Don’t even bother. It’s pointless.

Sorry Auburn fans, but bringing up last year’s Iron Bowl results and trying to apply it to this year’s matchup makes zero sense. None.

These teams might be coached by the same guys as last year, but their teams couldn’t be any more different. Polar opposites. Like Honolulu and Tuscaloosa.

Well, let me rephrase that. Their offenses* are polar opposites.

It’s somewhat amazing to think of how big of transformations both teams have undergone in a year’s time. But watch them both for 60 minutes and it’s pretty clear. Shoot, watch them for 10 minutes and it’s obvious how much both groups have changed.

Last year, as you’ll recall, Auburn wasn’t the Tigers. They were The Fighting Kerryon Johnsons. That’s not a knock on Jarrett Stidham, who is still under center for the Tigers, but the SEC’s Offensive Player of the Year was the heart and soul of Gus Malzahn’s offense. He was more than just another 1,000-yard rusher, which Alabama found out when he pounded the rock 30 times in the Tigers’ upset win at Jordan-Hare.

As strange as it sounds, though, Auburn can’t run the ball this year. At least it can’t run the ball effectively.

Bizarre it is that Malzahn’s rushing offense entered Cupcake Week ranked second-worst in the SEC and No. 86 nationally. Chalk it up to some subpar offensive line play, not having a true dual-threat quarterback or just not having a Johnson-like back. Whatever the case, the Tigers simply don’t have the rushing/overall production they had a year ago (through Week 11).

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On the flip side, Alabama is far more balanced than it was last year (or ever). The Tide are no longer a passing offense dependent on Jalen Hurts looking at Calvin Ridley and only Calvin Ridley. The freshmen receivers Hurts wouldn’t look at like Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs III are elite playmakers with Tua Tagovailoa.

Anyone who paid attention to college football in 2018 knows that. Alabama’s No. 3 scoring offense is a pass-first group that has seemingly steamrolled every SEC team in its path.

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This isn’t the group that averaged 24 points per game against winning Power 5 teams last year. This is the group that scored 24 points against Mississippi State’s top-ranked defense and it was actually a season-low.

Defending Alabama this year has been like trying to win the Talladega 500 with a 4-cylinder. Good luck.

Of course, crazy things can happen. After all, you know what they say about rivalry games. “Throw out the records.”

If you want to do that and just completely ignore that Alabama has been essentially a college football super team while Auburn has been slightly above average this year, that’s your call. I won’t stop you. Convince yourself that some historic thing is going to prevent the Tide from winning this game.

Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

But even if you do want to use history to predict how this game will go, history actually isn’t on Auburn’s side. The 3 times that Auburn beat Alabama in the past 10 years, it did so en route to the SEC Championship. Twice, it did so en route to the National Championship Game. The only time that didn’t happen was last year. Still, Auburn was at least the No. 6 team in America and rolling after demolishing No. 1 Georgia at Jordan-Hare weeks earlier.

What has Auburn done this year to show it can somehow rise to Alabama’s level? Beat an underperforming Washington team that traveled across the country to play in Atlanta? Storm back in the final minutes to beat Texas A&M at home? We’re talking about an Auburn team that’s 4-4 against Power 5 competition with its lone true road win coming in Oxford.

Nothing in 2018 suggests that Auburn will be able to stay on the field with an Alabama team that still hasn’t won by fewer than 3 scores. To use the 2014-16 results to justify “why Auburn will keep it close” is ignoring the fact that Tagovailoa is not Hurts, Blake Sims or Jacob Coker. That’s true regardless of whether Tagovailoa’s knee is still not at 100 percent.

The only justification for referencing the 2017 Iron Bowl is the revenge factor. Nick Saban won’t have to remind his team about last year. If you insist on using history in your analysis, perhaps point out that since Saban arrived in Tuscaloosa, his team has never lost 2 in a row to Auburn, having followed defeat with a victory by an average of 25 points.

Alabama could very easily be up that much by halftime next Saturday at Bryant-Denny.

The good news for Auburn is because for all of those aforementioned reasons, there’s no pressure on the visiting team. I mean, Malzahn already got the vote of confidence that he’d be back after this season. He didn’t have it before his team pulled off the upset last year.

Different times, these are. And a much, much different chapter of this rivalry will be added come Saturday.

Throw out the records? Just throw out 2017.