Auburn No. 8 in new AP poll
Week 2 of a bizarre 2020 season has come and gone, and Auburn still hasn't played a down of football.
Yet the Tigers are moving up in the AP Top 25 rankings. In the newest installment of the AP poll on Sunday afternoon, Gus Malzahn's team found itself ranked No. 8, up three spots from Week 1.
After including the Big Ten and Pac-12 in its first rankings of the season last week, the AP poll has now opted to leave out teams from conferences that currently aren't playing football this fall. Auburn benefits from that, as teams like Ohio State, Penn State and Oregon— all of which were ranked ahead of the Tigers in last week's poll — have been removed from the equation.
Auburn also found itself rising in ESPN's SP+ predictive rankings without Big Ten and Pac-12 teams, sitting at No. 7 after Week 2.
SP+ projects the Tigers with the nation's No. 5 defense and No. 12 offense.
Auburn's season-opening opponent, Kentucky, comes in ranked No. 23 in the new AP Top 25.
With a handful of final four contenders from the Big Ten and Pac-12 out of the mix, Auburn is being given the fifth-best chance in the nation (26.6%) to make the 2020 College Football Playoff, according to ESPN FPI.
With their 2020 opener less than two weeks away, the Tigers have three preseason scrimmages under their belts. Malzahn will bring his team back to Jordan-Hare Stadium next Saturday, this time under the lights so Auburn can practice pumping in crowd noise and flashing its new LED "light show."
"I can’t tell you right now if it’s going to be a scrimmage, but it is going to be situational," Malzahn said of his plans for next Saturday. "We’ll get good work in. Like I said, we need the work. We didn’t go through spring, so everything’s accelerated. It won’t be a walkthrough. In the past, the week before and really the Saturday before has been almost like a dress rehearsal. We’ve still got work to do, so I have not decided exactly what that’s gonna like, but it’ll be good."
The Tigers are without five starters and 10 players in total following two new COVID-19 cases from last week's testing, but Malzahn said he expects those players back for the season opener, though they may not assume their normal roles after missing two weeks of practice.
Kickoff for No. 8 Auburn vs. No. 23 Kentucky on Sept. 26 is set for 11 a.m. CST on SEC Network.
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