Auburn Among Most Overrated Teams in Recent AP Poll History

Unfortunately for Tiger fans, the AP Poll voters have a point.

Auburn has finished well below its preseason rankings nearly every single year in the last ten seasons, with the exception of 2017 and 2019, where in both years the Tigers jumped just two rankings up the board from their preseason expectations.

In fact, since 2014, the Tigers have had just four years in which they’ve finished the season ranked– and in two of those four years, they finished below their preseason rankings.

Auburn Tigers on SI has compiled the program's preseason and final rankings in each of the last ten seasons, and needless to say, the evidence does not do the Tigers any favors.

The full breakdown can be found below (RV = Received Votes, NR = No Votes Received).

In both 2014 and 2015, the Tigers started the season as the sixth-ranked team in the AP preseason poll. In 2014, they finished at 22nd, and in 2015, Auburn fell off the rankings board entirely.

After jumping from 12th to 10th in 2017, the Tigers started the 2018 season ranked eighth in the nation and, despite receiving votes, finished outside of the top 25. They regained a slight amount of momentum in 2019 by jumping from 16th to 14th.

2020 was a strange year for football, but the Tigers reignited their trend of underperforming. Despite starting ranked No. 11 in the polls, Auburn finished the season unranked.

Auburn has started the season unranked every year since 2021, and though they’ve snuck their way into the mid-20 rankings a few times in those four years, they’ve not finished ranked in the top 25.

Simply put, the Tigers have a scary amount of negative momentum, especially coming off of a season that could have gotten head coach Hugh Freeze fired, despite multiple top 10 recruiting classes.

Nonetheless, Freeze received a third year to turn things around, beginning the first Auburn coach in 50 years to receive a third season after back-to-back losing seasons to start his tenure.

Freeze certainly has a lot of work to do if he’s to prove himself and the Tigers to the world, He's recruited, he’s practiced, and all that’s left to do is for him to show the college football world whether this year’s Tigers will break the trend of underperforming or if it'll be just the same.

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