The title of the post sums it up, Auburn is rebuilding again. There is really no other way to say it. There is a lot of positive energy coming from the plains now but there is no doubt that Auburn is rebuilding. Simply put, every single thing since I wrote this post last year went wrong for Auburn. The coaching changes made on both sides of the ball failed miserably and just about every player regressed. It was as I pointed many times, the WORST SEASON EVER. Auburn went 0-8 in the SEC getting blown out in just about every game. It was the worst coaching job I have ever seen and subsequently Gene Chizik and his entire staff were all fired.
There we were days after ending this horrendous season with no coach and the architect of this failure, Jay Jacobs, still in charge. It has to go down as one of the lowest points in Auburn athletics history. There certainly was not much hope to go around and the state of the program was starting to look like it was the last time Auburn ended a season without an SEC win in 1980. Somehow some way despite the handicap of Jay Jacobs Auburn was able to bring in Gus Malzahn, assemble a great coaching staff and pull in a top 15 recruiting class.
That is an amazing feat and we cannot take it for granted. For those tempted to think that Auburn would just automatically bounce back, just look at Tennessee. Two bad coaching hires can set a program years back. Auburn is extremely fortunate to be where they are at now. However significant damage was done and rebuilding a champion will take some work.
Gene Chizik's legacy at Auburn is obviously a complicated one and there are a thousand opinions on how he was able to lead a team to a national championship and then lead it to its worst season ever just two years later. As stated before, many believe Malzahn was the driving force behind the national championship team and the same people believe Malzahn failed miserably in 2011 because Chizik interfered on offense. We will find out very soon if that is true. I hope it is. In last year's post like this one I thought Malzahn was part of the problem and that his offense was not a long term solution. Everyone forgets how bad 2011 was after this last season.
However after this last season it appears very likely that Chizik was the problem and that Malzahn was not. It will be interesting to see if we run into any of the problems we faced in 2011. Everyone crushes Chizik for slowing Malzahn down but forget that at that time Auburn's defense was literally dead last in all of college football with no depth and things were getting ugly. The problem is that the hurry-up-no-huddle works against you if you have many 3-and-outs.
But why did we have so many 3-and-outs? After this last season it seems like Auburn just did not have the players especially at quarterback and the last two seasons would have happened no matter what offense we were running. I think that is the final word on what happened. How is that so when Chizik had so many high ranked recruiting classes? First, as I have stated before, most of those recruiting classes were completely overrated due to impact players in each class never playing a down for Auburn. Next, Curtis Luper admitted that Auburn recruited to try and win at recruiting rankings. It is obvious there was huge gap between recruiting the players, targeting needs and integrating them into Auburn's system.
Finally, there was an extraordinary amount of busts or bad coaching. As of this post Gene Chizik has still not recruited an All-SEC offensive lineman outside of center Reese Dismukes winning freshman honors. The same is true at defensive tackle and linebacker (Nick Fairley was originally a Tuberville recruit). In fact there is only a handful of players that have been very good at all the last two seasons especially in the trenches. It will be interesting to see which ones Malzahn and his coaches can resurrect this year.
The key for Auburn's turnaround will be this new coaching staff recruiting at a high level and it showing up on the field. It certainly appears that is what Gus Malzahn was thinking with the hires he made for his coaching staff. He started off with old school defensive hires in Ellis Johnson, Charlie Harbison and Melvin Smith. I was not too impressed till he added super-recruiters Rodney Garner, Dameyune Craig and Tim Horton. I have made my thoughts clear on Rodney Garner in previous posts. He is the best and has kept Mark Richt going at Georgia for a decade. He is a very good coach as well.
Dameyune Craig was following in his footsteps at Florida State while Horton served as Bobby Petrino's recruiting coordinator at Arkansas. Grabbing all of these guys not only helps Auburn but weakens key recruiting rivals Georgia and Florida State. While Chizik's staff came together the first two seasons, rumors of division and strife ran rampant over the last two seasons. Malzahn who was part of that seems to be trying to avoid that on his staff. Malzahn already had a cohesive offensive vision but he then brought in three veteran defensive coaches that had worked together before for a cohesive defensive vision. He then finished off the staff with this trio of great recruiters who again also appear to be pretty good coaches themselves.
I also like that Malzahn has co-coordinators on both sides of the ball. I know some of that is for giving titles for financial reasons but I am hoping it will help with transitions when somebody leaves the staff. I am so tired of coordinator departures sinking seasons at Auburn.
Finally, we have the first recruiting class for Malzahn. It appears to be a very good class when you consider that Auburn went 3-9, endured a complete coaching transition and had a ton of previously committed recruits defect. Add to that having to recruit against Bama, $aban and the red elephant mafia... er club and these guys had about the toughest job you could find. However they targeted Auburn's needs and it appears they brought in some pretty good kids. The question now is will we see some of these high-rated kids actually perform on the field. That is THE QUESTION after watching four "top 15" or better recruiting classes go 3-9 this last season.
I like it that Malzahn went to the JUCO ranks for some immediate help. You do not build teams with JUCO players but you definitely want to use them for help as Bama and $aban do. I never understood Chizik's dislike for getting JUCO players. Defensively Malzahn grabbed some of the best ends available and also brought in a couple of quality tackles. He got some linebackers but I feel we needed more help there. He did not do much recruiting in the secondary as Auburn is pretty stocked there. Lets just hope these new coaches can coach those guys up.
Offensively Malzahn targeted quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers as Auburn needed help in those areas. The common thread to each of the running back recruits I observed from watching their videos was speed. Add those guys to Tre Mason and hopefully Auburn will have a pretty good running game. I have a hard time getting excited about wide receivers as in my opinion Auburn has wasted way too many scholarships on them since going to the spread. We get wide receiver after wide receiver and they do absolutely nothing. So far Emory Blake is the only non-Tuberville recruit out of the dozen or more wide receivers Chizik signed to do anything. Is this group going to be any different? Now that we have an offensive head coach maybe things will change. I sure hope so.
Overrated wide receivers are another key to the Chizik recruiting puzzle. Five star recruits and complete busts like Trovon Reed and DeAngelo Benton artificially inflated their recruiting classes. A five star wide receiver just does not have the impact that a five star left tackle like Cyrus Kouandjio has. That is one of the big problems with recruiting rankings.
Finally, we have quarterbacks and Malzahn brought in two good ones in Jeremy Johnson and Nic Marshall. Add these guys to Kiehl Frazier and Jonathan Wallace and we have some real depth at quarterback. Everyone hates Frazier but he was recruited for Malzahn's offense and if anyone can turn him around it is Malzahn. I hated Wallace in Loeffler's offense but I think he will be a much better fit in Malzahn's offense. Both of the new recruits look like good fits as well. For the first time in a long time there is not a guy I completely dislike in the group like Clint Moseley and Chris Todd. It ought to be a heck of a competition. My money is on Marshall for next season but I think Johnson is the future.
The state of the program appears much better now but until we see solid results on the field the jury is still out. It always has to be factored in as well that Jay Jacobs and his henchmen remain at Auburn and will continue to mess things up they are involved in. That cloud will continue to hang over the program for as long as Jacobs remains. Let's just hope they will not be involved much in the day-to-day running of the football team or any future coaching hires Malzahn must make.
Personally I feel like I missed an entire football season. Other than a few moments in the Clemson game there was not one moment to enjoy this last football season. Again it was simply the WORST EVER. I am not looking for championships this next season but I am looking for a good solid well-coached team that we can be proud of. Is that too much to ask?
