This week's games: Mississippi State at Auburn

Last year, Tuberville brought in a spread guru as offensive coordinator, and it effectively cost him his job. New head coach Gene Chizik, to my surprise, did the same thing, bringing in Malzhan (Tulsa). The early results were impressive. Against a La Tech defense that is less athletic than my church softball team, Auburn's racked up more than 550 yards of offense, more than 300 of it on the ground. Freshman RB McCalebb ran for 150 yards, and Chris Todd completed 65% of his passes for 9.8 yards per completion.

But it was the Mississippi State game a year ago that was the turning point (for the worst). It was an incredible display of offensive impotency for both teams. Fortunately, Auburn was able to eek out a field goal or they might still be pounding away in overtime locked at nil-nil. To me, Auburn can prove in this game that things have really changed. Given Auburn's talent and past proficiency on defense, and Chizik's success as a D-coordinator, if Auburn scores more than 30 points in this game we could have ourselves a dark horse challenger in the SEC.