Back To The Future

In the movie "Back To The Future", the character Marty McFly changes his future by going back to the past.  Auburn had decided to do the same thing by bringing back Gus Malzahn to replace his former boss Gene Chizik as head football coach.  Many people whispered that Malzahn was a bigger part of the 2010 national championship season than Chizik.  I guess we will see now if they are right.  I originally felt bad that I did not have this post up for an immediate reaction to the Malzahn hire.  However now I am glad as letting this simmer for a few days helped get a better perspective on the whole thing.  There are both pros and cons to this hire, lets take a look at them...

First, I originally wanted to do a post as to my thoughts on where Gene Chizik went wrong.  However I just did not have the motivation and I do not think anyone wants to read anything else about it.  This blog however serves as an imperfect but almost complete history of Gene Chizik's tenure at Auburn.  I started it before his first season started.  It contains game reviews for every one of Gene Chizik's games at Auburn and plenty of other commentary good and bad.  I will have to say here that not adjusting his defensive philosophy to mesh with Malzahn's offense and then trying to change it was one of Gene Chizik's biggest mistakes.  That is a good segway to this list...

PROS (of bringing Malzahn back)

• There is no doubt that Malzahn's handling of the Cam-powered Auburn offense was one of the finest coaching jobs I have seen.  Many Auburn fans including myself prefer an offensive coach ESPECIALLY after over a decade of defensive coaches completely reliant on their offensive coordinator.  It is one of the biggest cons on that type of coach.  Just look at the tenures of Tuberville and Chizik, they both got into trouble when they made bad picks at offensive coordinator.  We now have an offensive philosophy that will not change as long as Malzahn is head coach.
• Chizik always came off as so disingenuous. His inane coachspeak got on everyone's nerves. He just always came off as trying so hard to show that he was cool and had seen everything. It just came off as a bad act to me. The guy was just so fake so much of the time. Gus Malzahn is not like that. While every coach has to constantly throw out cliches, Malzahn is a much more genuine. The guy is a real coach and it shows, not somebody trying to act like a real coach. He has won championships as a head coach.
• Coaching changes are tough on the current players.  The new coach has to come in and show he is in charge and that usually entails being hard on the players.  The players do not know the coach and it is usually tough times for awhile.  Bringing back Malzahn only one year removed should alleviate a lot of that pain.  Most of the players know and seem to like Malzahn.  The offensive players will surely like going back to this offense especially the quarterbacks.  Frazier and Wallace should be much better running  this offense.  The defensive players are looking forward to any change I would think.  I am praying that Malzahn will move us away from the bend-but-don't-break philosophy of Chizik and Tuberville.  Maybe just maybe we might even recruit some gasp... BIGGER DEFENSIVE PLAYERS.
• The fall of Gene Chizik was casting another shadow on a great day in Auburn's past.  I am tired of every Auburn achievement being pushed aside everytime we have a coaching change.  Nobody remembers the great seasons under coach Dye because of his perceived meddling in the program.  Terry Bowden's name and subsequently the 1993 season are never spoken of.  Tommy Tuberville and all the great things he did are buried by the current administration.  Now it was looking like our national championship season was going to take a back seat to the downfall of Gene Chizik.  At least bringing back Malzahn lets us hold on to the great 2010 season.  It is now time to make things right with all our history even if people do not like the head coaches during those seasons. 

CONS (of bringing Malzahn back)

• This move is helping Jay Jacobs stay in power at Auburn.  I think Malzahn was pretty much the choice all along.  He was a safe pick that most people would like or not completely hate and subsequently help Jacobs survive.  I will continue to say that Jacobs "is a cancer that is killing Auburn and will make sure any success found like 2010 will be short lived."  Basically nothing has changed in the Auburn administration except the football staff and I do not believe the football staff was the whole problem.  They might lay low for awhile but Jacobs and his henchmen will continue to mess things up as long as they are at Auburn.
• As much as I criticized Gene Chizik he cannot be blamed for everything.  Yes he slowed Malzahn down in 2011 but that does not excuse the horrible offensive game plans and execution against Arkansas, LSU, Georgia and Bama that season.  Malzahn did do a horrible job in those games.  Malzahn also took Mike Dyer at Arkansas State when he knew what he had been doing.  Malzahn got out before the roof caved in but he was involved in the fall of the program.  That has to be said.  The biggest question I have heard on Malzahn is can he bring about and maintain the discipline needed to be a successful program.  Every program has their problems but the amount of players Auburn has had get in trouble the last two years is ridiculous.  It has to be stop.

There are also a lot of TOUGH CIRCUMSTANCES surrounding Auburn at the moment.  Those need to be mentioned as well...

Coaching changes usually hurt that year's recruiting.  The night the hire was announced I thought we might escape this but no such luck.  It looks like we are going to lose a lot of great prospects.  We desperately need help on defense especially at linebacker and losing some of the best linebacker prospects in the country is going to hurt.  A sub-par year recruiting could set Malzahn back a bit.  Recruiting is an in an inexact science but the teams with the best players are the ones that win.  Yes you have to coach them up as well but you also have to have the players.  Auburn fans should not delude themselves, our best teams were loaded with really good players and most of them were big-time recruits. 

I have gone back and forth on whether Malzahn should have kept Trooper Taylor to get some of these recruits on board.  However at the end of the day considering every that has happened this season I agree with his decision to completely clean house.  It is a shame Trooper Taylor was selling relationships to himself over recruiting a kid to Auburn.  Let us just hope that Trooper was not doing anything worse with the NCAA poking around.  We also do not know if that had anything to do with completely cleaning house on the staff.  It also appeared to me that Trooper and Luper were more concerned with recruiting rankings than building a team.

Can Gus Malzahn and the staff he will hire be able to recruit the players needed to compete for an SEC championship in the current environment?  That is the question.  Auburn fans are quick to answer yes to that question but I do not think it is that easy an answer.  People point quickly to 2004 and 2010.  Well folks I hate to burst your bubble but the bulk of the 2004 team was recruited while Bama was in big trouble with the NCAA and the majority of the 2010 team was recruited Mike Shula's last year at Bama.  People then point to Gene Chizik's last three "top ten" classes.  Well I will point out again that those rankings were made on signing day.  None of those classes would be ranked near as high the first day of practice the following year.  Those classes are littered with kids that did not make it, character problems and good old-fashions "busts".  There are some good players remaining but not near enough to win an SEC title.

It has never been tougher recruiting at Auburn.  Right next to us $aban has Bama on top of the world, to the east Georgia has been to the SEC Championship game the last two years, to the west the Mississippi schools are both about as strong as I can ever remember and to the south Jimbo Fisher and Florida State are grabbing a lot of prospects in our areas.  Auburn coaches have to work twice as hard as they have ever had to for recruits.  The SEC's success is pushing every school to get better.  Nearly every team in the league has a good coach especially in the SEC West.

Times are tough and while I think Gus Malzahn was a good hire I think people are underestimating how hard it is to comptete for an SEC championship right now.  However the bottom line is that we at least have some hope and that is desperately needed after this last season.   I hope that at the very least we will have a good offense during Malzahn's tenure and avoid the extreme ups and downs on offense we experienced under Tuberville and Chizik.  I hope that will help recruiting.  I hope we will run a defense that meshes with Malzahn's offense much better.  I hope...

Game 12 Review: Rock Bottom

Bama 49 Auburn 0.  There really is not anything left to say about this season or this coaching staff.  The biggest tragedy concerning this football program is we will be right back here or close to it if we do not get rid of that incompetent loser Jay Jacobs and his henchmen in the athletic department.  Auburn does not have a chance at success in anything remotely important while Jacobs remains at the helm or anywhere within the athletic department where he and his henchmen can meddle.  He is a cancer that is killing Auburn and will make sure any success found like 2010 will be short lived.

