I think figuring out Auburn is one of the great mysteries of life, kind of like why the prettiest girls often wind up married to the ugliest dudes imaginable.
Now Auburn's OFFENSE - I said their OFFENSE -is very good. It is going to be VERY good this year and could well place them high in the national picture. Their defense? Not so much. Auburn seemingly does not realize that defense is a good chunk of the game. If Gus Malzahn does not get him a decent DC then he's going to become a modern version of Steve Spurrier - the guy who can put up 70 points on Kentucky but really is clueless when the nitty gets gritty.
Writing off their entire year as a fluke is a mistake - but then again, so is thinking they were actually a great team. The thing that sickens me is that if the UGA miracle does not happen then WE PLAY FOR THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP when we beat Missouri last year. That is the one I can't get over. Hey, let them have their fun with that game and us win it all? I think we could all live with that.
However, Auburn benefited from a number of things last year. Keep in mind this is a team that needed a late TD drive from Marshall to beat Miss State, barely outlasted an overmatched Washington State, won the aTm game because of a non-call, got just plain lucky against UGA and made us pay for not putting them away. This team JUST LIKE THEIR 2010 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP team was a few breaks from 7-7. (How many of you remember the fact that Georgia scored more points in an eight-minute span in the fourth quarter than the rest of the game? The Aub defense was horrific). But then again - they were also not as BAD as that 3-9 horror in 2012, either. They could easily have won three of those games and been 6-6, which would have kept Chizik aboard, esp if one of those was LSU.
So they're decent but not awesome except on offense. Can Arky beat them? Well, the score will be 0-0 when they start and Arky knows their playing the SEC champs. Could be. Do I expect it? No, but I didn't expect App St to beat Michigan, either.