saban-2010-ib.jpg

Alabama coach Nick Saban walks off the field in Bryant-Denny Stadium after his team lost to Auburn 28-27 on Nov. 26, 2010, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (Mark Almond/malmond@al.com)

If you're Auburn, you spend the next nine days looking for every edge you can find to try to beat Alabama.

You look on the practice field, in the film room and on the stat sheet.

You search for every possible advantage, physically, emotionally and psychologically, to convince yourself you can do what no one else has done this year.

You tell yourself Alabama has struggled with Texas A&M and Mississippi State. You tell yourself the Crimson Tide secondary is vulnerable.

You also tell yourself that Nick Saban's record isn't the best against Auburn's better teams.

It's a strange but true fact.

Saban is 6-5 overall against Auburn as the head coach at Alabama and LSU. He's 4-2 against the Tigers at Alabama after going 2-3 against them at LSU. He's dominated them of late, winning four of their last five meetings by a commanding combined score of 180-63.

But Saban hasn't enjoyed the same kind of success against Auburn's better teams. In fact, he's coached against Auburn teams that would finish the season with nine or more wins five times.

He's lost all five of those games.

At LSU, Saban lost in 2000 to an Auburn team headed toward 9-4, in 2002 to another 9-4 team and in 2004 to Auburn's 13-0 SEC champs. At Alabama, Saban lost in 2007 to a 9-4 Auburn team and in 2010 to Auburn's 14-0 BCS champs.

On the flip side, against Auburn teams that would finish with fewer than nine wins, Saban is 6-0.

This Auburn team, of course, already has 10 wins.

But it's not just Saban-coached teams that struggle to beat the better Auburn teams. It's Alabama teams in general.

The Crimson Tide has lost the last eight Iron Bowls to Auburn teams that would finish the season with nine or more wins: 2010, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2002, 2000 and 1997.

The last time Alabama won an Iron Bowl against an Auburn team headed toward nine or more wins was 1994. That was Terry Bowden's second season as head coach, and it was his first defeat on the Auburn sideline.

In contrast, Auburn's won three of the last seven Iron Bowls against Alabama teams headed toward nine-plus victories. The Tigers beat an Alabama team that would finish 10-3 in 2010, an Alabama team headed toward 10-2 in 2005 and an Alabama team en route to 10-3 in 2002.

What do those trends mean for the 2013 Iron Bowl? Maybe nothing. The past isn't always prologue. This game will be decided by matchups, by Tre Mason's ability to run past C.J. Mosley, Dee Ford's ability to get to AJ McCarron, etc.

But a 10-1 Auburn team that'll walk into its own stadium for the Iron Bowl as a double-digit underdog needs every possible reason to believe it can shock the world one more time.

Recent history provides a reason. Auburn's better teams tend to walk out of the Iron Bowl with a smile.