Game 11 Review: A Nice Time Before The Ship Goes Down

It was a nice day down on the plains, one of the few this year.  Auburn beat the Alabama A&M Bulldogs who are from my hometown and current residence of Huntsville, Alabama 51-7 on Senior Day.  It was good for these seniors to get one more win on the day they are honored.  I also think it is cool for Auburn to play their easier out-of-conference games against schools in the state.  I think we should rotate in Troy and UAB and if we are going to play an FCS school we should pick from: Samford, Alabama A&M, Alabama State, Jacksonville State, South Alabama, etc...  Let's keep that money in the state and help these schools out.  It would not be the end of the world if we got upset by Troy one year.  It would not hurt our recruiting.  Want proof?  Nick $aban has lost to both UAB (at LSU) and Louisiana Monroe and I think he is doing OK. 

Outside of helping our fellow schools in the state it also makes the match-up a little more interesting.  I think it is really cool Auburn played Alabama A&M.  I know from living here in Huntsville a ton of A&M alumni and fans went to Auburn and hopefully had a great time.  It is just good for everyone.  Why should we play these stupid Louisiana schools every single year and not in-state schools?  Since 1985 we have played one of the lesser Louisiana schools almost 20 times.  Nowadays that is a half million dollars going out of state every game.  Another good reason to do it is that Bama will not.  I believe I saw a stat that they had not played another in-state school outside of Auburn since the 1940s and I believe it took a resolution from the Alabama legislature to get them to start playing Auburn again.  The snobby attitude down in Tuscaloosa has been around for a long time it appears.

Back to this season, I am not sure you will see another rant here before "The Decision" is made.  I believe I have said my piece more than once and got my biggest rant out last week.  I purposely got it all out last week because I will not give Bama fans the satisfaction of one next week.  Last year I spent most of the my post flashing back to the year before and I will have to also find something fun to do this year.  As for this post I will follow Rob Pate's lead at "Eyes on Auburn" and post a few memories of our departing seniors...

First up...  Lutzenkirchen!!!  It has been awesome yelling this guy's name for four years.  Lutzenkirchen!  I mean that will probably go down as the most unique name in Auburn history.  Lutz made a lot of big catches but obviously the biggest and most memorable was the game winner down in Tuscaloosa and the dance afterward.  Next up... Emory Blake.  We found out pretty quick that Lutz, Darvin Adams and Terrell Zachary were the real deal under Gus Malzahn with Cam but Blake breaking out and adding to the mix helped us have a truly elite passing game.  My biggest memories of Blake was his first touchdown where he made a great stop-and-go move and scored against Mississippi State in 2010 and then his touchdowns against Bama and in the national championship game.

Ontario McCalebb.  What a playmaker.  One of the greatest playmakers in Auburn history I dare say.  He could hurt you so many ways (he is only the second player in SEC history to have 2000 yards rushing, 1000 yards returning and 500 yards receiving).  He was the perfect complement in Malzahn's offense to Cam and Dyer running up the gut.  He was always dangerous on the swing pass out of the backfield.  He was a threat (till they shut him down this season) to take it to the house on every kickoff return.  McCalebb has scored a lot of touchdowns but it is no contest what my favorite memory of him is.  In 2010 though we had dominated the whole game we were tied with LSU 17-17.  The dream season hung in the balance and McCalebb goes 70 yards for the winning touchdown.  It was the last time I have gone absolutely falling down nuts at a game.  It was my first game to watch Cam in person and it was not Cam's Heisman-clinching run I remember the most but that run by McCalebb.

T'Sharvan Bell.  This guy probably made two of the most memorable plays by a cornerback in Auburn history.  First, his slam sack of Bama quarterback Greg McElroy was one of the most memorable plays from a season full of memorable plays.  It was also sweet justice as McElroy was the one throwing deep on us after the game was over to make it 36-0 in 2008.  As for Bell, the next week he would make an even bigger play pick-sixing South Carolina quarterback Stephen Garcia to effectively end the SEC Championship game.

Darren Bates.  The guy was an freshmen All-SEC safety with a bright future till for some inexplicable reason our coaches decided he would be better as a linebacker.  Therefore he has spent three years as an undersized linebacker.  He has always been a gamer but he has just not had the size and strength to get the job done.  I think he would still be All-SEC at safety. 

As for the rest of the seniors, there are a few busts and a few overachievers who have hung on.  I guess that is the bottom line, they hung on.  Despite all the arduous hard work and the monumental ups and downs of playing football at the highest level they hung on and that says something.  There are so many big-time recruits who never even come close to making it all the way through college.  It is a huge accomplishment to play for an SEC team or any college team for that matter and make it all the way through.  Congrats to the 2012 Auburn football seniors.

Game 10 Review: THE WORST EVER

This is it.  We have not hit rock bottom yet (that is in two weeks) and this is already the worst Auburn team I have ever seen.  THE WORST EVER.  I never thought any team would get close to the 1998 group but that team is light years ahead of this bunch.  I have never seen anything like this.  Let's review shall we?  MISSISSIPPI STATE 28 AUBURN 10, LSU 12 AUBURN 10, ARKANSAS 24 AUBURN 7, OLE MISS 41 AUBURN 20, VANDY 17 AUBURN 13, TEXAS A&M 63 AUBURN 21 and now... GEORGIA 38 AUBURN 0.  WE HAVE BEEN OUTSCORED 223 TO 81 IN SEC PLAY SO FAR.  All that is left is for Bama to put one giant exclamation point on this worst season ever.

What the heck are we talking about here?  SOMEONE NEEDS TO BE FIRED IMMEDIATELY.  EVERYONE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS DEBACLE SHOULD BE FIRED.  I MEAN LOOK AT THOSE SCORES!!!  AUBURN'S LAST TWO CONFERENCE GAMES AT HOME WERE OVER AT THE END OF THE FIRST QUARTER!!!!!!!  THE WORST EVER.  It is going take years to clean up this mess if someone does not act quickly.  There is a BIG difference between a bad season and THE WORST SEASON EVER.  Tuberville's last team goes 5-7 and gets blown out by Bama.  That is a bad season but yes you can get over that but a team that goes 0-8 and is this bad, that is another story entirely. 

I will repeat again what I said last week: "I do not care if Jacobs or anybody else is an "Auburn man" if he is completely failing at his job. At this high level, if you mess up this bad you lose your job, it is as simple as that. It has been one thing after another with Jacobs and his group. It started with running off maybe the greatest college swimming coach ever, it continued through two seasons of continous unprofessional bickering with Tommy Tuberville and has finished us off with this even more unprofessional relationship with his "chosen one" Gene Chizik not to mention many other things (like "associate athletic director in charge of football" Tim Jackson). 

There is no point even discussing the merits of Coach Gene Chizik any more. You go 0-8 and get skunked in conference with this team then you lose your job. Again it is as simple as that. You cannot make 3.5 million dollars with the highest paid assistants in the nation (or close to it) and be this bad. Nobody in the country at any BCS school would keep a coach that did that. End of story."

I CANNOT BELIEVE PEOPLE ARE STILL DEFENDING JAY JACOBS.  Again this is not just a bad season it is THE WORST EVER.  Everyone associated with this debacle needs to be fired.  The entire program needs to be disinfected.  I am going to PUKE if I hear one more time what "a good man" Jacobs or whoever is.  Listen people there are lots of "good men" who are Christian and love Auburn but they are not qualified to be athletic director.  You want a job with stability?  DO NOT GET INVOLVED IN SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE ATHLETICS THEN.  It is a multi-million dollar all-out arms race.  Whether that is right or not is IRRELEVENT.  That is the way it is.

Anyone who gets involved in big time college athletics should know the score.  Is there anyone in leadership at Auburn with any guts and vision whatsoever?  Is there anyone or any group willing to do what needs to be done here?  I do not care if it is hard to rebuild an athletic department and hire a coach at the same time.  Whoever is at the top and right now that appears to be President Jay Gogue needs to do what is best for Auburn.  I believe last night made it clear that  the best thing for Auburn is to completely clean out the group of people who have brought this debacle about.

