Florida State v. Auburn BCS preview: Special teams and predictions

With a win over Auburn, Florida State will secure its third national title. With a win, Florida State may go down as one of the most dominant teams in the history of college football. This, after replacing six coaches and 11 draft picks (including the first quarterback taken in the NFL draft). Remarkable.

Over the span of about 5,000 words, we have already broken down Florida State's offense against Auburn's defense and Florida State's defense against Auburn's offense. The only thing left to discuss is special teams, intangibles and get to the predictions. Win or lose, this has been a great season and we appreciate your readership.

Special Teams

Auburn does not give up many punt returns (only 5 all season) and does a very good job returning them. Chris Davis will be back to return punts and is certainly dangerous, but it's hard to imagine they'll get too many opportunities at punt returns due to Cason Beatty's shorter kicks. Auburn probably knows that it needs to take chances, so coming after a punt, or a surprise onside should not be much of a surprise at all, but rather the expectation. FSU's punter is not very good, and overall, Auburn probably has the edge on special teams.

Auburn's kick return team is also very good. Will FSU try to kick it high and to the goal line, attempting to pin Auburn inside its own 25? Or will it kick it deep and through the end zone? There is risk and reward either way, as Auburn's offense is perhaps even better than its return team.

FSU certainly has the upper hand on the FG kicking front and kickoffs due to Lou Groza award winner Roberto Aguayo. Auburn's kicker Cody Parker is pretty solid, as he's 14-19 with his only misses coming off of 40+ yard kicks. If either kicker is seeing the field a lot to kick field goals, their team is likely in trouble.

Prediction

One game with a month to prepare. Anything can happen. Weird things can and often times do happen under these circumstances. But every coach in the country would take talent-driven dominance over destiny and luck. Let's get to predicting.