Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

9/2/2010 at 2:38pm

All the summer prognostications about Arkansas came with this caveat from national writers that they could see a lot of Ole Miss, circa 2009, in giving Arkansas a Top 20 nod this season. Forget that. Auburn, now the hot favorite in the SEC West for most of ESPN's mouths, has the best chance to fall as flat this year as Ole Miss did last season.

Kirk Herbstreit of ESPN "College Gameday" and assorted other appearances on the network of sports networks, is the latest big name to proclaim Auburn the favorite for the SEC West crown.

Not Alabama, the defending national champion. Not Arkansas, with the best returning quarterback in the conference. Not LSU, with all its talent.

Auburn. The team that was so fortunate to not blow the Outback Bowl to Northwestern, winning in overtime 38-35. The team that lost five of its last seven regular-season games in 2009 after a 5-0 start. The team that lost its starting quarterback and star running back from last year's team. The team that looked like it dressed out some fraternity boys to play defense in its spring game, which the network of sports networks' college channel, ESPNU, broadcast a gazillion times over the past three months in between infomercials with the late Billy Mays. (At some point you're thinking will Auburn and dead Billy Mays both just go away.)

The always astute Birmingham, Ala., News sports columnist Kevin Scarbinsky put out the warning to Auburn fans on Wednesday. He quizzed Tigers Coach Gene Chizik on Herbstreit's adorning Auburn with the bull's-eye, and Chizik said all the right things: The Tigers welcome great expectations. But Scarbinsky's been around the block in Alabama awhile; he warns the Tigers faithful to not get their hopes up, too high anyway.

It's pretty much what we warned Arkansas Razorbacks fans of too, in wake of all the talk that something big and beautiful might be happening this fall in Fayetteville.

After seeing what Auburn can do offensively under a year of Gus Malzahn running the show from that side, national experts see even bigger numbers in 2010. Much of that hinges on whether junior college transfer Cam Newton, who had suitors from Oklahoma to Mississippi State's Dan Mullen (who had seen Newton at Florida for one year before Newton was dismissed from the team), can make a first-year impact on the SEC level. Then, there is that supposed Top 5 recruiting class signed by Chizik, which included 5-star running back Michael Dyer from Little Rock Christian Academy. Dyer is currently running third on the Auburn depth chart.

The experts seem to discount that Chizik's first class after arriving was middle of the pack in the SEC, and Tommy Tuberville's last couple of classes weren't vintage.

Never underestimate the Auburn supporters, which include recruiting "gurus" and popular Internet wags, from overdosing on the orange-and-blue Kool-Aid.

Randy Reece, whose hobby is dallying in key sports statistics and analyzing them, and who posts regularly on our new FORUM pages, wonders whether Auburn's defense will be up to the SEC challenge. He broke Auburn's defensive depth down like this:

* DE second-teamer is a freshman;

* DT second-teamer is a freshman;

* DE second team, two freshmen;

* MLB second team, two freshmen;

* OLB starter is a 5-11, 203-pound sophomore moved from safety;

* OLB second team, two freshmen;

* CB second team, two freshmen;

* Both safeties return off major injuries;

* Ten freshmen in the defensive two-deep. Eight are true freshmen.

Compare that with Arkansas, which has one true freshmen in the defensive line and one at second-team cornerback, and the rest of the two-deep with significant SEC playing time.

National college football experts are proclaiming Auburn now as the likely successor to Alabama's throne, while they worry whether Arkansas will be a repeat of last year's Ole Miss squad, which had all the preseason buzz and soared to No. 4 in the early weeks, only to wash out with four losses in the SEC.

As good as everyone thought Malzahn and his offense performed last year with running back Ben Tate carrying most of the load, the Tigers never scored more than three offensive touchdowns against any SEC opponent save for Mississippi State, Reece wrote.

All that might give Arkansas State's traveling party reason to think the Red Wolves could compete Saturday night on the Plains. ASU comes in a bit of an unknown to Auburn with a change in offense - the plan for the season is for lots of no-huddle, hurry-up plays, but ASU Coach Steve Roberts said Thursday that it's more about changing tempos. That means, hurry-up when the defense isn't expecting it, and slower tempo when the defense is geared more to hurrying up.

It doesn't mean Arkansas State will be all pass-happy bombs away with its quarterbacks Ryan Aplin and Phillip Butterfield, either. Auburn ran much more than it passed last year with Malzahn calling the shots; Arkansas State will want to run when Auburn expects pass, and vice versa. Running may wear down that young and not-that-deep Tiger defense.

Anyway, what happens Saturday with Auburn and ASU still won't tell us what will occur when SEC play starts, and for Auburn that's on the road at Mississippi State on a Thursday night. If one roster stat exists that bodes well for the Tigers and Herbstreit's faith in Auburn's controlling the West, it's that Auburn has 24 seniors, the largest senior class in school history.

Going 8-5 overall and 3-5 in the SEC last year, the Tigers dressed 13 seniors.

Two years ago, in Tuberville's last season, Auburn went 5-7 and 2-6. Auburn and Arkansas both identically improved to the same records last year, with Arkansas winning the head-to-head 44-23 in Fayetteville after the Tigers had started 5-0. It was 34-3 before Auburn cracked the end zone, in case you've forgotten.

Maybe for anyone to expect either Arkansas or Auburn to turn last year's 3-5 into 6-2 in 2010, which is what it likely will take to win the West, is asking a lot. It's much easier to figure that Alabama won't lose more than two league games than it is that the Hogs and Tigers will improve three more league wins over a year ago.

With all the hype suddenly falling on Auburn now from Herbstreit & Co., Arkansas' supporters should feel more at ease that their Hogs are mostly flying again under the national radar, the safer place to be in the SEC if your name isn't Alabama or Florida.

Tagged: Randy Reece, Kevin Scarbinsky, Birmingham News, Auburn Tigers