I cannot emphasize enough the need for swift and decisive action.  I will continue to repeat that this is not just another bad season, this is THE BAD SEASON.  As I have said the last few weeks, wrong choices could lead to a prolonged down period for Auburn football.  My gosh, we have not been even competitive against anybody good except for a couple of times the last TWO seasons while we have been absolutely run out of the stadium over and over again.  The last two games in Jordan Hare have been outright disasters with the bulk of the crowd gone at halftime.  THE TEAM HAS COMPLETELY QUIT along with their HIGHLY PAID COACHES.

Oh and by the way I feel like the media is trying to slam our fans because they leave before the game is over.  Give me a break, there were plenty of early exits in 1997, 2000 and 2003 in Tuscaloosa so give it a rest.  Frankly I think all of the fans deserve awards for even showing up to see an Auburn game this year.  What is the point in wasting good money going to see this team?  In fact, not going and not spending money is the only way to show the powers-that-be that we will not stand for this and a complete house cleaning is needed.

There is precedent for this at Auburn.  Auburn was 0-10 in 1950 and headed toward the abyss till THERE WAS FIRST A CHANGE AT ATHLETIC DIRECTOR.  Jeff Beard came in and then hired Shug Jordan, arguably Auburn's greatest football coach, and became Auburn's greatest athletic director.  The official Auburn web site states: "Garland Washington "Jeff" Beard could generally be considered the father of modern Auburn athletics".  THE SAME NEEDS TO BE DONE NOW OR AUBURN IS IN BIG TROUBLE.  But of course that would be just par for the course in this season... THE WORST EVER.

Game 9 Review: Irrelevant

Auburn 42 New Mexico State 7.  It sounded like a nice day and it is definitely good for the players to enjoy a win but unfortunately this game in the big picture is completely irrevelevant.  Those in leadership at Auburn have a lot of decisions to make and the clock is ticking.  So far off the field around Auburn has been a lot of noise and fury signifying nothing.  A new rumor about this or that comes out every hour yet so far no official action has been taken.  That in and of itself may not be that surprising but there is no clear indiciation of what actions may be taken later and that has become increasingly frustrating for most Auburn fans.

I might not know what those at the top are going to do but I do know that Jay Jacobs and his merry band are going to fight for their cushy jobs.  I guess I do not blame them because I do not think anybody else will hire them for any job remotely close to what they have now.  Yes these architects of this colossal failure that is now Auburn football appear to be working a lot harder to save their sorry butts than at their jobs at Auburn. 

I saw this week an official e-mail campaign to save Jay Jacobs.  Multiple published reports confirm associate athletic director Tim Jackson combing the luxury suites yesterday to drum up support.  Let me be real clear here, these men are the problem and completely cleaning out the athletic department is the only way for Auburn to start anew.  I do not care if Jacobs or anybody else is an "Auburn man" if he is completely failing at his job.  At this high level, if you mess up this bad you lose your job, it is as simple as that.  It has been one thing after another with Jacobs and his group.  It started with running off maybe the greatest college swimming coach ever, it continued through two seasons of continous unprofessional bickering with Tommy Tuberville and has finished us off with this even more unprofessional relationship with his "chosen one" Gene Chizik not to mention many other things. 

There is no point even discussing the merits of Coach Gene Chizik any more.  You go 0-8 and get skunked in conference with this team then you lose your job.  Again it is as simple as that.  You cannot make 3.5 million dollars with the highest paid assistants in the nation (or close to it) and be this bad.  Nobody in the country at any BCS school would keep a coach that did that.  End of story.  Some of us realized that Chizik was done after the Arkansas game and just about everyone else got there between Ole Miss and Vanderbilt.  The stragglers just about all came in after the Texas A&M massacre but for those very few left who are somehow still on the fence the Georgia and Bama games should take care of them.

Yes it is time for "Amen Corner" and we go into these games with no chance at all to win them.  The only thing that matters is the answers to these questions and I will keep posting them till they are answered...  "Who is in charge at Auburn? Will that person or group do what needs to be done and completely clean out the atheltic department? If not, how will they handle the inescapable fact that Jay Jacobs is a failure as an athletic director? How will a football coach be hired in the midst of all this? Can Auburn get a decent coach with all this going on?  Wrong answers and choices could lead to a prolonged down period for Auburn in football."

Game 8 Review: End Of The Line

End of the line folks...  For those who still had any doubts that Gene Chizik was done at Auburn, Saturday night's all-time historic low should take care of them.  I did not mean to be a prophet a few weeks ago when I said "This team has already proven there is no bottom.  Whatever your worst scenario is for next week and the rest of the season this team can top it."  However this statement appears to be the theme of the second half of this historically bad season.  There is no bottom.  Auburn is also likely going to do something historically bad against either Georgia or Bama or both.

First, kudos to all those fans who spent their time and money to go down to this travesty of a game yesterday.  They put a lot more effort into the game than the players and especially the coaches.  When we finally get to the end of this long nightmare I think I can safely say this coaching staff will have put up one of the worst college coaching jobs ever done.  The numbers from yesterday are staggering.  First the score, Texas A&M 63 Auburn 21, the most points permitted by an Auburn opponent since Georgia Tech steamrolled the Tigers 68-7 on Nov. 29, 1917.  The worst margin of defeat since Auburn's last winless season in-conference in 1980 when Tennessee won 42-0.

It just goes on from there...  Texas A&M had 400 yards by halftime and a staggering 670 yards for the game.  Auburn had negative total yards on offense till into the second quarter when the game was already over.  Other than the clock running out on them in the first half, Texas A&M scored a touchdown ever single time they got the ball till almost the fourth quarter.  Other than one punt and the end of the half and end of the game, the Aggies scored a touchdown everytime they got the ball.  Auburn now joins Kentucky as the only teams in SEC history to give up 42 points in a half.  It is the worst defensive performance I have ever seen by an Auburn team. 

This team has completely quit on these coaches... and we have four games to go including our big rivals.  It is sad to see and hard to watch.  The only bright spot, if you can call it that, is Jonathan Wallace showing a spark at quarterback.  However that was mostly against the Texas A&M second team with them knowing they had the game won.  I really do not think that you can take a lot away from that.  Jonathan Wallace will be knocked out of the game if he tries to run the ball like that against Georgia or Bama just like he was in the LSU game.  It shows just how bad the defense was to steal the show from this awful offense.

It is going to be hard to take what is going to happen against Georgia and Bama.  Knowing that it is going to happen still does not prepare you for how bad it feels.  We have no chance of winning.  We have no chance of even playing a competitive game.  Even in 1980 and 1998 those teams played somewhat competitive games against Georgia and Bama.  In 2008 Tub made his last stand against Georgia before collapsing at Bama.  I do not think this team is capable of doing even that.  I just have never seen anything like this at Auburn especially on a team that does have some talent.

Fortunately I guess we will get a couple of wins over New Mexico State and Alabama A&M.  Auburn is lucky that New Mexico State is terrible and that they play a FCS team like A&M.  Auburn will end the season at 3-8 and 0-8 in the SEC with a brutal no-mercy beat down in Tuscaloosa.  Auburn must then rebuild their entire athletic department or find a way to do a coach search with out using the athletic director.  They must do this on a year when there is not a whole lot of obvious great coaching prospects and with several other big-time SEC schools looking for coaches as well. 

The same questions will stay at the forefront until they are answered...  Who is in charge at Auburn?  Will that person or group do what needs to be done and completely clean out the atheltic department?  If not, how will they handle the inescapable fact that Jay Jacobs is a failure as an athletic director?  How will a football coach be hired in the midst of all this?  Can Auburn get a decent coach with all this going on?  As I said last week, wrong answers and choices could lead to a prolonged down period for Auburn in football.  Hope will never completely die out though because I also believe what I said three weeks ago and that is that Auburn will not be be down forever, it will just feel like it.

