Some years back, the late Atlanta radio personality Royal Marshall went off on a memorable riff about the perennial woes of his hometown Falcons. "When you watch that team," he said, "It's not about whether they're going to lose. It's how they're going to lose."

Auburn's history, fortunately, hasn't been much like that of the until-very-recently snakebit Falcons, but the 2012 Tigers are starting to look an awful lot like those old Dirty Birds.

To be sure, plenty of the previous ways Auburn has been losing were on gratuitous display Saturday morning: the turnovers, the worst-possible-time penalties, Scot Loeffler's "Magic 8-Ball" play selection, and of course, the patented fourth-quarter defensive collapse.....

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