The first thing I want to say which is also the theme of this post is that I have learned more than ever before how much being an Auburn fan is a constant roller coaster ride. Up and down, up and down, up and down... It never ends. It also seems like it is getting worse. Certainly all football seasons are like this but the supposed "offseason" has become even worse. Just look at the small sample size of the month of January on this blog: the Chick-fil-a Bowl was an up, losing Michael Dyer was a down, hiring Brian Van Gorder was an up, Bama winning was a down, and on and on it goes.
There are a lot of things that have happened since my last post that I have been wanting to comment on. Unfortunately they started coming so fast and furious that I thought I would wait till this annual post to cover them all. Of course then I had to wait till I had a considerable amount of time to write this. However I will try to keep my takes as tight as possible so this does not turn into "War and Peace" which could also be a good title for this post as well...
- Going up... LSU's dumbness is Auburn's gain. I want to continue to illustrate the roller coaster theme I introduced earlier. Again we started the year on an up with the the Chick-fil-a Bowl, then losing Michael Dyer for good was a down, hiring Brian Van Gorder was an up, Bama winning was a down and then we were due for an up. Of course like a real roller coaster not all the ups and downs are the same size. The up we got shortly after Bama's horrific win was Les Miles' dumbing it up and thus causing a very good offensive tackle prospect in Patrick Miller (and an early enrollee) to switch to Auburn at the last minute. We also gained an All-American fullback in Jay Prosch but of course I wish the kid's mom was well and he did not have to transfer to Auburn but from a pure football standpoint it is a good thing for us.
- Going down... The hiring of Scott Loeffler as offensive coordinator. As usual unlike seemingly most Auburn fans I did not think this was a great hire. It might turn into one but I thought we could have done much better. Obviously we tried on several others and struck out. I thought the entire process was handled poorly. I do not think you can wait that long, strike out and then go with your C-list guy that you could have had a month ago. It ended up not hurting us on offense recruiting -wise but I think we are very fortunate that it didn't. I also do not like the way the presser was handled including Chizik's and Loeffler's inane comments toward what we will use for our base offensive set. Back to Loeffler, he has only been a coordinator anywhere for one season. We would be better off not having his NFL experience on his resume and for the record BEING A GRADUATE ASSISTANT does not count toward "coaching Tom Brady". If I hear that line again I am going to scream. Finally, passing over Trooper and Luper, our best recruiters, for this position could hasten their departure from the Auburn program.
- Going up... Auburn's expectations going into final stretch on Signing Day from being on so many big-time prospects' final short list. The anticipation was high.
- Going down... The horrific first 12 hours of Signing Day where Auburn was completely shut out and was being embarrassed nationally. It all started around midnight before Signing Day when safety Patrick Moore chose TCU over Auburn (I mean really?). Then the hits continued the entire next morning as Auburn lost out on DT Eddie Goldman, CB Ronald Darby, DE Leonard Williams, LB Kwon Williams, etc... Auburn adding lightly regarded QB Jonathan Wallace seemed to signal the panic button had officially been hit. I sat in my car at lunch listening to the carnage wondering how bad it was going to get. This particular dip on the roller coaster ride was tough.
- Going up... Five star offensive tackle Avery Young signs with Auburn and stops the bleeding. As I said above, I was about as down as you could get football-wise till this news came in. My gosh we needed something good to happen and it finally did. Auburn would add another big time tackle in Jordan Diamond a few days later rounding out a great offensive recruiting class. The other really good news out of signing day was Auburn suffered no defections and signed all the guys that had already committed. That is no small feat in today's recruiting world. Kudos to Trooper, Luper and Grimes for shoring things up on their side of the ball. After the smoke cleared, we still need another good tackle and linebacker on defense but put together an outstanding class on the offensive side of the ball. We got good players at every single position on offense including these sorely needed tackles.