Read more here: http://www.wareagleextra.com/#storylink=cpy

Game 7 Review: SKUNKED

I said last week I did not see Auburn winning this game.  I waffled some throughout the week thinking surely Auburn would get one of these games.  I should not have waffled.  In maybe their worst performance yet Auburn lost 17-13 to a Vanderbilt team that played terrible.  Vandy tried to give Auburn the game and Auburn did not take it.  Vandy had three turnovers and blew three fourth down conversions giving Auburn great field position several times.  Even with those gifts Auburn could not win this game.  Scott Loeffler is simply the worst offensive coordinator I have ever seen.  Since his boss Gene Chizik will not or can not do anything about Loeffler's incompetance, his value is not going to be much more by the end of this nightmare season.

This was it, this was Auburn's last good chance to win a conference game and not get skunked in-conference.  We all have been there.  For me, I still play pick-up basketball and tennis regularly.  You hit those days where you are getting your butt kicked.  Sometimes I am on a weaker team or a team that just cannot get it together in hoops playing several games or I am playing a better player in tennis.  You are going through that and you get to a point where you are like "man if I can just win one game and avoid the shutout at least I will feel a little better".  In tennis, you just hate getting beat 6-0 in a set.  The one game really doesn't mean anything but it is better than being skunked.  That is where Auburn was Saturday and they did not get that win and now they will get skunked.

As with last week there is not much point in talking much about the game.  Like last week... "I can talk about Moseley coming out looking pretty good throwing short passes (which is all he throws as anyone knows who has watched him play).  I could talk about (Vandy) seeing that and adjusting...  I could talk about continuing to run the majority of the plays from three-wide sets.  I could talk about the continuing avalanche of idiotic penalties.  I could talk about the defense's continuing problems against spread offenses.  I could talk about bad tackling for the billionth time this season.  I could talk about Auburn (continuing to blow it) in the fourth quarter.  I could talk about all that but frankly I am tired of talking about it.  Also I am sure I will get (YET) another chance next week."

As I stated before Auburn looks to have clinched its worse modern day season.  Auburn looks to have absolutely no chance to keep it close against Texas A&M, Georgia or Bama so if things end that way Auburn will have gone 0-8 in the SEC.  That is worse than the 3-8 (1-7) team in 1998 and Doug Barfield's final team in 1980 who ended at 5-6 (0-6) in the SEC.  It appears that Gene Chizik will be fired at the end of the season.  As several people have pointed out, I do not know how you can come back from a season this bad.  You just lose all credibility with the fans and recruits.  Good coaches simply do not have seasons like this.  They have bad seasons but not seasons filled with this much stupidity on the coaching side.  With that said, the opinions in this space and most like it will move toward where Auburn goes post-Chizik.

Jay Coulter at Track'em Tigers leads the way with his post this morning, "It Will Take More Than a Coach to Fix Auburn".  He does a great job pointing out that as the title suggests, it will take more than a new coach to fix Auburn.  I have thought Jay Jacobs was unqualified from the moment he was considered for the AD job.  I have watched as he has bungled one thing after another while patting himself on the back for anything positive that happened around Auburn (whether he had anything to do with it or not).  Jacobs, associate AD Tim Jackson, Chizik, president Jay Gogue and former coach Pat Dye are the public faces of the current "ruling faction". 

It is highly debatable how much power each person has.  I have seen everyone just rail on Pat Dye for his comments this season.  While I also wish Coach Dye would stop making these public comments and criticisms I see him as a lonely older man who is not all there anymore and just wants some attention.  I just do not think Coach Dye has much power anymore other than being privy to some inside information from the more powerful people.

I think president Jay Gogue just wants to be president and not have to get involved with the football program (that would take some extra work) so he goes with the flow.  I think Gene Chizik who was failing as a head coach at Iowa State would have agreed to do anything to get the Auburn job so he pledged his allegiance.  That leaves us with Jacobs and his hatchet man Tim Jackson.  They appear to be the most public power brokers of this faction.  They obviously answer to more powerful forces but they are the public faces.  It was Jacobs and Jackson who clashed with and then ousted Tommy Tuberville and his "Bar-BQ Bunch".  They were the ones who ran off former defensive coordinator Will Muschamp and guaranteed he would not consider Auburn. 

This "ruling faction" led by Jacobs and Jackson thought they had their power sown up for years to come as Auburn won the national championship but their hand-picked head coach has been exposed without Cam Newton, Tuberville's players and Gus Malzahn's leadership.  It has been a continual descent since that night in Arizona bottoming out in this worst of all seasons.  This has stripped this faction of their power.  However as Jay Coulter wisely asks... 

"The million dollar question is who does run Auburn Athletics now? With his recent publicized financial problems and departure from the board of trustees, Lowder's influence has at best been minimized.

At this point, no one person has emerged as the driving force behind Auburn football. That can be both good and bad.

With a changing of the guard in the Auburn hierarchy now possible, many are calling for a complete washing of the old regime and Jacobs is the face of that group. Whether there's enough new blood to make this happen will be the storyline of the coming months.

In the meantime, any chance of Auburn bringing in a proven winner will be hard. Putting your love of the university aside, you have to ask yourself who'd want to step into this Peyton Place.

The tradition, facilities and money at Auburn are top notch; but the same can be said for a lot of other places. Top coaches can demand these things anywhere, and they can do it without the baggage of Auburn's internal fighting.

I'll tell you right now, no proven coach is going to let Tim Jackson stick his nose in the football program. It was all fine and cool when Auburn was winning, now it's just plain disgusting. His interference in football matters is a prime example of why the job will be unappealing to some."

I think at the very least to get Auburn on the right path Jacobs, Jackson and Chizik all need to be sent packing with Jay Gogue exiting shortly thereafter.  Auburn then obviously has to make some good hires.  However I am not sure of anything other than Chizik getting the heave.  Nothing will change if no other cleaning out is done.  If we do the right thing, can we get a good AD?  Can we get that person in time?  Will we get that person in time for that person to hire the next football coach?  If not then who will hire the next football coach?  These and many other questions will need to be answered and answered quickly.  Wrong answers and choices could lead to a prolonged down period for Auburn in football.

Game 6 Review: Back To Barfield

Ole Miss 41 Auburn 20.  I knew this year was a total bust last week after losing to Arkansas.  I knew the Gene Chizik era really came to end last week.  However I had the feeling all week that Auburn would rally this week when it was really too late.  I figured they would win one or both of these games against Ole Miss and Vandy.  I mean we beat Ole Miss in 1998 and that team was actually worse talent-wise than this team.  I knew we were bad and the coaching was really bad.  However as bad as I saw things last week I never thought we would go 0-8 in the SEC.  After the loss yesterday that scenario now looks more probable than just possible.  From national champions to winless in the conference in two short years.  That really does take some coaching. 

The last coach to do it at Auburn was the infamous Doug Barfield who replaced Auburn icon Ralph "Shug" Jordan as head football coach in 1976.  Barfield went winless in the SEC in 1980.  A friend of mine keeps remarking how much things now resemble the 1970s and after yesterday I agree even more.  In 1980, not only did Auburn go winless in the conference but Bama had just won back-to-back mythical national championships in 1978 and 1979 and was on top of the world.  Things looked very bleak at Auburn and that is how things are looking today.  Fortunately for Auburn we made a great hire to replace Doug Barfield and Coach Pat Dye came in and saved the day as I chronicled in a post I wrote earlier this summer.

The coaching hire we make at the end of this season will be almost as critical.  Let us pray that the incompetent boob who is currently running Auburn athletics into the ground is not the one making the decision.  I had a lot of conversations this past week on Gene Chizik's job security.  I thought the question was answered last week but I just did not think the powers-that-be would pull the trigger on Chizik this year.  After yesterday I do not see how we can keep him.  I mean when Auburn football becomes Ole Miss' homecoming fodder then it is time for a change.

