Is The Auburn Tiger Hype Credible? By the Numbers

Over the past couple weeks, the hype has grown around the Auburn Tiger football program. They have a new defensive coordinator in Will Muschamp, they possess one of the strongest arms in the SEC in Jeremy Johnson, and they still have their up-tempo offensive scheme. But do the numbers say that the hype is warranted?

Merriam-Webster describes the word "hype" as "to promote or publicize extravagantly" (it's a slang term, by the way). On Monday, the sports information directors of each SEC school voted on their predictions for this upcoming football season, and the Auburn Tigers received three first place votes and three second place votes to win the western division, receiving votes exclusively from the other six SEC West SIDs. They were voted to meet up with the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship.

One thing odd about the whole process is that Alabama was voted, by the entire conference, as the top team in the conference. You make of that as you will.

Anyway, on to the point of issue.

Auburn is one of the most talked about teams for the 2015 season. In fact, I would say that they will be the media's pick in a couple of weeks at SEC Media Days to win the conference. But what are all these people basing their opinions on?

Sure, head coach Gus Malzahn is a proven offensive guru. Yes, Will Muschamp is the new defensive coordinator. But improving that defense from last season is going to take more than a few months of guidance from Muschamp.

One thing that isn't getting much publicity is that it seems like either defenses are getting better only against Auburn (highly unlikely) or Auburn's offense is becoming more and more predictable (most likely).

Case in point: in 2013, when Auburn made the BCS National Championship Game, they were the top rushing team in the country, averaging 328.29 yards per game. In 2014, the Tigers mustered only 255.46 rushing yards per game.

Yes, I know it's only a two year comparison and it's an extremely small sample size, but the differential is quite significant. When a team loses 22% of their rushing yards from the season before, that's what we call a "cause for concern." Especially, you know, since Malzahn's forte is running the ball.

And I know exactly what you're saying. "Ryan, they trailed for quite a bit of last season last year, that's why they lacked in the rushing department."

Okay, that's a fair point. When a team trails in a game, it's pretty difficult to run the ball.

However, the Tigers outscored their opponents last season during the first quarter (including against the Wisconsin Badgers in the Outback Bowl), 103-98. The games were most definitely not out of hand, and there was plenty of time for Auburn to control each game on the ground. They were unable to dominate each individual game in the run department, and thus was shown in their overall record (8-5).

Jeremy Johnson is supposed to be one of the most talented quarterbacks in the SEC this upcoming season. Johnson was a four-star pro-style quarterback coming out of high school, but some media pundits were unsure how he would fit into Gus Malzahn's offense.

I am one of those pundits.

There's little doubt that Johnson can throw the ball. He's got a cannon for an arm. What's keeping me unsure of his fit with Malzahn's system is, surprise surprise, his mobility, or lack thereof. Johnson is a decent athlete, but by no means if he a great runner, and he's definitely nowhere the runner that Nick Marshall was. Without the quarterback option in the run game, it feels like Auburn's offense will either have to adjust to the skills of Johnson, or fall flat on their faces without a mobile quarterback.

Now, with a better thrower, one would think that the Tigers will score more points than they did last year. We all know that if a team can toss the ball around pretty well then they should have a good shot at putting up a decent number of points.

Although I admit this does sound contradictory to my previous statement, I think they'll score more points than they did last year with Johnson taking snaps.

But will they become more efficient at scoring?

In 2013, the Tiger's scored 553 points in 1014 plays, averaging out to .545 points/play. In 2014, they scored 461 points on just 939 plays, finding the mean to calculate to .491 points/play.

If they do become more efficient at throwing the ball, then in theory, the number of points score should go up, but also the number of plays should increase from last year's 939. With that being the case, I can't see them exceeding .52 points/play in 2015, and it looks like they'll need to be more efficient than the 2013 numbers to live up to many people's lofty expectations of getting to the 2016 College Football Playoff Championship Game.

The way that they can progress far enough to make the College Football Playoff is to improve on defense, and even with a great defensive mind like Muschamp, it's awfully difficult to make a vast improvement in just one season.

Starting again in the 2013 season (I'm referencing 2013 because that was the first year under the tutelage of Malzahn), the Tiger defense wasn't what we would call a "world beater." They gave up 420.7 yards/game, good enough for 87th in college football. In 2014 however, they did slightly improve to giving up 398.8 yards/game, right in the middle of the national pack, but still nothing great.

Oddly enough, it seems that the season records are almost the inverse of defensive prowess (correlation isn't causation, I'm quite aware of this).

Now starts the strangeness of the defensive situation in Auburn. In 2013, they gave up 5.96 yards/play but improved upon that in 2014 with 5.67 yards/play. Drastic difference? Not much. So how did they do at keeping other teams from scoring?

I'm glad you asked.

For 2013, the Auburn Tigers' defense gave up .35 points/play. In 2014? .378 points/play. Although they improved in the yardage category, they got slightly worse in defensive efficiency.

Will Muschamp may can shape up the boys down on the plains into not giving up many more yards than last season (in fact, expect that to be the case), but it seems that they'll still hang around the .36ish points/play range, preventing them from winning at least a couple games.

All in all, does this prove anything? Not even close. But it is interesting to see what may happen from a statistical point of view, especially with the new defensive coordinator hire. With Gus Malzahn, defense will never be the priority, but can he find a way to locate the happy medium with his potentially explosive offense and make it to the promised land?

I highly doubt it in 2015.