Alabama vs. Auburn: Can the Tigers Pull off an Iron Bowl Upset?

Even with a loss to LSU in the “Game of the Century” back on Nov. 5, Alabama has still found a way to get right back into the thick of the National Championship hunt after a wild weekend of college football, which saw three of the Top 5 teams in the country get picked off.

It looks like the Tide and LSU are once again on a crash course to meet on the big stage, only this time it will actually be the biggest stage in college football, as everything’s now set up for them to duke it out in the BCS Title Game for the right to hold up the crystal football.  

The Tide can’t make reservations in New Orleans just yet, though.

First, Nick Saban’s squad will have to get by No. 24 Auburn in the Iron Bowl on Saturday.

Obviously, without Heisman-winning quarterback Cam Newton and star defensive tackle Nick Fairley, the 7-4 Tigers aren’t nearly the same team that steamrolled through the SEC and won the National Championship last season. But this is still a squad that’s got the talent to put a scare into Alabama.

We saw what happened last year when these two teams met, as the Tide rolled out to a big first-half lead only to watch it evaporate during a second-half collapse.

That loss still has to be weighing heavily on the minds of players like Mark Barron, Dont’a Hightower and Trent Richardson and you have to expect that they’ll all have vengeance on their minds on Saturday.

The boys in Las Vegas don’t seem to have much faith in the Tigers to pull off the upset, since they’ve already installed Auburn as a three-touchdown home underdog, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Auburn doesn’t have a shot to pull of a victory and continue the streak of cray upsets that we’ve seen in college football over the past few weeks.

The key for Auburn will be its defense, which has had a lot of growing up to do this year with so many new faces at key positions.

There’s no way to get around the fact that the Auburn defense has just been flat out bad this season.

The Tigers currently rank 11th in the SEC in both scoring defense and total defense, giving up an average of 28 points and 406 yards per game. And that’s not going to cut it against Alabama.

If Auburn wants to slow down Heisman candidate running back Trent Richardson, the defensive front seven is going to have to pick it up a few notches and really commit to stopping the run.

The other key for the defense will be creating momentum-swinging turnovers.

If the Tigers can pick off A.J. McCarron once or twice at crucial times in the game, it could really boost their chances of hanging around for four quarters.

On paper, it doesn’t look like Auburn’s offense matches up all that well with the supremely talented Alabama defense (then again, what offense does?), but the Tigers do have two explosive playmakers that they can rely on in running backs Michael Dyer and Onterio McCalebb.

When it comes right down to it, though, Auburn just won’t have enough horses on both sides of the ball to keep up in the race.

While the Tigers may hang around a little longer than most people might expect, eventually Alabama will pull away in this one, and in turn, likely solidify a place in the BCS national championship game.

Prediction: Alabama 38, Auburn 23