It all started with naming proven failure Clint Moseley the starter on Friday and ended with the him tossing a brutal interception that gave Ole Miss their last touchdown.  I am not blaming Moseley, I am sure he is doing his best.  Unfortunately he ought be backing up the starting quarterback at Samford.  It is the coaches at Auburn that turned to him for the second year in a row hoping he could bail them out.  It is the coaches that recruited Kiehl Frazier, a five-star USA Today High School Player of the Year, and turned him into a joke.

Oh I am sorry, Kiehl Frazier was "hurt" and that is why Moseley was in there.  It was amazing how the "injuries" started piling up yesterday.  They always seem to do that in years like these.  Auburn may have some injuries but none that would have changed the course of this season.  That is all on the "coaching" done by this group at Auburn.  In 1998 when Auburn went 3-8 overall and 1-7 in conference, Auburn literally had nothing on offense.  I do not think there is one game that team lost that I thought they should have won.  That is not true of this team.  This team is good enough to beat Arkansas and Ole Miss.  It should be good enough to be Vanderbilt.

I guess at this point I should talk a little about the actual game.  I can talk about Moseley coming out looking pretty good throwing short passes (which is all he throws as anyone knows who has watched him play).  I could talk about Ole Miss seeing that and adjusting in the second half.  I could talk about continuing to run the majority of the plays from three-wide sets.  I could talk about the continuing avalanche of idiotic penalties.  I could talk about the defense's continuing problems against spread offenses.  I could talk about a bad snap giving Ole Miss a touchdown.  I could talk about bad tackling for the billionth time this season.  I could talk about Auburn getting outscored 62-3 in the fourth quarter this season.  I could talk about all that but frankly I am tired of talking about it.  Also I am sure I will get another chance next week. 

I have never seen a three game stretch quite like this one.  It is another big one next week at Vandy.  Last week against Arkansas Auburn played to salvage the season.  This week against Ole Miss Auburn played to save Chizik's job.  This coming week against Vandy Auburn will play to avoid going winless in conference.  Unfortunately after the last two weeks I do not see Auburn winning this game.  I cannot believe I am saying that about the Vanderbilt game.  I guess that shows how bad this season really is.  I think Vandy is better than Ole Miss and I saw them fighting tooth-and-nail against Florida last night.  Auburn has some players fighting hard but overall they look fractured and leaderless.  I am starting to worry about the New Mexico State and Alabama A&M games.

That is the sad thing.  We just hit the halfway point of the season.  This team has already proven there is no bottom.  Whatever your worst scenario is for next week and the rest of the season this team can top it.  That was certainly true yesterday.  I never envisioned us losing 41-20.  I am already starting to cringe thinking about how many points Texas A&M, Georgia and Bama could roll up on us.  Those games get progressively harder and unless something changes the team as a whole will have quit.  From national champions to this in less than two years.  It is simply unbelievable.

Game 5 Review: Down In The Slop

The Auburn Tigers were whipped by the Arkansas Razorbacks 24-7 at Jordan Hare Stadium yesterday.  The same Arkansas Razorbacks that were the nation's biggest embarrassment before this game.  The same Arkansas team that lost to Louisiana Monroe and Rutgers at home.  The same Arkansas Razorbacks that were demolished 52-0 by Bama and 58-10 by Texas A&M.  The same Arkansas Razorbacks that quit in both of those games.  The same Arkansas Razorbacks that have the biggest clown in the country as their head coach.  Auburn lost to these guys on their home field after having a bye week to prepare.  This has to be the worst coaching job I have ever seen for one game period.  This staff is currently working on the worst coaching job for a season as well.

What in the world has Scott Loeffler been doing the last nine months???  You could take a number of this state's best high school football coaching staffs and do a much better job than these overpayed clowns.  What has this whole offensive staff being doing the last nine months?  What did they do over this bye week?  Where is the head coach?  Does anyone know anything about offense down there?  It is completely embarrassing.  It is even more so when you see how much we are paying these guys.  I gave this coaching staff one last chance.  I was fairly upbeat (as much as you can when you are 1-3) in my last post and kept a fairly positive attitude this last week.  Gene Chizik and this staff had a great chance to turn this season around.  They had this chance with a bye week in the perfect spot and they produce this slop???  It is the worst coaching job for one game ever.

In the process, the coaches have thrown away this season as well.  Auburn could afford losing one game in this stretch but not this one.  They had to get this one.  The Auburn Tigers now could be underdogs against Ole Miss and Vanderbilt, the two historically worst programs in the SEC.  Less than two years ago Auburn won the SEC and BCS national championship.  You have to do a colossally bad coaching job to turn Auburn into the worst team in the SEC and a national laughingstock in that short amount of time.  I have never seen anything like it.  The buck stops with head coach and almost four million dollar man Gene Chizik.  He did a good job in 2010, maybe, more and more it looks like it was Gus Malzahn's "One Moment In Time".  However Terry Bowden did a good job his first year as well.  Some coaches only have one good year. 

It looks like 2010 was it for Chizik.  There has been precious little good coaching the last two seasons.  Is it just going to miraculously show up?  I do not think so.  I think this game marks the beginning of the end for Gene Chizik at Auburn.  It is just how long it is going to take.  He will probably not get the axe this season but it is just prolonging the inevitable.  Auburn has to go on the road to Arkansas, LSU, Texas A&M and Georgia next year.  There will be no miraculous turnaround.  Auburn's odd year schedule was bad enough (notice every good Auburn season since 1993 is an even numbered year?)  but it got even worse when the SEC made a road game at Texas A&M a permanent part of it (while Bama who has almost the same schedule as Auburn got Texas A&M on the road added to their easy even year schedule helping them). 

There will be the inevitable blowback against Auburn whenever they do send mean Gene packing but we heard the same thing after Bowden.  Time told the story on that.  These coaches have had more than enough chances and continue to put poorly prepared and poorly coached teams on the field.  Over the last two seasons it has resulted in near upsets by Utah State and Louisiana Monroe at home and blowout losses to Clemson, LSU, Mississippi State, Arkansas (twice), Georgia (will be twice) and Bama (it will be twice).  Yesterday simply put an exclamation point on this coaching staff's horrible job over these last two seasons (and this one is not even half over!).  The other losses including getting blown out by your biggest rivals for the second year in a row will probably be more painful but I am not sure theses coaches or anyone can top the slop we saw yesterday.

Eight sacks.  Five turnovers.  Dumb ill-timed penalties.  A seemingly complete lack of understanding of basic offensive football.  All this after an extra week to get the team prepared.  I will say it again in vain because these stupid coaches will continue to do the same stupid things.  The first thing you do is put some of the staple plays from the last few seasons in that these players know how to run and they were recruited to run.  Kiehl Frazier has played his whole career in the Malzahn offense.  You need to keep a few of things he is familar with and good at running like the read option play.  They run it in the NFL now! 

You have freshman tackles, no matter what you are running you need two out of the three of Lutzenkirchen, Prosch or Fulse on the field.  Do not run many three wide sets and certainly not any four or five wide sets.  I watched Arkansas completely ignore wide receivers as many teams have done the last two season.  Quit trying to see how many different formations you can line up in.  Run the ball.  Run the ball.  Run the ball and I mean run it between the tackles with Mason and Blakeley (even with his fumbles) and only use McCalebb on third downs.  Throw in the occasional play action pass.  Minimize the mistakes.  Run the clock.  Keep it simple.  Good grief, it is not rocket science.  You cannot play exciting offensive football with young or limited quarterbacks and freshman tackles!  You have to play smart.  You have to play "boring" football.  Your personnel dictates this.  It is simple.  It is as old as football itself. 

How come people that are paid millions of dollars to do this for a living cannot figure this out?  It is hard to fathom.  Of course glimpsing the demise of the Gene Chizik era only shines the light on the bigger problem at Auburn and that is the athletic director.  We will get something even worse than Chizik if Jay Jacobs is running another coaching search (by the way it looks like everyone should not have been so hard on the guy at the airport).  Jacobs has killed just about every other meaningful sport at Auburn and it looks like he will be able to put the football program down for quite awhile before he is through.  How in the world did we ever end up with this guy in power?

