2025 GAME 3 REVIEW: The Hangover Before The Storm

Auburn 31 South Alabama 15.  The Auburn football Tigers finished their preseason on a very blah note yesterday with another mediocre effort.  This is the latest in what is now a long line of blah games coached by Hugh Freeze but it was a win.  There are always positives in a win and the biggest one for Auburn remains an improved offensive line.  It has taken the entire college football system being turned upside down for Auburn to finally find some way to bring in legitimate offensive tackles but it has happened.  Auburn rushed for almost 200 yards again and running back Jeremiah Cobb put up his second 100 yard game in a row.  Those are definite things Auburn can build on and will need coming up.

Again Auburn won but I think you cannot help but compare teams watching this game and the others yesterday.  Can this Auburn team do better than the previous five Auburn teams and win more conference games?  Again the talent level has been upgraded which gives Auburn a chance but has it been upgraded enough and what level is our coaching?  I will start with the defense.  I think D.J. Durkin is a pretty good coach and that we have a decent defensive staff.  I think we have decent talent on the defense with a couple of special players like Keldric Faulk.  I think that is the consensus from just about all Auburn fans.  The problem is the results so far tell a different story...

Baylor ran up 500 yards on this defense and South Alabama got over 300.  I know it was not a big game and they will be better but South Alabama seem to impose their will many times in the game yesterday.  The defense ended up making the plays needed but overall after those two games Auburn fans cannot feel great about this defense.  I mean Baylor appears to be a good team and South Alabama definitely a solid one but giving up over 800 yards?  I just hear warning bells going off especially with South Alabama rushing for almost 150 yards.  This Auburn defense is simply going to have to play a lot better starting next week for Auburn to even have a chance at some big wins. 

Next up I will just repeat again what I have in the last two posts...  Auburn's passing game is just not clicking on all cylinders.  Million dollar man Cam Coleman even though he had a touchdown yesterday has simply not been an impact player.  Eric Singleton has been and appears to be worthy of his hype but Auburn still cannot get it to him enough and he maybe hurt.  Quarterback Jackson Arnold appears to be an upgrade over Payton Thorne but still has issues.  The main one that popped up to me yesterday was watching him execute a perfect play action drop back and have plenty of time... and not throw the ball at the right time or in rhythm.  That just screams coaching to me.  

The opposite would be Tennessee who passed the ball courageously yesterday and only lost because they could not convert a makeable field goal at the end.  They have a good passing game though.  That is what a good college passing game looks like.  You have to have the coaching and Auburn appears to be drastically lacking there.  Auburn's very expensive high rated wide receivers not only dropped several yesterday but either they or Jackson Arnold are doing something wrong since he won't pull the trigger many times.  One of the reasons again appears to be that the coaches have overreacted to Thorne's bad decisions last season and, as I have already opined, made Jackson Arnold scared to make a mistake. 

The offense just looks like an old high school offense passing-wise and Jackson Arnold is just not getting the coaching to pass successfully.  Auburn is a better team than the last four years but with these issues in the passing game I just am not sure how successful this team will be in a tougher-than-ever SEC.  The next three weeks look daunting to say the least.  Oklahoma and Texas A&M are up the next two weeks.  Oklahoma looks to be much improved over last season and Texas A&M just won in South Bend.  I do not think this Auburn team could have done that.  Georgia comes in after that and I sure do not see Auburn playing as well as Tennessee did.

I hope I am just being "negative", I hope Hugh Freeze and this Auburn team prove me wrong however I think most of us have watched good teams and they look like good teams in most all their games.  I think most of us have seen well-coached passing offenses and this just does not appear to be one.  This Auburn team can run the ball but it has not shown a consistent passing offense nor a tough defense.  Most of all this coaching staff has just not shown the mettle to win big games.  Let me repeat that, this coaching staff has just not shown the mettle to win big games.  That does not bode well for next week nor the season.  However Auburn is 3-0 and has a lot of good players.  Please prove me wrong. 

2025 GAME 2 REVIEW: Better Late than Never...

 

Auburn 42 Ball State 3. I apologize for the super late post. The week just got away from me. I initially put this off because I did not know what to say about this game. I guess first is Auburn picked a good cupcake. Ball State is one of the worst college football teams in the country, period. They were not even in the same hemisphere talent-wise as Auburn. The stats bore it all out. Auburn had almost 500 yards of offense. Jackson Arnold and Jeremiah Cobb had career days and the defense held Ball State to under 100 total yards and should have had a shutout if not for an absolutely horrendous call. I mean from the stat line Auburn was nearly perfect...

