Tale of the Tape: Auburn vs. California
A pair of 1-0 teams will face off in week two, when the Auburn Tigers travel across the country to take on the California Golden Bears in Berkley California.
Auburn is coming off a 59-14 thumping of UMass in their home opener, while Cal’s week one game went eerily similar, as they coasted on the road against North Texas, 58-21.
Despite these similar results and Auburn having to travel all the way to the west coach and play in California Memorial Stadium, BetMGM currently has the Tigers as a 6.5 point favorite, giving the Tigers an implied odds of 71.43 to win the matchup outright.
ESPN’s FPI calculator sees this game going differently, as the Index is giving Cal a 54.9% chance to win their home opener.
With the differing opinions on how this game is going to play out, we’ll take it to the tale of the tape to provide some more clarity.
This game features two transfer quarterbacks who have yet to play a full game for their new teams.
On the home side, quarterback Sam Jackson V played sparingly in his first two seasons for TCU, completing 6 passes in 6 attempts for 125 yards.
Jackson was named the starter in week one, but an early injury forced him to miss the remainder of the game after he completed 3/4 passes for 33 yards and a touchdown. He also ran for 18 yards on three carries.
NC State transfer Ben Finley came in to replace him and played well, collecting 279 yards and a touchdown in the win. Still, Cal head coach Justin Wilcox told Jackson he wants him back, as he’s been named the starter for week two.
On the Auburn side of the ball, Payton Thorne played well in his 3+ quarters of action in week one, collecting 141 passing yards and a touchdown while completing 59% of his passes.
Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze also used a second quarterback frequently in week one, giving Robby Ashford a handful of packages in the red zone that led to 51 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
The edge in the quarterback department goes to Auburn, based on the fact Thorne and Ashford boast much more experience than Jackson and Finley.
As for the battle of the skill positions, that is much closer.
Auburn played week one without their number one running back in Jarquez Hunter. That didn’t stop the Tigers from rushing for 289 yards thanks to great games from their o-line, the aforementioned Robby Ashford, Sean Jackson, and Jeremiah Cobb.
Cal on the other hand rushed for 312 yards on the back of sophomore running back Jaydn Ott’s 188. Ott’s 188 yards and two-touchdown performance comes off the back of a very impressive freshmen season in which he racked up 1,218 total yards (897 rushing) and 11 touchdowns for a team that won a single game.
Ott is probably the best skill position player in this game, and the fact he is paired with a true number-one receiving threat in Jeremiah Hunter (965 receiving yards in 2022) gives Cal the edge over Auburn’s committee backfield and unproven receiver room.
The defenses in this game also stack up fairly evenly. Last year, Cal’s defense was in the middle of the pack in Division 1, giving up an average of 433.2 YPG. Auburn was slightly better, conceding 406.5 YPG to its opponents in 2022.
It was Cal who had the edge in week one of 2023 however, as they were able to hold a solid North Texas team to just 225 total yards. Auburn on the other hand gave up 301 to a UMass team that isn’t very good.
It’s too early in the season to give one team the edge on defense.
If these comparisons have taught us anything, it’s that this game will be as close as many experts expect it to be. These teams very similarly had bad seasons in 2022 and good starts to 2023, but only one of them will continue the positive vibes into week three.
This game should be a doozy, and it all kicks off at 9:30 p.m. CST on Saturday.
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