I mean WOW, I can certainly say from an actual depressed Auburn fan's perspective that this definition is absolute truth. I literally cannot say it better than that. We also had to endure the whole gamut this past month. Emotional rollercoaster, check. Bitter losses (especially to Bama), check. Occasional flashes of brilliance, check. Finally, a lot of disappointment, check. That is the way I see it where you have other people who think every close loss is really just a win in disguise. I think those people are crazy. After another season of close losses I do not want to hear anything positive out of a loss again. After this season I could care less whether it is 49-48 or 49-0, A LOSS IS A ------- LOSS. This team, of course, had to put us through it one more horrific time this season in the Iron Bowl.
The problem with this offense is you cannot build a team on wide receivers and that is what Hugh Freeze tried to do. It will not work no matter who the coach is. Derrick Nix did a great job, even with the horrendous start to the Iron Bowl, with this offense but the unit is fundamentally flawed. The offensive line was better under him but they were still a BELOW AVERAGE SEC UNIT. It is the most depressing part of this game and this season for me and it is the biggest question I have with the new coaching staff. Auburn has not had a top SEC offensive line in ALMOST A DECADE now with NO END IN SIGHT. After all the hoopla and the sunshine pumping sychophantic optimistic new coach blather I only have ONE QUESTION of Alex Golesh. ONE. Can he and his staff recruit and develop a top level SEC offensive line? The years are going by.
Again, this is all Bama's and $aban's doing and man they did their job better than any Bammer could have ever imagined. Bama lost a Heisman Trophy and a shot at a national three-peat during the "Kick Six" in 2013 and Auburn scored over 40 points on them at home in 2014. Something had to be done. During this same time Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss was also beating Bama and $aban. That was easier to deal with, all it took was a phone call to the right people and Ole Miss was up on NCAA charges (for doing the same things Bama was doing). Auburn was a tougher nut to crack as Gus Malzahn is as squeaky clean as they come. Bama got a gift though when the Rams took Auburn left tackle Greg Robinson as the second overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft.
Robinson was an absolute road grader as a run blocker but could not professionally pass block to save his life. The Rams and anyone else should have known that. He stuck around for a few years but was pretty much immediately diagnosed as a complete failure for that high a pick. The Bama syndicate who has delivered all of those top recruiting classes and protected the kingdom plus everyone else associated with Bama recruiting quickly jumped on Robinson's failure and spread the word far and wide that OFFENSIVE LINEMEN ESPECIALLY TACKLES THAT GO TO AUBURN WILL FAIL IN THE NFL. The Bama machine has now hammered home that fact for a decade to where it is now considered a fact. Kirby Smart who was part of that machine for a long time and was on the receiving side of that Auburn offense in 2013 picked up the message when he went to Georgia and helped hammer it home.
It has spread like wildfire where anyone competing against Auburn for an offensive linemen goes to it. It is a message that so far money has not been able to break. Auburn fans thought there might have been a breakthrough this past season when they paid a king's ransom for left tackle Xavier Chaplin... only to be disappointed far beyond their worst nightmares as Chaplin has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. He was on full display in this year's Iron Bowl with a stunningly embarrassing missed block and of course his staple mistake of illegal procedure. I think he also had a hold or two in there as well. It is believed Auburn paid over a million dollars for this guy only to get some of the worst left tackle play in recent memory.
The reason for this diatribe is again Auburn lost to Bama mainly based on its offensive line, by far the weakest unit on the field for the Tigers. The Auburn defense got their nose bloodied and they gave up Bama's final fifteen play eight minute winning touchdown drive but overall did a pretty good job. Of course that winning Bama drive was also aided by completely fraudulent roughing the passer call. It is depressing knowing these games are almost fixed. There is just too much money involved and Bama is a key chess piece in the SEC getting the most money out of this college football year. A call here and there doesn't fix the game but it is hard to overcome. Anyway the Auburn defense held Bama quarterback Ty Simpson and vaunted Bama passing game to 122 yards. They gave the team a chance to win.
