'Bama -10.5 at Auburn.................................................................

Your astounding football intellect continues to move us.

I am well familiar with what sets a line and, more importantly, what MOVES it.  It’s one of the reasons I would have preferred to bet the game at -15/15.5 rather than 10/10.5, and why such esteemed cappers on this site as WahooS and JDN will not touch the game at 10/10.5 - because it is a very fair line.   A hell of a lot more fair than -28 or such to indicate, as you errantly suggest, a game where Auburn has virtually no chance to be competitive.  Utter Bullshit, and I will explain why.

Since you seem to like facts so much yet offer absolutely none but an opinion ‘Marshall is a bad passer’ that you mislabel as ‘fact’; on the year Bama has thrown for 2326 yards and rushed for 2566 yards for total of 4892 yards.  Excellent balance.  But Auburn has thrown for 1976 yards, with 3523 rushing yards for total of 5499 yards in the same number of games and a harder SOS.  Auburn’s 1976 passing yards is only 350 yards lower than Alabama on the season, or about 32 fewer yards passing per game on average, but Auburn’s rushing stats are 1000 yards greater on the season, or about 90 yards per game on average.  Indeed, Auburn is the no. 1 rushing team in the conference by a significant margin so the fact they are merely 32 yards per game lower than the Tide passing the ball is not that surprising. Yet you insist Marshall is a ‘bad passer.’  You provide no facts to back that up; just your opinion that you call ‘fact.’  Well, I call bullshit on your opinion because that’s what it is.

Nick Marshall, competing in 10 games (he sat out 1 game to minor injury as a precautionary measure) is averaging 153 yds per game throwing the ball, in addition to running for 82 yards per game for total offense of 235 yards per game.  A.J. McCarron, by contrast, is throwing for 218 yards per game, but rushing for .45 YARD per game, or 218 total yards per game. McCarron throws for 65 more yards per game, but Marshall runs for 82 more yards per game and Marshall leads McCarron in total yards per game. Moreover, Marshall has 9 rushing TDs to McCarron’s 0; McCarron has 23 passing TDs to Marshall’s 9. So McCarron has accounted for 23 total TDs to Marshall’s 18; both QBs have exactly 5 INTs each. Yet again, Marshall has done this against tougher competition/higher SOS – ranked before season by Phil Steele at #18 vs #40 for Bama; and ranked through Nov. 23 by Sagarin @ # 39 Auburn vs #55 Bama. 

In addition, Marshall only started playing this offense in August of this year, having not participated in Spring ball, and has steadily and significantly improved his play throughout the season as he has gotten more comfortable with the reads and the offense generally – something not always easily discernable by stats.  Even so, by the numbers against a tougher schedule, Auburn throws the ball nearly as well as Bama (32 yards per game is not significantly consequential), runs it better than Bama by the numbers, but somehow according to you, while providing little or no ‘facts’ to back it up, at home in a rivalry game off 2 weeks rest, Auburn which has improved during the year as much or more than any other team in CFB, playing with as much confidence as any team in the country, has virtually no chance to be competitive. 

And as for Bama’s vaunted defense, averaging only 9.3 points allowed per game, that stat is without question padded by shutouts or very few points allowed to teams like Chattanooga, Georgia State, Kentucky, etc.  When Bama faces a legitimate dual threat QB (Manziel) that can hurt you with his arm or his feet and surrounded by playmakers, they surrender 42 points.  They are about to be tested by another such athletic, dual threat QB in Nick Marshall, surrounded by a greater number of even better playmakers than Manziel has at his disposal.

Perhaps in your world Spartacus this team has no chance to be competitive -- perhaps also in your world the sky is green, the ocean is red, and unicorns prance about the field of play with fairies and mermaids, I don’t know.  But in the real world of football, played by real human beings, AND supported by considerable buttressing facts, they most certainly can.

GW