It is absolutely unacceptable and the guy deserves to be fired. I also do not want to hear us being lambasted in the national media for doing it. Auburn is not hard on coaches and has never fired one too soon except maybe if the coup has succeeded in 2003. Terry Bowden deserved to be fired at the time he was. He had the worst recruiting class in Auburn history in 1998 and had turned off every high school coach in the state. Tommy Tuberville deserved to go in 2008 as it was obvious he just did not have the drive or stamina anymore to recruit especially against Nick $aban. Gene Chizik obviously deserved to go after the 2012 abomination.
NONE of those guys got an early hook. They all got their full chance to prove themselves and while all had good seasons they faltered and had to go. Time told the story as it has with Malzahn. He came in 2013 and with the biggest stroke of luck ever he inherited a team that perfectly fit his power-running-out-of-the-shotgun read-option Wing-T offense. He had some of the best blockers in Auburn history and was successful. The problem as I have documented over and over since then in this blog is that he has continued to call the exact same offense without that kind of personnel.
He has also over time shown he will run on first down over 70% of the time, tip his plays by his substitutions and worst of all throw the ball as little as possible. We now see he absolutely cannot field a competent passing game or develop a quarterback. He stated again last night as he has hundreds of times since he was hired that we are ONLY AND ALWAYS SHALL BE A "RUN-BASED PLAY-ACTION TEAM". So if Pat Sullivan and Terry Beasley came to Auburn now they would never do anything because he will only allow Auburn to ever be a "run-based play-action team". The guy simply refuses to change his offense regardless of his personnel and on top of that he is ridiculously predictable.
He has had plenty of time. He is never going to change. He needs to go, period. I have never seen a more stubborn human being in my life. Pat Dye who was as ground-based as you get even changed his offense to include a competent passing game (and won three SEC titles) but not Gus. He just continues to do the same stupid things over and over again. It is maddening to watch. He has reduced me to watching the games in stony silence with a lot of sighs as I watch the same stupid plays again and again and again. I mean how ironic is it that we finally hire an "offensive" head coach and he turns out offenses this bad?
This is no knee-jerk reaction. This is no Monday morning quarterbacking. This season, last season and the end of the one before that have been dismal failures. Lets be straight, the Texas A&M team that came into Jordan Hare last night was no juggernaut. I firmly believe Auburn actually has a better team and more talent. On top of that, the Aggies have a coach that has done about as many dumb things as Gus. They have faltered the last two seasons as bad as Auburn. Kevin Summerlin is at about the same spot Gus is and he was on the road (!!!). I think the Texas A&M will still lose several games before this season is over.
So what was the difference last night? The difference was Texas A&M HAD A COMPETENT PASSING GAME. It is that simple. The Aggies made big plays and conversions in the passing game and Auburn did not. You could not predict every play Texas A&M ran. Summerlin went out and got him a quarterback and coached him up and Gus did not. The Auburn defense did a pretty good job slowing down Texas A&M but Aggie quarterback Trevor Knight made the big play when he needed to including a huge fourth down conversion pass in traffic when it was still just 16-10.
Again though just like just about every other game in this horrible streak the Auburn defense played good enough to win. They held the Aggies to under 20 points till the fourth quarter. Last year, in the home losses coach Will Muschamp's defense did the same thing. It is all on Malzahn's horrible offensive coaching. Last night his defense gave the Auburn offense every chance in the third quarter forcing Texas A&M into three three-and-outs and giving the offense great field position on two of those drives. Any kind of decent offense at home has to come up with the some points during that stretch especially when they have the best field goal kicker in college football.
I guess I am more upset about this game than most because I thought and still think this was a winnable game for Auburn. Again I believe Auburn has more talent and was at home. This was a game that had to be won and I thought even Gus could do it in my preseason preview but it seems I overestimated him. Unlike the majority of people I thought this game was the big game in this two game stretch. I never thought Auburn would beat LSU. Again Les Miles has beaten Auburn 8 out of 11 times and LSU has the big strong defense that usually makes the Malzahn offense look worse. Add to those facts that former Auburn offensive coach Dameyune Craig defected to LSU in the offseason and it does not look good. Craig spent three years on Malzahn's staff and knows Auburn's offense inside and out. It is already predictable but anything else LSU needed to know would be provided by Craig.
Speaking of Craig, who are all the Auburn fans, who have talked about what a horrible receivers coach he was, going to blame the drops from last night on? Also I would like to point out that many Auburn fans completely overreacted to Auburn's "big win" over Arkansas State. Please remember it only matters when you play good on offense against a decent team not a Sun Belt team. I was completely disgusted by every Auburn site just completely making a 180-degree turn and declaring Auburn was awesome after beating Arkansas State. I kept saying to everybody I talked to, lets see some of that against Texas A&M and then I will get excited.
Well what is going to happen the rest of the season? At this point I think we lose to LSU, Ole Miss and Bama. Gus still has a slight chance to cobble out a couple of wins against Arkansas and Georgia. It is not likely but it is possible as neither of those teams are offensive heavyweights. That would be the miracle that might save him for one more season but to me it will just be extending the misery. I think a large amount of season ticket holders will leave if Malzahn is retained because no one can stand watching this terrible offense anymore. Auburn needs to clean house at the end of the season and that starts in the athletic director's office where all this started.
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