The Auburn Tigers found another interestingly infuriating way to lose last Saturday, this time blowing a late-game lead at home against Oklahoma to drop to 2-3 on the season and 0-2 in SEC play.
After giving up a long touchdown on Oklahoma’s scripted drive to begin the game, Auburn struck back with two touchdowns of its own to take a 7-point lead into the halftime locker room. Unfortunately the Tigers were outscored 20-7 in the second half, due in large part to another brutal Payton Thorne interception among other signs of offensive ineptitude.
One of the small tidbits of good news for Auburn is the Tigers couldn’t fall much further down in Tuscaloosa News’s SEC writer Chase Goodbread’s SEC Power Poll, as the Tigers entered and ended their week five contest ranked at No. 15, just one spot ahead of last place Mississippi.
Goodbread seems to have written off Auburn enough that his analysis of the Hugh Freeze’s squad has now come in the form of quick quips. The columnist simply writes, “[The] biggest hit all day from Auburn in a loss to Oklahoma? The Auburn cheerleader who wiped out an OU player before the game.” His analysis, while half-hearted, is fairly accurate considering the Tigers did not show much signs of resistance against the Oklahoma offense and freshman quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr.
While Auburn’s ranking may have not changed this week, the top five of the SEC Power Poll saw some movement. Alabama now sits in the No. 1 spot following its victory over Georgia, while Texas (2), Tennessee (3), Georgia (4) and Missouri (5) make up the rest of the top 5. Ole Miss, who was ranked in the top 5 over the first four weeks of the season, fell to No. 6.
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