Agreed - GMac made up for his terrible mid-season slump in that game. Auburn confounds me. There is no way that the 2009 Auburn team should have been able to hang with Alabama, but they almost beat you.
Well, here's a hint:
2007 - Auburn has off week before the game, Alabama loses to ULM (AUB wins IB)
2008 - both teams have off week (ALA wins)
2009 - Auburn has off week, Alabama plays UTC - and the rest is a day short plus on the road plus what RTR91 points out (ALA barely wins)
2010 - Auburn has 12 days off, Alabama moves up the Ga State game in a season with 7 games vs rested foes (AUB wins)
2011 - Auburn plays Samford, Alabama plays Ga Southern (ALA wins a rout)
2012 - Auburn plays Alabama A/M, Tide plays WCU (ALA in a rout)
2013 - Tide plays UTC, Auburn has 13 days to calm down from the UGA miracle (AUB wins)
2014 - we play WCU, they play Samford (ALA wins)
2015 - we play Charleston So, they play Idaho (ALA wins)
2016 - they play Ala A/M, we play UTC (ALA wins)
2017 - they play ULM, we play Mercer (AUB wins)
basically, they've beaten us (2017 is the sole exception) when....wait for it.......we had a game and they didn't.
("Oh, but you played......".....well, if that's the argument then why have they made sure to have that off week right there? It's still football, where injuries
can easily occur).
Now - I'm fair - and it would be an exaggeration to say, "Well, the only reason Auburn beat us is because they had the week off," but we also cannot dismiss that as a
contributing factor, either. In 2010, the SEC office was trying to get us some schedule relief and wanted Auburn to move one of their conference games to the week
before the Iron Bowl (I think it was Kentucky as both had November 20 off). Chizik made it crystal clear he wasn't moving jack, which is fine, but I wish folks would
come right out and say, "We want the advantage of the off week" rather than hide behind the alleged logistical problem (hey, if LSU and Florida can work it out
in less than a month then so could Auburn with several months.....if they REALLY wanted to do it).
I've documented elsewhere here how Tennessee's success even when they had a better team was primarily due to them making sure to be off the week before they played us.
1) It was a rivalry game
2) on the road
3) against a rested foe whose entire incentive was to destroy our season
4) with all the pressure in the world on us to win (unlike nowadays NO room for ANY failure to win, even a bit)
5) plus all the other stuff RTR91 points out
I can cite rivalry game after rivalry game where a very overmatched foe puts up the fight of a lifetime
2014 Michigan-Ohio St
2009 Texas-ATM
Hell..
2003 K/State vs OU (what was THAT about?)
2009 Texas/Nebraska