The Auburn offense also made some plays but not enough and simply could not run the ball outside of Ashton Daniels scrambling. The Tigers were lucky that Daniels was able to make something out of nothing as his protection broke down many times because other than that Auburn simply could not run the ball with running back Jeremiah Cobb gaining only 33 yards on 10 carries. Auburn had a decent quarterback, a good running back, and some great wide receivers but struggled much of the game. That tells you ONE THING. The Auburn offensive line is just a very weak unit. Again from the Auburn perspective they are the bottom line in this game. I really do not know what else to say. The offense had to score 30 points to beat Bama and they could not do it because of the offensive line.
Before I get to Alex Golesh let me pause to state that Bama fans are literally the most spoiled fans on the face of this planet after the $aban years. This week after winning the Iron Bowl I had to listen to many of them worry about how they might not make the playoff if they lose the SEC Championship Game and so on. OMG boo ------- hoo, it is just part of it. It sure hurt Auburn in 2017! Auburn beat the ---- out of Georgia and Bama (both ranked #1 at the time Auburn played them) but lost to Georgia in the SECCG. The Tigers then got dumped out of everything and the two teams they beat soundly at the end of the season played for the ------- national championship! Bama got in through the back door not even winning their division and avoiding the SECCG to win the national title that year just like they also did in 2011. So if they get bit this year then it is karma but I am sure they will still get in.
I have also listened to Bama fans whine and moan about how bad Kalen DeBoer is. THE DUDE IS 44-9 IN HIS LAST FOUR YEARS OF COACHING. I mean for the love of any kind of common sense stop your whining you spoiled spoiled spoiled people. I have literally had Bama fans try to "top" me in complaining about our teams!!!???!!! NOBODY CAN TOP FIVE ------- YEARS OF AWFULNESS UNDER BRYAN HARSIN AND HUGH FREEZE. I mean are you kidding me??? FIVE STRAIGHT LOSING SEASONS. SIX STRAIGHT LOSSES TO BAMA. EIGHT STRAIGHT LOSSES TO GEORGIA. Of course some Auburn fans could actually be worse. Bama fans mostly only care about winning while Auburn fans eat each other alive on the various Auburn sites and run off players like Bo Nix (who currently is leading one of the best teams in the NFL).
This brings us to the Auburn coaching situation. I am going to try and be succinct here as I have read the aforementioned Auburn sites and had fans try to tell me what happened and what to think. I thought the clear choice for Auburn was Tulane head coach John Sumrall. I have read many Auburn fans and their ridiculous nonsense who didn't want him or the ones that are dogging him since we did not get him and they are wrong. The guy has won four straight conference championships at two different schools. I mean case closed. That is not easy. On top of that he is from Alabama and is very familiar with the recruiting territory since he coached at Troy. He was the best guy, period, end of story. However I knew all along our stupid egomaniacal athletic director was going to screw it up and he did.
After the smoke has cleared it is obvious Auburn in whatever fashion made it clear they wanted their next head coach to keep ------- D.J. Durkin and Sumrall did not want to do that and he is right! OMG D.J. Durkin is a good defensive coordinator but he is not great. A new coach should be able to determine his own staff, period. I am so tired of hearing the suggestion that if we kept Durkin we would lose less players. Give me a break, Auburn went 1-7 they are going to lose a ton of players no matter who the coach is and that is already being proven true. I think you get the head coach right first and then you go from there. The powers-that-be and their mouthpieces on all these sites deny this ever happened but the more they deny the more it is obvious they are lying especially since Durkin has been retained!
It is over and in the past so I will stop there but I believe the facts support what I am saying and not some of the other inane drivel I have read vilifying Sumrall. OK so Auburn had to move to their second choice and that turned out to be Alex Golesh. I will have to admit that at first I was not happy with the choice and that is part of the reason this post was so late. However after some time and investigation it would appear that Auburn still got a decent coach. He was actually in demand and in fact many people including me thought he had accepted the Arkansas job earlier in the week. The fact that he was actually in demand puts him ahead of Auburn last four coaching hires after Tommy Tuberville since none of them were in demand. He also served as Tennessee's offensive coordinator under Josh Heupel and had success.
