Auburn @ Mississippi preview
Vaught-Hemingway Stadium
Last Meeting ( Oct 31, 2009 ) Mississippi 20, Auburn 33
For the past three weekends, No. 1 has not been a comfortable place to reside. The top-ranked team in the human polls fell on consecutive Saturdays, and the team that sat atop the first round of BCS standings went down last week.
The Auburn Tigers hope they aren't next.
Auburn (8-0, 5-0 SEC) holds the top spot in the BCS standings as it travels to take on Mississippi in a Southeastern Conference clash Saturday.
Auburn already has dodged several bullets — five of its wins have been by a touchdown or less — and after consecutive victories against ranked opponents, its next three games are against unranked teams before a showdown at Alabama on Nov. 26.
The Tigers haven't had an easy time on the road, surviving scares from Mississippi State and Kentucky in their only trips away from Jordan-Hare Stadium.
The offense under coordinator Gus Malzahn has been dominant — Auburn ranks fourth in the nation in rushing (303.3 yards per game), 10th in total offense (486.8) and 11th in scoring offense (38.6) — and the ground game has been particularly impressive in recent weeks.
Led by quarterback Cam Newton, who leads the SEC and ranks sixth in the nation with 134.6 rushing yards per game, Auburn has rushed for at least 300 yards in four consecutive SEC games. They went for a season-high 440 yards in last week's 24-17 win against LSU, which entered the game with the nation's sixth-best rush defense.
Newton has topped 170 yards five times this year, including a career-high 217 yards against LSU that pushed his season total to 1,077 and gave him the school's single-season record for rushing yards by a quarterback. His 14 rushing touchdowns and 27 total touchdowns lead the nation. He ranks third in the nation in passing efficiency (172.08) and ninth in total offense (305.1 yards per game).
The Rebels boast their own offensive prowess. They rank third in the SEC in rushing (211.1 yards per game), fifth in total offense (410.3 yards per game) and sixth in scoring offense (31.4 points per game), but their defense leaves something to be desired.
Mississippi's 32 points allowed per game ranks last in the conference.
That doesn't bode well against the Tigers, who have won 61 consecutive games when scoring 30 points or more.
So the Rebels' best hope might be to simply keep up.
Ole Miss (3-4, 1-3 SEC) has lost two straight conference games on the road, falling 23-10 at Alabama two weeks ago and 38-24 at Arkansas last week.
Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli racked up 425 total yards and threw three touchdown passes against Arkansas. The yardage total marked the second highest in school history behind Archie Manning's 540 yards against Alabama in 1969.
Masoli has passed for 1,260 yards and ranks second on the team with 400 rushing yards. Brandon Bolden leads the Rebels with 559 rushing yards and has three 100-yard games this season, including a career-high 228 yards against Fresno State.
Auburn leads the series 25-9 and has won eight of the last 10 meetings, including last year's 33-20 win at home. The Tigers had won seven consecutive meetings in Oxford before the Rebels won the last game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in 2008.