Tuesday August 5th, 2008 – Tuesday Morning Coffee The SEC has always been the best college football conference and this year is certainly no difference. The USA Today poll has been released and it is led by Georgia at Number 1. Other SEC teams are 5th ranked Florida, 6th ranked LSU, 11th ranked Auburn, 18th ranked Tennessee, and Alabama 26th ( most votes outside of the top-25 and just 8 points from 25th ranked Fresno State). The team that I feel is vastly flying under the radar is Auburn. Auburn enters this season with high hopes for not just the SEC Title game, but also a National Championship. The SEC is divided into two conference – East and West. Georgia is in the East and truly only has Tennessee and Florida as the only teams that have the personnel to upset them. Georgia hosts Tennessee on October 11t and Georgia will be a double digit favorite in that game. Georgia the hosts Florida on November 1st. Auburn will have three tough tests on it’s schedule facing LSU at home on September 20th and then another home game on the 27th against Tennessee. They will face Georgia, also at home on October 15th – the week after Georgia has that home game against Tennessee. Could Georgia get caught looking ahead the week of October 11th should both teams be undefeated and in the the top-5 by that date? Something to think about to be sure, but you can see how the schedule does favor Auburn. They simply have the key games on their home turf. So, how do we take advantage of this information? The current over/under for Auburn win totals stands at 9. Obviously a play over 9 wins is a great opportunity as they may actually go undefeated. Interesting that Georgia is ranked number 1 and the betting line is 9.5 wins. This implies 10-2 or 9-3. I believe the line reflects the unfriendly schedule where Georgia must play Tennessee, LSU and Florida in 3 out of 4 weeks with a road game at LSU followed up by a home game against Florida. No rest for the weary in the SEC again this season. Auburn is implementing a new offensive scheme that will feature a more wide open offense – similar to Florida. It will be fun for the Auburn fans to see their team opening up the offense and adding a bit more risk/reward profile to the team. The days of the Bo Jackson run, run, and then run again are gone. If you look over each of the 9 years that Tubberville has been at the helm, he is most dangerous when there is a whole lot of uncertainty hanging over his team. This is most definitely the case, but he has the athletes at the skill positions and the adjustment to the new schemes has already taken place. He has 8 offensive starters returning and 7 on defense. The Tigers have been pretty good the last four years, winning 42 times and 82.4 percent of their games, fifth best in the nation in both categories. The Tigers have also won five of their last six bowl games and six consecutive games against Alabama. Briefly, the scheme is designed to make defensive reads and take advantage of favorable matchups and what the defense is giving them. Yes, it will be more aggressive, but it will not be the Texas Tech version of the spread nor will it be the West Virginia version of the run spread. They will have their own UNIQUE identity and that is what will make this team a National Championship contender.
 

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