Auburn's penultimate game of 2019, another pointless "Cupcake Week" cash-grab, went almost unnoticed — even by most Tiger fans.

The combination of a puny opponent, an early kickoff, terrible weather, the students out on Thanksgiving break and a generalized hangover from this disappointing season merged into enough ennui to yield one of the lowest turnouts for an Auburn home game since stadium expansion in 1980.

By the third quarter there might have been 15,000 fans left, including perhaps a few hundred students.

The game itself was pure chalk-it-up-and-move-on. Auburn got rolling late in the first quarter and played pretty much everybody on the roster while piling up seven touchdowns and a field goal while holding Samford scoreless.

I suspect the only things the spectators remembered about the game by Sunday morning were the defense's shutout and the swirling fall rainstorm. But for the few who stuck around, there was also a surprisingly fun second half.

The minimal crowd remaining after intermission responded with enthusiasm to the Cord Sandberg Experience on offense and a gaggle of oft-unseen defenders improbably preserving the shutout. It was kind of like a really good A-Day — except it actually resembled football and counted in the official records.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a timeless classic. It meant next to nothing going forward. Still, if you didn't enjoy seeing the second- and third- and scout-team players getting out there and very obviously having a good time, you might want to rethink why you watch football in the first place.

If you skipped out at halftime — and given the awful conditions, I couldn't blame you — check out a replay this week. You might just enjoy it.

So much for the fun part.

Now, unfortunately, we need to talk about the elephant in the corner, and I'm not talking about Big Al.

Auburn is going into this year's Iron Bowl in one of the weirdest positions I can recall in five decades of following this most mercurial of programs.

Sporting a world-class defense and about to face a team that just lost its offensive catalyst to fate and dumb coaching, the Tigers are improbably in a realistic position to knock off their arch-rival and end that rival's chances of backing into a playoff berth again.

The catch is this: Auburn's offense has to hold up its end of the deal. That hasn't happened against a quality opponent since the season opener. And prior to that, it hasn't happened since the last time the Tide was inside Jordan-Hare Stadium.

While there's a general feeling around Auburn fandom that AU ought to win this season finale, there's also a strong suspicion that Gus Malzahn won't be able to generate enough offense to get that done. This despite him coaching against a pretty mediocre defense by Alabama's recent standards.

The perception that Malzahn will continue to be stymied against the league's top teams is what last week's storm of rumor and counter-rumor and announcements and non-announcements were all about.

It's not just about this week or this game or even this opponent. After rampaging through the SEC for most of his time as coordinator and first two years as head coach, Malzahn's Auburn offenses have been, at best, hit-and-miss.

The hits against the major rivals have become increasingly rare.

To be blunt about it, the two years of Nick Marshall at quarterback and the bravura November of 2017 look much more like aberrations.

None of the variations of Malzahn as the formal "Play-Caller" or "CEO" or anything in between since Marshall's departure have shown any consistency except against teams Auburn ought to beat anyway. And even then, it's not 100 percent. There's always a point where the offense just disappears for long, frustrating stretches.

Those extended slumps, and not the fabled "hurry-up-no-huddle," have become Malzahn's true offensive signature over the past five years.

They're what Auburn fans dread more than anything else when they're walking into a game against a capable rival. That and the patience to wade through yet another cluster of fruitless possessions.

This is hardly an original observation, but when a guy who was hired as an offensive guru can't get his offense to work across multiple seasons, the question of "then why is he still here?" gets more and more compelling.

The thrilling (though failed) comeback against Georgia and having a legitimate shot at winning the Iron Bowl, along with externalities like the sumptuous buyout and a lack of an obvious successor hire on the horizon, are still keeping a lid on things this week.

Not by much, mind you.

I'm sorry to say that at this point, even a win in the looming season finale isn't going to be enough to answer those fundamental questions, to say nothing of this one:

"If not now, when?"

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