- Going down... The lack of people commenting on Auburn athletics that have a backbone. As I have stated before, one difference between Auburn and Bama used to be that Auburn fans would for the most part have a more realistic view of their team and coaches as opposed to the homers across the state. That is no longer the case. In the name of "not wanting to write anything negative" it appears no one will post an honest opinion about anything on an Auburn site. If anybody dares do it on one of the many Auburn message boards they are crucified. It is amazing how just like the "tolerant left" politically, many of these "positive" Auburn posters will tolerate no dissent. I am pretty sick of it. The longer I live the more I realize that football coaches (and those in athletic administration) are not the smartest people in the world. I am not going to blindly pledge my allegience to Gene Chizik and Jay Jacobs for all of time. I, like many people, am a college graduate who has worked in my industry for almost 20 years. I believe I, like many people, am qualified to give an educated opinion on how a business or football program is run. I, like many people, have also played, coached and watched sports almost my entire life and again feel like I am qualified to give opinions on them.
- Going up... Phillip Lolley "steps down" as Auburn's cornerbacks coach. All I can say is FINALLY. After watching Auburn's secondary get shredded over and over the last three seasons this is welcome news. This news also proved my previous point as even Jay Tate was saying how great Lolley was. The FACTS say different as Auburn has had one of the worst pass defenses in the nation for the last three seasons and this is the second time Lolley has "stepped down" as cornerbacks coach. This along with replacing Ted Roof with Brian Van Gorder is just huge. Auburn might actually field a decent defense, in all areas, for the first time since Will Muschamp's final season in 2007.
So after this roller coaster ride over the last two months and over this past year, what is the state of the program? Things certainly have changed a lot. Obviously coming off conference and national championships with a top five recruiting class in the house the state of the program was pretty good. I gave kudos to Chizik the last two years for keeping the coaching staff together (obviously I meant our good assistants). Unfortunately, right after I wrote that we lost Tracy Rocker to the NFL. That was a big loss as Rocker had been an exceptional position coach. The staff then came apart after ending the season but as the season proved, things needed to change. Defensively at least, we are much better off now with Brian Van Gorder and whoever he hires in the secondary than we were with Ted Roof and Phillip Lolley. Offensively, Gus Malzahn was the perfect guy to coach Cam Newton but his offensive style was never going to be a long term solution in the SEC. I am not sure how much we upgraded in Loeffler but it was time for Malzahn to go. Therefore I think overall we are better right now coaching-wise mainly because of the defensive changes.
As for the player-side, as I stated above I did not think things looked too good for most of the last three months. However after the dust cleared, things look a little better. First, again I thought we were able to hopefully add quality players at every position on offense especially offensive line which is where it all starts. Defensively things were not near as good as we only signed seven defensive players and desperately needed a one more good recruit at both tackle and linebacker. We should be better at both of those positions next year but we are still short on depth.
At the very least, after analyzing our roster as it is right now, our numbers look a lot better. Our roster looks to have about the right amount of scholarship guys at each position. Last season as I pointed out in this same post the situation at defensive tackle was dire with no experience and no depth. It looks a little bit better this year but now we need some of these guys to start performing. That is pretty much where we are at on the offensive line. We have depth but no experience. We were there last year as well and we saw that depth was meaningless if no one was good enough to play against good SEC teams. We are in the same boat this year again. We have a lot of young guys but somebody is going to have to produce.
Final words... The state of the program is good but right now we do not look like a strong contender to get to Atlanta and that is the measuring stick. The schedule is easier but like last year we are once again breaking in a nearly all-new offensive line and quarterback. IF we can get decent play from the offensive and defensive lines, and that is a big IF after watching them get destroyed this last season then I think the biggest question mark is quarterback. In my opinion it is all about Kiehl Frazier. Scott Loeffler's job in my opinion is getting this guy ready to play. I think Frazier should have been redshirted. People need to remember that Frazier was the best mobile quarterback prospect in the entire nation and the USA Today Offensive Player of the Year. We needed to replace Cam Newton (who we thought we would have for two years when we signed him) and we went out and signed the best mobile quarterback in the country to replace him. Clint Moseley is not the answer and neither is a true freshman. Our short-term future, in my opinion, lies in the hands of Kiehl Frazier.
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