Saturday was another example of how maddening it must be to be an Auburn football fan.

As we know, a solidly favored Tigers team went into Baton Rouge, jumped out to a 20-0 lead and somehow lost 27-23. It was an incredibly frustrating day for Auburn, and led to renewed calls for Gus Malzahn to lose his job (some more rational than others).

But what if I told you that we might just be seeing what Auburn is and what it nearly always has been? The Tigers are 5-2 this season, which projects to 8.57 victories in a 12-game regular season, 9.28 victories if the Tigers were to win a bowl game.

If you break down the previous 10 seasons (2007-2016), Auburn totaled 82 wins, an average of 8.2 per season. There were some very high highs during that period -- a 14-0 record and a national championship in 2010, plus a 12-2 run to an SEC title in 2013 -- but also some very low lows -- a 3-9 mark that led to the ouster of Gene Chizik in 2012, a 5-7 record that cost Tommy Tuberville his job in 2008.

And it's not just the last 10 years. If you take the 10 years before that (1997-2006), Auburn totaled 84 wins -- 8.4 per season.

The 10 years before that? From 1987-96, Auburn totaled 83 wins (8.3 per year).

From 1977-86? 77 wins (7.7 per year). From 1967-76, 71 wins (7.1 per year). (Note: Teams typically played fewer games in the 1960s, 70s and 80s than they do now).

And lest you think I'm using arbitrary end points, it's largely true of any 10-year period in Auburn football over the last half-century.

I think most of us would agree that the 1980s were a glorious time for Auburn football, when Pat Dye led the Tigers to four SEC titles and a near national championship in 1983. If you take any 10-year period from that era, you get between 8 and 9 wins every year.

Here's the list:

1982-91 -- 89 wins, 8.9

1983-92 -- 85 wins, 8.5

1984-93 -- 85 wins, 8.5

1985-94 -- 85 wins, 8.5

1986-95 -- 85 wins, 8.5

Again, while you had glorious seasons such as 11-1 in 1983 and 11-0 in 1993, you also had clunkers like 5-6 in 1981 and back-to-back 5-win seasons in 1991 and 1992.

(If you use just 1983-90, Auburn averaged 9.6 wins while playing 12 games every year, but it's worth noting that Alabama football was in post-Bryant turmoil during that time).

Auburn's history has been that it will most of the time be an above-average team, and every five years or so make a run at a championship. Maybe after the three-game surge against Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Missouri (plus a close loss to Clemson), Tigers fans thought this would be one of those years.

But after Clemson lost at Syracuse and the bottom of the SEC continues to show its weakness, maybe Auburn is simply an above-average team again. Dreams of knocking off unbeaten Georgia and Alabama late in the season appear less and less likely to become reality.

Can Auburn football be better than it is this year? Certainly, history has shown that.

Can Auburn football be better than it is this year on a consistent basis over a long period of time? History would suggest that's unlikely.

None of this is to imply Auburn fans should accept blowing a 20-0 lead against a team coached by Ed Orgeron. But the road of Auburn football history is paved with similar maddening inconsistency.

What do you think? I'll take your questions and comments on this or anything else on your mind beginning at 10 a.m.