re: Could a loss actually light a fire under our arse?

It definitely could. Almost all of of the top 6 teams have had at least one game where you were probably saying "well, that's def not a national championship team" afterwards. We obviously have some soul searching to do, but to say this team can't do it while giving every team in front of us gets a free pass for laying a big stinker(or two) this year, against a worse teams than Auburn at home, is not very fair IMO.