BCS National Championship: A Realistic Look at Auburn, Oregon & How They Compare

Statistics do not lie but often they are misinterpreted or flat out manipulated.

Fans are excited to watch what promises to be one of the most exciting BCS Championship games that have ever been played.

To give an accurate view of Auburn and Oregon is very difficult. The two teams played in different conferences.

This article is aimed at making fans educated enough on both teams to make up their own minds.

Both teams run a tempo oriented scheme and this is affected by the opponent’s performance on both offense and defense. Balanced teams are more difficult for tempo based teams to defeat.

An opponent that is competent on both offense and defense will reduce the tempo desired for such teams.

Comparing Schedules

Team	Opponent	Opponent Record	Opponent Offensive Rank	Opponent Defensive Rank
Auburn	Arkansas State	4-8	43	105
Oregon	New Mexico	1-11	120	119
Auburn	Mississippi State	8-4	47	52
Oregon	Tennessee	6-6	74	70
Auburn	Clemson	6-6	87	23
Oregon	Portland State	2-9	FCS 23	FCS 115
Auburn	South Carolina	9-4	50	51
Oregon	Arizona State	6-6	29	58
Auburn	Louisiana Monroe	5-7	84	67
Oregon	Stanford	11-1	14	24
Auburn	Kentucky	6-6	26	49
Oregon	Washington State	2-10	93	118
Auburn	Arkansas	10-2	10	33
Oregon	UCLA	4-8	99	95
Auburn	LSU	10-2	92	8
Oregon	Southern California	8-5	28	83
Auburn	Mississippi	4-8	46	80
Oregon	Washington	6-6	75	84
Auburn	Chattanooga	6-5	FCS 11	FCS 80
Oregon	California	5-7	90	19
Auburn	Georgia	6-6	48	30
Oregon	Arizona	7-5	24	36
Auburn	Alabama	9-3	27	6
Oregon	Oregon State	5-7	94	86
Auburn	South Carolina	9-4	50	51
Auburn	Oregon	12-0	2	26
Oregon	Auburn	13-0	7	53
Average Auburn	2010 Season	7.4-4.6	41	45
Average Oregon	2010 Season	5.8-6.2	59	74

There are 120 teams in the FBS Division. This makes a team ranked between one and 60 in the top half of the division.

There is a 156 yard decrease in production per game from the number one ranked offense and the number 60 ranked offense. There is a 154 yard increase per game in allowed yards between the number one ranked defense and the number 60 ranked defense.

Auburn played seven teams that finished better than a rank of 60 in both total offense and total defense. Oregon played three teams that finished better than 60 in both total offense and defense. This is a large enough sampling for both teams to give fans an idea of how the teams compare against quality competition.

Oregon’s Statistics against Sample

Opponent	Number of Offensive Plays	Total Offense	Total Defense
Arizona State	54	385 yards	597 yards
Stanford	71	626 yards	518 yards
Arizona	71	537 yards	506 yards
Average	65.33	516 yards	540 yards

Oregon gave up, on average, 540 yards to the opposition in these games and an average of 392 yards passing to these teams. They only gave up 148 yards on the ground on average.

Oregon gained an average of 300.66 yards rushing against these defenses and passed for 215 yards against them. They scored an average of 47 points while allowing an average of 30 points per game.

This is a winning margin of 17 points against quality opponents.

Auburn’s Statistics against Sample

Opponent	Number of Offensive Plays	Total Offense	Total Defense
Mississippi State	58	348 yards	246 yards
South Carolina	74	492 yards	384 yards
Kentucky	65	521 yards	336 yards
Arkansas	59	470 yards	560 yards
Georgia	69	463 yards	353 yards
Alabama	54	324 yards	446 yards
South Carolina	60	589 yards	349 yards
Average	62.7	458 yards	382 yards

Auburn gave up an average of 369 yards to the opposition in these games and an average of 276 yards to these teams. Auburn only allowed 107.14 yards on the ground in these games.

They rushed for 261 yards per game against these opponents and passed for 197 yards. They allowed 28 points per game while scoring 41 points.

This is a winning margin of 13 points per game.

Overview

Statistic	Auburn	Oregon
Offensive Plays Per Game	62.7 plays	65.33 plays
Total Offense Per Game	472 yards	516 yards
Total Defense Per Game	369 yards	540 yards
Total Scoring Offense Per Game	41 points	47 points
Total Scoring Defense Per Game	28 points	30 points
Average Opponent Offense Rank in Sample	37 nationally	22.33 nationally
Average Opponent Defense Rank in Sample	44 nationally	39 nationally

While it appears that Oregon’s opponents were of better quality in this sample, this is not the case.

With the exception of Kentucky the opponents for Auburn played a much more difficult schedule on the year. Fans can assume these samples were fairly consistent for both sides in this comparison.

There are some surprising results in this comparison. The biggest surprise is the remarkable similarity of the offensive tempo. The two teams executed within three total offensive plays of each other when facing quality competition.

It's not likely that either team will exceed the 60 to 65 play average by much in this game; it is more likely that both teams will perform exactly as they have all season against quality competition.

These are two quality teams on both offense and defense.

When all of the necessary statistics are programmed in and simulations are run, there are some surprising results.

1. This game might not be close. In winning scenarios for both teams, the margin of victory is more than two touchdowns a large percentage of the time.
2. The passing game might be more important than anyone thinks. In the majority of winning scenarios, the winning team passes for more than 200 yards in the game.
3. The total combined score will not likely exceed the 90 points predicted.
4. The combined score is less than 70 in half of all winning scenarios.
5. The Auburn pass defense is likely to perform better than expected.
6. The Auburn rush defense will likely give up more yards than expected.
7. The Oregon defense will likely give up more than 500 total yards of offense.
8. There will be a large number of impact plays of longer than 15 yards in the game.

These two teams are a great match and the smallest advantage for one side or the other will show up in magnified form in the results. This could well be a game where both teams have periods of utter dominance on both sides of the ball.

No matter if you are an Auburn or Oregon fan, or just a fan of college football in general, this promises to be a very entertaining game.

Simulations do show that one of these teams wins more than 70 percent of the time. As this article is formed to allow fans to make up their own minds, this bit of information will be retained for future prognostication purposes.