The two years at Tennessee are a big deal because that gives him SEC experience at a big time program and experience recruiting on the north side of Auburn's recruiting territory. Golesh also did a good job rebuilding a fallen South Florida program and pulled off big wins this season over Boise State and Florida. In addition to being a head coach this also gave Golesh experience on the south side of Auburn's recruiting territory. He has a pretty good resume although I do not believe he has been involved in winning a championship yet. There is also one other weird thing on his resume. He has pretty much been a tight ends coach his whole career even when he was a coordinator. I do not think I have ever seen that before. That puts the jury still out on whether he can develop quarterbacks but maybe it will help him developing an offensive line.
All in all, I think Sumrall still has the much better resume but Golesh is hopefully a solid choice. That is all I am going to say. I wrote optimistic positive sugary-sweet posts when Auburn hired Harsin and Freeze and those are now two of the stupidest most ridiculous garbage posts I have ever written on this site. I am not doing it again. In fact the smart thing would be to assume Golesh is going to crash and burn with the way things have been going at Auburn. He said all the right things at his presser but like close losses I do not care anymore about rah rah speeches. I am not going to give Auburn football or anyone associated with it much credit for anything till they actually win a game over a really good team. I have absolutely no time for all the optimistic bull---- that follows a new coaching hire.
I also really do not care who Auburn loses on the current roster either outside Cam Coleman since he is a generational talent although I expect to lose him too. Getting back to the theme of this post the only thing I care about is getting top offensive tackles. CAN GOLESH BACK UP ALL HIS BRAVADO AND RECRUIT AND THEN DEVELOP SOME TOP OFFENSIVE TACKLES AND BUILD AN SEC GOOD OFFENSIVE LINE? Right now that is THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. This season and especially the Iron Bowl proved that it does not matter if you have a good quarterback, running back, and wide receivers if you do not have the offensive line. You bring up a great Auburn football team and I will show you a great offensive line. IT... IS... THE... ONLY... THING... THAT... MATTERS. Auburn's football fortunes will not change regardless of the coach till this is done.
I was fixing to stop there but I have to add a caveat and say Golesh actually has two years to do this since next season is most likely another losing or poor season regardless of what is done thanks to Auburn's dumb moronic stupid idiot athletic directors. Auburn is already screwed in even years thanks to the worst Auburn AD ever Jay Jacobs changing over a hundred years of Auburn football in 2013 and having Auburn start putting Bama and Georgia on same location rotation. In even years Auburn plays both of them on the road. For those rolling their eyes and minimizing that you are dead wrong. Auburn has not beaten Bama on the road sine the "Cam-back" in 2010 and has not beaten Georgia in Athens since 2005 (TWENTY YEARS). That schedule alone makes even years almost impossible.
On top of that the SEC has changed to a nine game schedule next season which means that every other year SEC teams get only FOUR home games and have to play FIVE road games. Guess what years Auburn plays their five road games? You guessed it! Thanks to our current moronic athletic director Auburn let the conference make them play their five road games in even years when those road games include both Bama and Georgia. People can downplay that all they want but the facts say Auburn literally has no chance now in even years and next year is even. Auburn and Alex Golesh will have to travel to Bama, Georgia, Tennessee, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State while entertaining Arkansas, Florida, LSU, and Vanderbilt at home. That is a ridiculously hard schedule and we will also find out real soon who is rebuilding faster between Golesh and Sumrall when the Gators come to town.
Finishing a season in the SEC 1-7 along with starting all over again with another head coach who will be facing this upcoming schedule does not fill me with a lot of hope for the future but I guess that is just par for the course of being an Auburn fan...
"Being a depressed Auburn fan often means enduring an emotional rollercoaster of high hopes, bitter losses (especially to Alabama), coaching carousel frustrations, and occasional flashes of brilliance, leading to cyclical disappointment but also enduring loyalty."
