they won six more games. There is a lot of stock-piled talent on this defensive line that has yet to really make an impact. Two examples are Gabe Wright and Jeffrey Whitaker and they are now upper-classmen and it's time for them to step up if they ever plan to. In addition to those two high-profile talents, the Tigers also have Dee Ford, Angelo Blackson and Nosa Eguae returning. and they have two five-star recruits (Montravius Adams and Carl Lawson) that are also on campus. The talent is definitely there in this bunch. The LB corps is the biggest question-mark on this defense (Athlon ranked them the 13th best LB corps in the SEC). Ellis Johnson will run a 4-2-5 so the Tigers will look for someone to step up alongside Jake Holland. If DB/LB Justin Garrett can stay healthy he could be a big key in the STAR position. The defensive backfield returns the same cast of characters so they are hoping Ellis can coach them up now that Willie Martinez's one year reign of terror in the Auburn defensive backfield is over.

A lot would have to go wrong for Auburn to be as bad as they were last year. The first two games of the season will be critical as the Tigers host Washington State and Arkansas State. Neither team is poised to be an elite team this year but they both will present problems for Auburn and if Auburn isn't careful they could find themselves on the wrong side of one of those games. Let's say Auburn sweeps it's non-conference slate, where do the conference wins come from? The most likely suspects are 9/14 vs Miss State, 10/5 vs Ole Miss, 11/2 at Arkansas and 11/9 at Tennessee. If they can split those games then it's a 6-6 season for the Tigers. It's a far cry from the National Title but it's also a lot better than 3-8. There is talent on the Plains and I think Auburn could make a pretty big turnaround this year but a lot is dependent on finding the man at QB and finding some receivers as well as the defense growing up under Ellis Johnson. There are a lot of moving pieces for Auburn this year. They will be better and they will beat somebody you aren't expecting them to but they will also lose one that makes you scratch your head.

Prediction: 6-6

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