Auburn’s 24-16 win against San Jose on Saturday didn’t inspire confidence based on ESPN’s latest College Football Power Index ranking. The Tigers (2-0) dropped from 27 after the Week 1 win against Mercer to 40 heading into this week’s action.
Auburn is undefeated after two games; however, the FPI projects some doom and gloom for the remainder of Bryan Harsin’s second season on the Plains. Gone is the nearly 92% chance of winning six or more games. Now it’s a 55.4% chance, according to this week’s rankings. Another troubling movement is the projected record of 5.7 wins to 6.3 losses.
Struggling to score points against San Jose State contributes to the Tigers having a 56.4 percent offensive efficiency rating, which is 62nd in the country. Auburn’s defensive efficiency rating is 92nd at 44.2 %, whereas Georgia is #1 at 95.9%. UGA shut out Samford last week and allowed only a field goal against Oregon in the week one game.
Auburn’s FPI dropped from 10.3 last week to 7.3 after the San Jose State win. FPI ratings are based on the expected point margin versus an average opponent on a neutral field. ESPN uses over 20,000 simulations to create its metrics. As bad as all of this sounds, the Tigers’ opportunity to change the projections starts with Saturday’s game against No. 22 Penn State at Jordan-Hare. The Nittany Lions are 2-0, and the ESPN College Football Power Index ranks them #13 with a projected 8.3-3.4 record.
Playing Mercer and San Jose has the Tigers with a #124 strength of schedule. It gets real for the Tigers starting the Nittany Lions because the remaining schedule is the strongest in the country. According to several sportsbooks, Vegas sees the Nittany Lions as“We have to focus on ourselves. We must make sure we have our game plans down and understand it better. We coach it better and rep it better in practice,” Harsin said after the San Jose win.
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