You look at Arkansas and Tennessee and various other once good or great programs and you wonder about the future of college football. How long will these programs pour money into these sports with no return on investment? Tennessee's history says they will eventually make it back but will Arkansas? They are not in a great recruiting spot geographically and under siege from other great football programs all around them. You add to that the dwindling population of football players overall and you have to wonder what will happen to Arkansas and other programs like them? College football is turning more and more into a small group of "have" programs and a large group of "have not" programs that might be heading toward being "never will be" programs.
THE GOOD
I guess that intro points out the good for Auburn and head coach Gus Malzahn. Malzahn despite being unlikable much of the time and not being a very good coach at other times has continued to win at Auburn. It has been frustrating because he has recruited well and then not gotten the most out of that talent but when you look at disasters like Arkansas and Tennessee you have to be thankful Auburn has not slipped into that abyss. Gus has shown he can recruit to a certain level even with Nick $aban taking over the world and teams around Auburn like Florida State a few years ago and Georgia now rising up in recruiting as well.
It is no small feat to lead a program for over five years and keep it going at a fairly successful level as Malzahn has done. Pat Dye did it and handed over a very good team to his successor Terry Bowden but Bowden could not keep it going. He did a great job a few years but then fell apart. He did not have what it took to lead a program especially in recruiting for more than a few years. Tommy Tuberville was able to lead Auburn's program for almost a decade but bad choices at coordinator and the tsunami of Nick $aban's arrival was too much. Tuberville did leave a decent cupboard for Gene Chizik who like Bowden did a good job for a few years but then fell apart as well.
THE BAD
The bad is the enormous pressure someone in Auburn's administration is going to have on them to make a good choice for head coach sooner rather than later I think. Auburn has a really good team this season but will be rebuilding in the trenches next season. The schedule next season is a little better overall but has a horrible ending with LSU and Bama back-to-back. It could be a tough season. Gus has also burned some bridges and flopped too many times to save himself when his buyout reaches a "reasonable" point and he has that inevitable bad season. Malzahn has saved himself several times when I thought he was gone but I think his time will end in the next three years.
Also I have always thought Steve Spurrier was right when he said that most of the time now a head coach is only going to last around a decade even if he is successful (if he is not Nick $aban). The program just needs a new voice. Auburn has followed that trend as Coach Dye and Tuberville both made it about a decade. I just do not think Gus Malzahn will last much longer than that and this season is year seven. Auburn University as a whole appears to be suffering from leadership issues so even though I have big problems with Malzahn I am scared as hell at the current people in charge picking a new head football coach. Will they make a good choice or turn us into Tennessee?
THE UGLY
The ugly this week is once again the absurdity of the college football "playoff". This stupid system is just as bad as it's predecessors. It is just more subjective tripe (which means "something poor, worthless, or offensive"). NOTHING HAS CHANGED. You now have a committee picking teams as compared to the media polls. It is all SUBJECTIVE. Love it or hate it, the NFL is at least OBJECTIVE. The greatest team in NFL history was the 2007 New England Patriots who went 17-0 but were upset in the Super Bowl by a New York Giant team who went 9-7 in the regular season. A team like that Giant team would never get a chance in college football.
I was asked today how I would fix it. I understand the college football "playoff" can not be like the NFL but it can be made less subjective. It can also be changed to just plain make things easier for all involved (like not having to leave a "Power 5" conference out) and get different teams in. Frankly it is easy and is an idea championed by many. The "playoff" should be changed to eight teams and there should be five automatic bids for the conference champions and three wild-card selections. This way the "Power 5" conferences are always happy and the whole thing is more objective but they still have a chance to get three "deserving" teams in. It just makes too much sense.
THE LAST WORD
The powers-that-be though will never do it because they do not want to give up control and hate objectivity. I get so sick of hearing the arguments against conference champions. It is again arguing against objectivity as the way of determining conference champions is mostly objective. It does not matter if the team has a "bad loss", they won their conference. That "great" team they always want to put ahead of them had their chance and they failed. I mean how can anyone outside the "in" teams like this system? The playoff this season will be Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma and the perceived best team from the SEC. It really does not matter if those teams lose a game, they will still select them.
Hopefully this post was more enjoyable than a breakdown of an Auburn win over a team that was 0-14 in the conference coming in. Honestly, what is there to say about that game? I could not think of anything so I decided to bring up these subjects today. Getting back on track, Auburn could have a big impact or even determine the SEC race in both divisions. They could win out but that does not seem likely considering the schedule. We will find out a lot this week as Auburn heads to Baton Rouge as huge underdogs. That is a spot Auburn loves and they do have a good team... but as we have seen the last six years and again in the Florida game this year, Gus does not win on the road. Can the law of averages kick in and override the Gus factor? I doubt it but I will be watching.
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