Auburn will host the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga this Saturday as the No. 2 team in the Bowl Championship Series standings.
Gene Chizik's Tigers dropped from the top spot despite a resounding 51-31 win at Ole Miss this past weekend in which they racked up 572 yards, including a 20-yard touchdown catch by junior quarterback Cam Newton. Oregon took over at No. 1 after routing Southern Cal and former Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin, 53-32, in Los Angeles.
"I'm really pleased to finish up the month of October, which was an extremely difficult month in our schedule," Chizik said Sunday. "I think our coaches have done a great job of carrying on day-to-day as they usually do. Our players have done a really nice job of shielding themselves from all the outside opinions and things of that nature.
BCS STANDINGS1. Oregon2. Auburn3. TCU4. Boise State5. Utah6. Alabama7. Nebraska8. Oklahoma9. Wisconsin10. LSU
"We try to be a one-day-at-a-time team, and I feel like that's happened to the best of our ability."
TCU moved ahead of Boise State and into third on the BCS chart, with Utah rounding out the top five. Utah hosts TCU this weekend.
Alabama continued to inch up and is now sixth, and the Crimson Tide are followed by one-loss counterparts Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and LSU. The Tide visit Baton Rouge this weekend, so there are two games certain to shuffle the rankings again.
Chizik said he and his staff will spend today and some of Tuesday studying UTC's defense and determining how much to use Newton as a runner. The 6-foot-6, 250-pounder from Atlanta did not have a single running play called for him during Auburn's 52-3 win over Louisiana-Monroe on Oct. 2, but he rushed 28 times for a career-best 217 yards Oct. 23 in the 24-17 win over LSU.
Newton ranks seventh nationally in rushing with 124.7 yards per game, and he's third in pass efficiency, having completed 66.7 percent of his attempts for 1,573 yards with 15 touchdowns and five interceptions. He completed 18 of 24 passes against the Rebels for 209 yards and two scores.
"The plans don't always unfold the way you think they're going to on game day," Chizik said. "As the game goes on, you see what they're giving you. We're going to run the football, and you do what you can running-game wise to exploit the defense as best you can."
Newton was held to 45 rushing yards on 11 carries by the Rebels, but freshman tailback Michael Dyer rushed for 180 yards on 21 carries and sophomore tailback Onterio McCalebb added 99 on nine. Dyer has 280 rushing yards the past two weeks, Newton 262 and McCalebb 183.
Saturday also marked the fourth time the Tigers have eclipsed 50 points.
"We are a team that has our mind set on a business mission," sophomore receiver Emory Blake said. "We were aware that the last couple of weeks, the No. 1 team went down, and we practiced all week like we wanted to win this game. We didn't come in overlooking Ole Miss. We came in looking to win, and we did that."
Said Newton: "What they were giving us made me go to other options I had, which is handing the ball off every single time."