re: #2 Auburn vs. #1 Florida State BCS National Title Game Predictions/Discussion

Mizzou's DL is built for penetrating the backfield and disruption... FSU's DL is built to take on blockers, plug holes, and allow their fast LBs to make plays.

We pushed around a relatively undersized but quick MU DL... FSU is more like Bama's DL... we can obviously have success against both, but the bigger/harder to move guys is probably a tougher matchup for our running game.

fwiw...



If you were to nationally place Missouri's rushing defense prior to the SECCG using stats good up until yesterday, Missouri would be ranked 15th at 119.1 yards/g. But after one game with Auburn they're now 50th.

As of today FSU is ranked 13th with 116.5.

AU - 35
FSU - 31

FWIW, on average FSU rush defense holds the teams they play to -29% of their average.

Auburn averages 336 yards per game, -29% below that is 239 yards. If Auburn takes to the air then that's a great number, if not, I don't like 239.

But in that regard Missouri prior to the SECCG held teams they played (SEC mind you) to -35% of their average yards per game. Auburn averaged 318 yards going into the SECCG but ran for 545 or 68% more than their average.

Given all of that data, I predict Auburn will run somewhere between 1 yard and a 1000 yards on Monday night.

FWIW

Okay, so we've all heard FSU has NFL talent and Auburn hasn't seen anything like that and won't be able to handle it.

So since ESPN's analysis of the game is simply FSU blows out Auburn 69-3, I added up Auburn's opponents NFL prospects, likely to be drafted and like to be 1st or 2nd round so we can compare real numbers instead of the hyperbole from the crew that's cough cough, never wrong.



For the record, the number of times Auburn faced a team with 10 or more NFL prospects was 7, 5 times was 12 or more. Against likely to be drafted we faced 6 teams with 5 or more likely draftees. And for teams with 2 or more 1st-2nd rounders Auburn faced them 3 times.

So Auburn now faces FSU with 15 NFL prospects, 11 likely to be drafted and 2 1st-2nd rounders. Alabama was nearest FSU in that regard but they had twice as many 1st-2nd rounders. A&M had 4 potential 1st-2nd rounders.

I threw in FSU's schedule numbers just for comparison and you'll notice a couple of glaring things, Duke has no NFL talent per se and did great. Miami had a lot and played horribly.

It all imho comes down to

Hey, good job, guy. I just feel like someone should acknowledge you.

I'm thinking 35-31 Auburn. Let's see how it goes...

I just wanna jump in now: WDE!

Should be interesting to see what kind of defense we will face tonight. They've had 5 weeks to figure out how to stop the run I wouldn't be surprised if they came out is some type of bear look with both safeties down and man 2 man on the outside.

me either... someone mentioned it earlier, but I'm expecting a sh*tton of DBs blitzing off the corners, trying to attack our zone read mesh point before it can get going... Saban/Smart do it a good bit.

we may try to throw in early downs b/c of this... but play action scares me with a fast defense... they can get in the backfield quick.