Alabama vs Auburn: 5 reasons Tigers upset Crimson Tide
By John Buhler
The 81st installment of the Iron Bowl between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn Tigers will be on Saturday. Here five reasons Auburn can play spoiler.
Saturday, Nov. 26 will be the 81st addition of the SEC rivalry we all know as the Iron Bowl between the Auburn Tigers (8-3) and the Alabama Crimson Tide (11-0). Auburn is ranked in the teens and Alabama is the No. 1 team in the nation.
This rivalry is one of the few annual regional meetings that has national appeal. Alabama is a national power and Auburn is a top-15 college football program in its own right. It’s been amplified since the SEC became the dominant college football conference in the mid-2000s.
Alabama is an overwhelming favorite entering the 2016 Iron Bowl but here are five reasons that Auburn can upset the Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa on Saturday.
5. Nick Saban struggles the most with mobile quarterbacks
While there is not a blueprint to beat a well-coached Nick Saban team with great regularity, perhaps one of the ingredients to beating a Saban team would be to have a strong dual-threat quarterback.
Auburn isn’t elite at quarterback, but does have a few guys who can scramble in addition to throwing. Alabama usually suffocates its opponent like a boa constrictor with a ground-and-pound offense and an out-of-this-world pass rush.
It’s not easy because Saban is a genius when it comes to positioning his defensive backs, but an up-tempo, somewhat spread offensive attack has confused Saban defenses at Alabama from time to time. Johnny Manziel, Nick Marshall, Cardale Jones, and Deshaun Watson have all done a solid job of befuddling Alabama’s defense with their legs and dual-threat abilities in recent years.
Will it be Sean White, John Franklin III or Jeremy Johnson that will be the guy that challenges Alabama for Auburn on Saturday from the quarterback position? None of those three Tiger signal callers are great, but have the physical tools to potentially thwart the Alabama defense.