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.

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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...