Auburn football: FanSided ranks Tigers #7th in SEC Power Rankings

Fansided’s Cody Williams hit us where it hurts and ranked Auburn football as the seventh-ranked program in the SEC following a second consecutive losing Saturday afternoon.

The War Eagle acknowledges, frequently might I add, that Auburn football is down on its collective luck this season. At 5-4, with two straight losses to Alabama and Texas A&M–not to mention a loss to South Carolina before they fired Will Muschamp–the Tigers don’t deserve to be seen as a top team in the SEC.

That said, it was still jarring and upsetting that FanSided’s Cody Williams was so blunt in his assessment of the state of Auburn football in the context of the SEC at large, ranking them 7th in his conference power rankings:

"As much as everyone shouting “War Eagle” doesn’t want to admit it, the Auburn Tigers are more like the Kentucky Wildcats than they are the top-tier teams they would like to consider their peers. Bo Nix is a gamer but a limited passer and, when you face great SEC defenses and highly talented teams, that’s going to show — especially when the defense isn’t capable of bailing the offense out."

The Wildcats sat right behind the Tigers in the bottom half of the conference rankings and…wait, can we run that back? Auburn is seen as a borderline bottom-half team in the SEC?

In 2020, that’s where we are.

The War Eagle can admit the Tigers aren’t in the same weight class as the Alabama’s, Georgia’s, Florida’s, and Texas A&M’s of the world. To say they are closer to being at Kentucky’s level is a bit rash considering Auburn took down the Wildcats by a greater margin than the Aggies took down the Tigers this season, and Georgia’s margin of victory over Auburn was within one score of that Kentucky win.

Alabama is in another dimension this season, so I’m going to somewhat conveniently toss that result away. Either way, it is clear that the pundits are sick of Auburn football and their unimpressive pass attack, defense, and general coaching this season.

Being ranked below Missouri and Ole Miss may be harsh, but fair at this point in the season until Gus Malzahn’s squad can get their act together.