I was reminded this week that you cannot say Gene Chizik was a mistake.  Without Chizik, we do not get Malzahn, without Malzahn we do not get Cam or we don't maximize Cam and we do not get a SEC and national championship.  It was worth it for that but Chizik is not getting the job done now.  He is not even close.  Gene Chizik is a good man and he presided over a national championship team but that does not mean he gets a pass for doing a horrible job.  You have to get your job done or you will lose it.  That goes for everyone.  I will lose my job even if I did a great job two years ago but stink it up after that.  The only difference is Gene Chizik is getting millions of dollars plus the huge buyout he will receive.  I do not feel sorry for him in the least.

What would I do if I was athletic director?  I would end this fiasco at the end of year if the coaching continues to be this bad and then I would go do what I wanted to do four years ago and that is to go to Texas Christian University and bring back Gary Patterson and his staff.  Auburn is one of the few schools that has the prestige and resources to get a coach of that caliber.  Ah I need to stop, I actually just felt some hope after writing those last two sentences.  That is not going to happen and there is not much hope for Auburn at the moment or anytime soon.  Auburn will not be be down forever, it will just feel like it...

2012 Bye Week Thoughts

Some thoughts during the 2012 Auburn football team's bye week...

• This bye week comes at exactly the right time this year.  Finally Auburn has moved it from the end of the season to a place where it can do a lot more good.  It is at an extra good time this year as Auburn is fixing to hit a stretch of four games that will either turn this season around or turn it upside down.  Auburn has four games that are tough but winnable.  Two home games and two road games.  Auburn goes 4-0 and a winning season is guaranteed.  It certainly will not change the fact that Gene Chizik will most likely be 0-9 against Auburn's main rivals (Bama, LSU and Georgia) without Cam Newton but it would stop the bleeding for this season.

• Things look a little tougher in the next four games than they did last week.  Well not in all cases, as I said in my last post, Auburn must win next week against Arkansas no matter what.  Arkansas has absolutely quit and is easily the most embarrassing program in the country as they went down 58-10 to Texas A&M yesterday.  The rest of the games look a bit tougher though.  Ole Miss played a competitive game against Bama and Texas A&M showed again that they have a pretty good offense.  Auburn's offense is so bad that it will keep any half decent team in the game.  It could even breathe some life into the almost dead Razorbacks. 

• The hits continued as Quan Bray was arrested for "driving with a limited permit" and having an open alcoholic beverage in the vehicle.  It was bad enough that he spent the night in jail.  That hurts a bit as he is actually Auburn's leading receiver although that is not saying much.  He is also our starting punt returner that learned a valuable lesson last week.  This team appears to lack any semblence of leadership on the player side.  There are no strong team leaders and it shows on the field and off of it.  The longer I watch sports and coach myself the stronger I believe that veteran leadership is an absolute must on a good team.

• I continue to be amused when people try to "grade" Auburn's offense by individual units and say this guy is good and this unit is doing OK...  blah blah blah.  The Auburn offense is ranked #113 in total offense and #112 in scoring offense.  There are only 120 teams in all of the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision.  That means Auburn literally has just about the worst offense in all of college football.  We may have some good players but right now it does not mean anything when the unit as a whole is this bad.  There is absolutely no excuse for Auburn being this bad on offense.  Gene Chizik and Scott Loeffler have done an absolutely horrendous job coaching this offense.  There is nothing else that can be said.  Auburn must improve on offense to have a chance to turn this season around and it begins with the coaching.

• The Auburn defense played good against LSU, that is well documented.  However I am anxious to see if that will translate to improvement against spread teams.  Ole Miss, Vandy and Texas A&M will all run the spread almost as good or better than Mississippi State.  Will Auburn allow these teams to dink the ball all the way down the field as it has the last two seasons?  Or will the coaches allow the Auburn defense to bring the aggressive mindset from the LSU game against spread teams?  That is probably the second biggest question behind the offense that will decide the fate of this season.

• Leadership, sound coaching on offense and more aggressive defense are the keys to Auburn turning this season around.  Auburn lost a game that we knew was a toss-up against Clemson, they lost a game everyone thought they would lose against LSU and they lost one that people thought they could win against Mississippi State.  Auburn and Gene Chizik are getting a gift though from Arkansas as many thought that game was a loss before the season started.  It now appears to be just what the doctor ordered for Auburn.  Auburn has a bye and Arkansas is on the road for the second straight week and on a three game losing streak.  This is a big win there for the taking.  Lets come out strong and get it done Auburn.

WAR EAGLE.

Game 4 Review: So Close Yet So Far Away

LSU 12  Auburn 10.  So close yet so far away for the Auburn Tigers.  On the good side, with LSU being overrated and making mistakes plus Auburn's defense playing better Auburn had a chance to win.  On the bad side, Auburn's offense is a bad high school offense and the special teams or to be more specific Quan Bray threw away Auburn's best chance to win the game on a muffed punt.  I have to say that the game sure did not go how many including me thought it would go.  It was a very strange game that brought out some of the best and worst of both teams.

THE GOOD
Auburn's defense played much better.  LSU's conventional power offense brought out the best in Auburn's defense.  The much maligned defensive tackles played their best game of the season or last two seasons for that matter.  The linebackers even made a few plays and the secondary actually delivered a few hard hits.  The Auburn defense played inspired and it was good to see.

However LSU could have easily been up 14-0 if they do not fumble near the goal line on their first drive where they went right down the field.  The LSU mistakes breathed life into the Auburn defense and gave over the momentum.  LSU not only stopped themselves but gave the Auburn offense their only touchdown of the game on another fumble.  LSU also had nine penalties for 80 yards.

THE BAD UGLY PART #1
I sat their watching the game for awhile not believing.  Even as Auburn took a 10-9 lead in at halftime I did not believe.  However after Auburn stopped LSU deep in their territory late in the third quarter and it looked like we would get the ball back at midfield I finally started to believe we could win this game.  Then came the punt...  and Quan Bray fumbled away Auburn's only real chance to win the game outside of two near breakaways by Ontario McCalebb. 

I praised the special teams last week for not making any of the horrible gaffes Auburn's other units had made.  Well forget that.  We are back to where we have been since Boulware took over on punt returns and that is just hoping we don't fumble it.  It seemed like every punt return in 2009 was an adventure, Quindarious Carr almost gave away the greatest comeback in SEC history against Bama in 2010 and now this.  I wonder if Auburn will ever have a punt return threat again.

THE UGLY PART #2
Auburn only managed 183 yards of offense.  They were held under 100 yards rushing and pashing.  It was a far cry from the last time LSU visited and Cam Newton and company gashed the Bayou Bengals for almost 450 yards rushing and almost 600 yards total offense.  The Auburn offense is just a disaster.  It is very hard to watch.  They are so bad. 

I like Kiehl Frazier.  He appears to be a great kid.  I just do not know if he will ever be a decent drop back quarterback.  He sure will not till this offensive line grows up.  They were absolutely manhandled by the LSU defensive front.  As the stats indicate Auburn could do nothing.  I think running inside behind our All-American fullback and more experienced center and guards would be the better choice but our coaches continually tried to run outside.

They did almost accomplish their goal of springing Ontario McCalebb once but it came at the cost of second down and long nearly every other series.  Auburn continually put Frazier in tough spots against a very good defense.  It was a no-win scenario.  I think Auburn should have worked harder at getting something positive on first down.  When you see the game going the way it did you go back to simple field position football.  It is as old as the game itself.

Auburn has a few decent offensive players but nobody seems well suited for the offense being run.  It is just a complete train wreck.  Auburn is now about the worst rated offense in the entire NCAA FBS statistically.  I honestly do not see it getting much better.  It should be something to see when Auburn's awful offense meets Arkansas' porous defense in two weeks. 

