MUSIC CITY BOWL REVIEW: BAD COACHING CONTINUES

Maryland 31  Auburn 13.  Well another game, another coaching embarrassment for the Auburn football Tigers.  Since breaking their hands patting themselves on the back for stomping a bad Arkansas team, these Auburn coaches have been part of the most embarrassing home loss in program history, the worst most needless loss in program history caused by the dumbest call in program history, and one of the most embarrassing bowl losses in program history.  I mean I am sure glad the season is over as I literally cannot take anymore.  I can definitely wait nine months to watch this team again.  Yeh yeh I am glad we had a good recruiting year but will it matter if THEY CANNOT BE COACHED UP???  Right now it looks like we will set the record next year for big time wide receiver recruits LEAVING.

I know as well all the EXCUSES for all our bad play this year.  No one documented the disaster the program was after Bryan Harsin left more than I did here.  I also know how bad some of our units were like wide receiver.  I understand we had our best defensive lineman and our starting cornerbacks opt out for the bowl game.  I understand first year coaches do not typically have great seasons.  HOWEVER, even considering all that you just have not seen much good coaching this year.  You do not see any trademarks of a good coach with Hugh Freeze.  FIRST, coaching starts with getting maximum effort out of your players and Auburn has been lacking in that department much of this season and especially in the New Mexico State game and this stupid bowl game.

Next, a good offensive coach shows little things that mark him as a good offensive coach.  I have not seen any of those markers this season.  I am pretty much to the point that I think Hugh Freeze is a fraud as a coach.  I think he is still a pretty good recruiter but he has just shown nothing in the coaching department.  His teams seem very finesse and are frequently lacking in effort and toughness.  His offense just seems very vanilla and blah to me.  There is really nothing that distinguishes it.  I am so disappointed.  I thought he was a great hire, the right hire.  I thought he was a good offensive coach but I am just not seeing it?!?  I know everything I wrote last year when we hired him.  I know his record at Ole Miss and Liberty but again I... am... just... not... seeing... it.

Unfortunately I also know that many coaches have a short shelf life.  Terry Bowden did a great job his first two years at Auburn.  No one can dispute that but then he just fell apart and never got it back.  I would say the same thing for Gene Chizik and many other coaches.  Every coach has to have everything come together to a certain extent but it appears many coaches only have one good run.  Hugh Freeze has had two at Ole Miss and Liberty.  It just appears he is on the downside of his career and the game has passed him by.  He looks like a tired old man.  Now unlike Bryan Harsin he is still recruiting and hopefully that will bode well for Auburn's future with or without Freeze but as a I said before, they can all leave just as easily as they came so I am not sure.

Of course thanks to our complete incompetent pathetic buffoon former AD Jay Jacobs Auburn has to go on the road at Georgia and Bama next season so they will basically start 0-2.  On top of that Auburn still has a tough schedule overall even with divisions going away so even with good coaching I am not sure how much better the record will be.  However I do know if we have the coaching we have had this season next year things could actually get worse regardless of all the new recruits.  As I mentioned before, it has to start with effort and toughness.  It has to start there.  It then has to continue with improvement in offensive execution.  We have got to start seeing the little things done right on both sides of the ball.  

Right now fresh off this complete embarrassment of a bowl game performance I cannot see it.  The offensive line will be mostly the same.  There is no ready-to-go tackle coming in.  The quarterback will be the same at least to start the season and he certainly does not seem like a big game winner.  The wide receivers will be different but can these coaches get the ball to them?  Will the wide receiver coaching that has been about the worst I have ever seen this season magically get better?  Again I just do not see it.  Right now from this view, Hugh Freeze needs to fire these coordinators and go hire somebody that will get the job done if that is even possible.  It is unbelievable how hard it evidently is to find an actual good coach at this level and it is beyond ridiculous the millions and millions and millions of dollars Auburn University has wasted on bad football coaches. 

Here at the end of 2023 I have am just not seeing any return on Auburn's current investment on the field.  So the mantra goes on as it has at Auburn for the last decade...  maybe next year.