Auburn oregon game time | Auburn vs oregon game time

Auburn Oregon Game Time - Both teams are in one of the best two conferences in college football this year -- even if you factor in the SEC East. One of them will lose a game for the first time this season.

But Auburn and Oregon are not traditional college football powers. As for the game itself, there's a part of me that wants to invoke Year2's barnburner rule here: If everyone agrees that a game is going to be a track meet, then we're probably in for a low-scoring game. Oregon's is actually pretty decent, and very good against the run. Auburn's is mediocre, and good against the run. Part of that is because both teams have forced other teams to pass for their points by taking big leads, and part of it is because at least parts of the defenses work quite well. Oregon faced three.

NEITHER OF THESE TEAMS IS a stranger to controversy. The Ducks outscored their first three opponents 189-13. Auburn also surprised a lot of people. Auburn started as a good team, picked up a little steam with Cam Newton's Heisman-worthy showing against South Carolina, then emerged as the favorite when the Gamecocks defeated Alabama and the Tigers annihilated Arkansas and beat LSU. Of course, that story will likely be led with Newton's 3,998 yards of total offense and 48 TDs -- along with whatever he adds onto to the total tonight. Would Auburn have defeated South Carolina without Newton? LSU or Alabama? You're not supposed to be able to turn a team around with one player in football, but Newton has done just that at Auburn.
Auburn's schedule was probably a little bit tougher, but Oregon's was no slouch.

YEAR2: For my part, my main interest in this national championship game is each team's running game. Auburn had a higher ranked rushing defense and they had nearly identical YPC figures, but that can be misleading. College football stats categorize sacks and sack yardage as carries and rushing yards. Auburn's rushing offense (6.12 YPC) was consistently able to gain more yards per carry than opposing defenses allowed. The Tigers' best rushing day was against LSU, where its 8.46 YPC was 3.81 above LSU's season average of 4.65 YPC allowed. In all, Auburn averaged a gain of 1.37 YPC above its opponents' averages.

Oregon was also great at rushing the ball (5.99 YPC), but not quite at the same extent that Auburn was. Two teams were able to hold Oregon below their defenses' season averages: Arizona State (3.57 for the Ducks, below Sun Devils' 4.11 average) and Cal (3.28 for the Ducks, below the Golden Bears' 4.37 average). In all, Oregon averaged a gain of 0.88 YPC above its opponents' averages.

Auburn's defense actually yielded 4.86 YPC against BCS conference competition with sacks factored out. Auburn's best rushing defense happened up the middle where Nick Fairley haunts. Overall, Auburn's rushing defense actually allowed opponents to rush for 0.22 YPC more than their season averages. Oregon's rushing defense was a different story. Now, a word on Oregon's uptempo offense. All things being equal, I think Oregon probably wins the game.