THE LAST WORD
I read and heard a lot of arrogance from the LSU side this past week.  Even when Auburn was very good I never took a win over LSU for granted as they appeared to do this year.  They were lucky to get out of Auburn with the win.  You do not ever disrespect or underestimate a rival like they did this past week.  LSU appears vastly overrated to me.  Zach Mettenburger was ordinary to say the least.  He did not appear to play well under pressure.  LSU's offensive line had a lot of problems with Auburn's pass rushers.  They have a long way to go in my book.

As for Auburn, they will meet the only SEC West team having more problems than them in two weeks.  Auburn has a bye week while Arkansas will likely give Texas A&M their first SEC victory.  I would have to say this upcoming game for Auburn is an absolute must-win.  There is no way around it.  The loss to LSU can be understood.  Losing to this Arkansas team at home would not.

Game 3 Review: Sailing Through The Eye

During the movie "The Perfect Storm", the story of the ill-fated crew of the "Andrea Gail" fishing boat, there is a scene that may sum up Auburn's most likely ill-fated 2012 season.  The boat and crew get through the first part of the storm and then they sail into the eye.  For a few moments everything is calmer and they see the sun peek through the clouds...  For a few moments everything looks better and they think they are going to get through the storm...  Then they hit the worst part of the storm and perish under the waves.

It is very likely Auburn just sailed through the eye... a game-winning field goal in overtime to beat Louisiana Monroe 31-28... and the worst of the storm is yet to come and it will most certainly culiminate in a losing season.  The storm will hit with full force immediately next week with LSU coming to town.  After that enormous wave, the Auburn Tigers have one last chance to weather this storm.  They will face Arkansas and Texas A&M at home and Ole Miss and Vandy on the road.  Gene Chizik can steady his sinking ship if he can go 3-1 or 4-0 in that stretch.  However that looks like a tall order right now especially after Hurricance Les blows through town but that stretch of games will decide this season.

Here are some good posts on the Louisiana Monroe game once again from Acid Reign plus Jay Coulter at Track'em Tigers and of course "A Lifetime of Defeats"...

Tigers Get Their First Win

A Stay Of Execution?

A win is a win but this sure felt like another loss (Disclaimer for profanity)

I think each post shows a unique perspective.  As for my perspective here it is...

THE GOOD
Auburn's special teams.  At least one Auburn unit is top notch this year.  They accounted for our only touchdown against Mississippi State and put up the game-winning field goal in overtime against Louisiana Monroe.  So far they have not made any of the horrible gaffes or consistent mistakes the offense and defense have been doing.  Auburn will desperately need them in this stretch of four games after LSU.  If in the unlikely case Auburn is able to pull it together at all on offense and defense they will probably be called upon to win another game.

What else went good on Saturday?  There were a few glimmers of light from the offense.  Loeffler called a pretty good first half before tailing off in the second half.  Quarterback Kiehl Frazier played pretty good till that horrible interception.  Running back Ontario McCalebb ran wild and Tre Mason did pretty good as well.  Frazier even threw to a few people not named Blake or Lutzenkirchen including a huge "Hail Mary" play to wide receiver Sammie Coates.  Auburn was close to blowing this game open before committing some agregious mistakes and calling some bad plays.

THE BAD
First on the bad list is driving down to take a 35-14 lead and put the game out of reach, Mike Blakely fumbles.  In and of itself that is a young guy making a mistake and could be understandable if...  Kiehl Frazier does not turn around and throw as ugly an interception as you will see on the next drive.  We actually could have made it through that if... Corey Lemonier does not commit a bone-headed offside penalty on fourth down giving them a first down.  All of these mistakes together in or near the fourth quarter are completely unacceptable.

The bad was also Auburn and Loeffler continuing to try and run from the three wide receiver "Ace" set.  It was the worst thing about the offense Saturday.  This is a passing set and while we may have had a few good runs early on we did not have any late and certainly will not have any against a decent team.  I was talking about this before seeing Acid Reign say the same thing in his post.  The worst part as he points out was when late in the game hanging on to a touchdown lead Auburn tries two runs out of this formation and ends up punting back to Louisiana Monroe who then takes it in for the tying touchdown.

While Auburn may have spread the ball around a little bit, the more wide receivers we have in the game the less chance of success we have.  Auburn has a lot to make up for before anybody starts paying much attention to our second and third wide receivers.  Auburn, in my opinion would be much better off running and passing from running formations than passing formations.  Nobody respects our passing game and it is one of the worst in college football statistically.  Three wide receiver sets just mean we have less blocking to pass protect or pave the way for runners.  Auburn's best chance of success, in my opinion, is to have Lutzenkirchen and Prosch in the game together as much as possible. 

Again, I will keep saying it, Auburn has to decide what the personality of this offense is!  What are we hanging out hat on when it gets tough?  I think it is obvious that we must run the ball more.  We just do not have the experience and especially the commitment to be a passing team.  Chizik has made it clear he is not going to have a team that airs it out.  Since that is the case stop trying to trick people (because you are not) by continuing to run from pass formations!

THE UGLY
I have consistently had the opinion that Auburn's offensive problems were worse than its defensive problems.  That is definitely true after we hired Coach Van Gorder.  Consider this an official policy change here at STR.  The biggest problem at Auburn is defense.  We are a soft non-agressive defense.  There is no other way to say it.  When is the last time you saw a big hit from a linebacker or safety at Auburn?  How many interceptions do you see from an Auburn defense the last few years?  We are soft, soft, soft.

I do not know the all the mechanics of defensive football but this problem is obvious.  We let receivers just run their routes and we play soft coverage.  It is a staple of Gene Chizik since he became head coach.  I guess Tommy Tuberville had something to do with that 2004 defense.  Tuberville employed many of the same schemes but his defenses were more aggressive.  We are just not aggressive or physical on defense in coverage and it makes me "physically sick".
Things are just not going to change till Auburn, as I said in my season preview "gets mean".  I doubt it will happen while Chizik is coach but Auburn will not play "Auburn football" till we get back to being tough and physical on defense.  I am sick to death of watching us lay back and let people ding us to death.  I thought Van Gorder would change that but so far nothing has changed.  It has been four seasons of this crap including 2010.

Again facts are facts and while stats do not tell the whole story they tell a lot of it.  Here are the stats.  Auburn is one of the worst in the NCAA in total offense and in total defense.  Those are the facts.  Good coaches and good coordinators consistently have high ranked units.  I thought Chizik was changing our offense to help our defense but what he should have been doing is changing our defense to help out defense.

THE LAST WORD
Auburn is going to get beat down by LSU.  Hopefully we will not roll over for them like Arkansas did for Bama.  At the very least lets play a smart football game with good special teams.  I think some valuable experience can be gained but it starts with the coaching staff putting these young guys in situations where they have a better chance to succeed.

Game 2 Review: On The Brink Of Disaster

Where do you start with what happened yesterday?  Mississippi State 28 Auburn 10 was much worse than the score or the final stats in the box score indicates.  The short term implications are horrifying but they pale in comparison to the long term implications of where the program is really at.  So many things are wrong that it is hard to analyze.  Fortunately I have read an excellent post on what happened Saturday.  I also read another post that definitely summarized the frustration of Saturday.  Let me point you to those posts and then I will comment on various points the first one brings up...

First "Acid Reign" at Track'em Tigers does a great job breaking things down and also some great commentary on his post game analysis...

Tigers Find No Answers In "Their State"

Second "A Lifetime of Defeats" returns with a vengeance with a slightly different take of where we are (DISCLAIMER: This post contains A LOT of profanity so some might want to skip, I could not help myself as I was nearly in tears laughing so hard reading it)...

A Lifetime Of Defeats Returns Not To Praise The Auburn Tigers, But To Bury Them

Let me respond to some of the points Acid Reign makes about Saturday...

POINT #1:  "What we saw was an Auburn roster containing the results of three top ten recruiting classes, and those guys were absolutely dominated by a team that does not recruit on the same level. Coaches Gene Chizik and Dan Mullen took over their respective programs the very same year. At this point, I'm left wondering which way each squad is trending."

