Forget the disappointment of the SEC Championship Game defeat and the mixed reaction to Gus Malzahn's new seven-year $49 million contract. If Auburn fans really want to get frustrated after the events of the weekend, they should consider one extremely plausible theory.
Georgia didn't keep Auburn out of the College Football Playoff.
LSU did.
Of course, if Auburn had beaten Georgia in Atlanta on Saturday, the Tigers would be preparing to play Oklahoma for the second time in a year in the Rose Bowl semifinal. Instead the Bulldogs earned that privilege by flipping the script from their regular-season beatdown on the Plains and taking advantage of a wounded Auburn team.