First let me say that he is right on in saying that no matter what we recruit better than Mississippi State and it is mostly on bad coaching that we got blown out by them.  I will get back to that but first let me also point out that while we have talent and it should be coached better we do not have as much talent as people think we do.

I mean it is going turn me into the "Lifetime Of Defeats" guy if I hear it many more times, and that is the myth we have had three top ten recruiting classes.  Yes, on signing day these classes were "ranked" in the so-called "top ten" however if we ranked the classes now then only one, maybe, would still be ranked close to that high.  Take last year's "top ten class" for example...  We had lost the best quarterback, the best running back and one of the best wide receivers from that class before the first game.  The class is not longer a "top ten" recruiting class.  The same can certainly be said for the 2010 class as well.  Just watch us when we line up next to LSU and Bama, does it look like we are close?  A "five star" player like small wide receiver Trovon Reed is nowhere close to as valuable as a "five star" player like left tackle Cyrus Kouandjio.  Give the recruiting spin a rest please. 

Another thing I am tired of hearing is how dumb the fans are and how brilliant football coaches and the media are.  I think a lot of us "dumb fans" who do not have journalism or physical education degrees could make better decisions than these football coaches make that media types defend.  For example... "Auburn has the most inept offense in the league" and one of the worst in college football (that is a fact according to the rankings).  Many parts of this meltdown are dumb decisions by our coaches, let us review...

POINT #2:  "The offense is certainly plagued by poor throws, but the design is far worse... Yes, I looked at some boards yesterday, and I saw numerous 'yank Frazier' posts. Folks, that's not going to happen. We have few options other than to stick it out with him. And really, with this offense, he's not being given a chance to be successful, and the other guys on the bench have even fewer tools in their toolbox."

Kiehl Frazier has, I believe, played his entire career in a spread-type offense and was recruited to do that at Auburn.  He had some success as a runner last year.  I understand Chizik wanting to leave the spread and go back to a more traditional offense however it should be a transition and not a complete break.  In 2008 when Tuberville made the decision to go to the spread, some of us knew it is tough to transition to the spread and even tougher to transition out of it. 

That is certainly being proven true this year for Auburn as it has already at Florida and Texas.  Two of the biggest powerhouses in college football who like Auburn won the national championship behind superstar quarterbacks running the spread but then just a couple of years later wanted to move away from the spread.  It has cost both of these schools seasons like Auburn is experiencing this year and last.

The sad thing is that Loeffler should have been the perfect guy to do it since he has coached both style's of offense.  He coached a pro-style at Michigan and the Detroit Lions but coached Tim Tebow in the spread at Florida.  I want to go pro-style.  I hate running out entire offense out of the shotgun but as I said in my season preview I still expected us to run a lot of read-option plays.  Our coaches are just dumb not to.

Kiehl Frazier is obviously not a traditional drop-back quarterback and will not be one anytime soon.  I think the best chance for him to succeed is still running many plays from the shotgun including read-option plays that he and our running backs were recruited to run.  This would give them a little success we could build on.  We could then run a few passes from those formations which would give Frazier a better chance for success.

We could then mix in a few under-snap plays but mostly stay with what Frazier is familiar with and gives Auburn the best chance to win with.  We really need Frazier to work out this year as Acid Reign points out.  We simply do not have a choice.  Clint Moseley?  He proved he is not the answer last year.  Jonathan Wallace?  A lightly recruited true freshman, something tells me that is not the answer.  One of our true freshmen coming in next year?  Again that just does not seem to be the answer.  We recruited Frazier, one of the best quarterbacks in the country, and now it is time to do some coaching.

Whoever we put in we must commit more to a clock-running game-shortening offense.  Shorten the game, hope the defense improves and maybe you get an upset.  It is a strategy as old as football itself.  It was obvious before the season started we would not score that many points with a new quarterback and tackles.  Yet we do not appear to be calling plays that would help that strategy. 

 POINT #3:  "I can't imagine how it feels to be Travante Stallworth or Brandon Fulse. They've paid the price for years at Auburn, and are now in the playing rotation. I saw numerous times that MSU literally put no one on those guys when they were on the field, or had their guy jump into the running lanes. Stallworth in particular was all alone on the wide side of the field in his routes, and Auburn has yet to even look over there. If we've got a 500-page playbook, a quick throw to an uncovered wide receiver ought to be in there."
How many times must us "dumb fans" point this out?  How in the world as Acid Reign states above do we not call a play specifically to get the ball to one of these guys as they are wide-open.  There is no conceivable way it would not work a couple of times.  Again, "keeping the other team honest" is another tenet of football as old as the introduction of the forward pass into the game.  I have made statements nearly identical to this for over a year now and it is really driving me crazy.  It is a wonder we can recruit anyone to come play wide receiver at Auburn.

POINT #4:  "After Tre Mason had his first hundred yard game last week, the coaching staff's answer this week was to only give him 8 carries in the game. Brilliant."

I have never been very high on Tre Mason but was pleasantly surprised last week with his 100 yard effort.  He puts up a hundred yard game and our coaches... bench him.  It just seems dumb to me.

So there you have it... dumb strategy, dumb playcalling and dumb substitutions equal having one of the worst offenses in college football right now.

Now to the defense... (insert huge exasperated sigh here)

Again I think Coach Van Gorder is a very good coach and I know he and Coach Martinez are upgrades over Roof and Lolley.  Yet our defense continues to flounder.  They obviously made some bad decisions in the three categories I just pointed out regarding the offense.  However I still believe it is not quite as bad and there is hope for the defense.  However we do have serious problems. 
First I agree with Acid Reign that "we've got way too much blue chip talent sitting on the bench on defense. I can't understand why, with the abysmal linebacker play we're getting on the field, that a speedy, huge talent like Kris Frost isn't playing."

I mean really how could he possible do any worse?  Acid Reign points out later that Bates and Holland only had two solo tackles and that "This group is just not getting it done".  Of course he also points out that "The secondary is a mess, too. Two of the most athletic, hard-hitting guys we've got, Robensen Therezie and Erique Florence, are sitting on the bench".  It is then revealed officially today that Therezie is moving to be our third string running back (???). 

Last but not least from Acid Reign as I have harped on over and over and over again about our defensive line... "We were again manhandled in the middle. When guys had a chance to make plays, they often could not make the tackle. I gave a passing grade due to a good rush off the edge. But when the other team decides to run an off-tackle play or a sweep, the ends pretty much universally get blown off the ball." 

All these things were killing us last season and are still problems.  How do we fix them?  Short term it is tough.  We are stuck and have to play a number of under performing individuals.  However as I was reminded by a friend, we recruited these guys and they cannot all be busts.  This is more on the coaches.  It is past time for them to earn those enormous salaries they get.

At the very least we can as discussed above get the best talent on the field if for no other reason to get them ready so we have less problems next season.  After that I guess all you can do is keep coaching and keep encouraging and hope something good happens.  I know, it doesn't fill me with a lot of hope either.

Which leads us to long-term solutions...  First, clean house and let Van Gorder bring in his guys at defensive line and linebacker.  Second, recruit a lot of big linebackers and more tackles.  Third, work more on tackling even though it increases the risk of injury.  The second solution is easier said than done but the others are not.

THE LAST WORD
The buck stops with Chizik.  This combined dumbness and under performance stops with him.  This season is now almost guaranteed to be worse than last year with not too much too look forward to next year either.  The program is on the brink of disaster.  Chizik did a great job leading a team that included Cam Newton and a bunch of battle-hardened seniors recruited by Tommy Tuberville to a championship.  It was similar to Terry Bowden doing a great job leading a bunch of battle-hardened juniors and seniors recruited by Pat Dye to a twenty game winning streak.  However time always tells the story and some coaches are only good for that one good season or two.  Bowden did a great job but then fell apart.  Time told the story.  Gene Chizik did a great job two years ago but now things look pretty bad.  It is time for Chizik to steady the ship or like Bowden he will eventually be dumped overboard.