However while the stat line looked good for the offense I think everyone who watched the same noticed some issues. The offense was just not sharp on several drives in the first half. There is still just something wrong with this offense. I think some of the issues are Jackson Arnold. He looks like a baseball thrower to me that does not have a lot of touch but I think it is more coaching. I have the same questions I had last week, how can Auburn being in the second year with this coaching staff and this offense not look sharper? Auburn has massively upgraded at all positions and their talent is showing through but there is still something wrong with this offense.  

Auburn gets one more warm-up game and then we will see where this team is really at. I have finally settled on the number I think Hugh Freeze has to win this season. Assuming now he beats South Alabama and Mercer, I think with the talent on this roster he now has to win at least FIVE conference games. That will give Auburn its first winning conference record since 2019. I would hope one of those is Georgia or Bama but either way I think that is what this coaching staff has to achieve this season and that is assuming Auburn will have some injuries as well. That happens to everyone every football season and I am sick of the coaches and the homer web sites using it as an all-encompassing excuse.

Around the SEC... My biggest takeaway from watching the SEC this season is that NIL has really helped even the playing field, as in letting other conferences and teams catch up to the SEC. Big bad Bama and Georgia who utterly dominated for quite a few years (when they were doing NIL and everyone else was not) now look a lot closer to everyone else. I hate a lot of things about NIL and all that is going on in college football but that is one of the good things. I think Texas is obviously quite a bit overrated but with their fixed easy conference schedule they have a cakewalk to the SEC Championship game. I think LSU is also overrated as always but that was a huge win last week at Clemson. There is no denying that.  

I also want to give huge props to Mississippi State for beating a ranked Arizona State team. That was a big win for State after everything they have been through the last few seasons. Also while I do not think Michigan is that good I think that was also a big win for Oklahoma. It was good to see "too cool for school, I know everything" Billy Napier gag another one at Florida. Just when it looked like he was safe, he is right back on the hot seat... Elsewhere Kentucky looks to be the bottom of the conference while you have a big jumble of solid-to-good teams in the middle. A few of those teams will have the ball bounce right for them and have a great season and a few will stumble and fall. This coming weekend will kind of unofficially kick off the race with a slew of big conference match-ups. Looking forward to it...

2025 GAME 1 REVIEW: Good Game but...

Auburn 38 Baylor 24.  In a stunning departure from the absolute sheer stupidity shown by the Auburn football head coach last season, the Tigers actually stuck to the running game and got the win.  I am glad it took "experts" to come in after the season and tell the six million dollar man coaching Auburn what to do in games like this.  New quarterback Jackson Arnold rushed for over 100 yards while running backs Damari Alston and Jeremiah Cobb both had 84 and 74 yards rushing respectively.  That of course means that Auburn's upgraded-through-the-portal offensive line showed an immediate return on investment.  Offensive tackles Xavier Chaplin and Mason Murphy appear to be much better than any other offensive tackles seen around the plains for the last decade or more.  That in and of itself might be the biggest positive to come out of this weekend.

Overall, Auburn was just better at about every position than Baylor except when it came to passing the football.  Now again this game Auburn did the right thing and just got the win however the biggest concern for me coming out of this game is the Auburn passing game on both sides of the ball.  Lets look at the defense first...  I mean I think D.J. Durkin is a pretty good coach but dang this was some epically bad defense.  It sure was a shock even for all of us that were ignoring all of the Auburn pay-sites basically saying how great every Auburn player is for months.  I mean all of these guys have carried on all summer telling us how great the line is, how great the linebackers are, and how this might be the best secondary ever at Auburn...  

Lets just go to the numbers...  Baylor quarterback Sawyer Robertson was 27 of 48 for 419 YARDS and three touchdowns with no interceptions.  I mean yes Auburn did get some crucial stops but I will have to say Baylor sure seemed to call some horrible plays inside the ten yard line thank goodness.  The defense did keep Baylor under 100 yards rushing but is that as big an accomplishment when they pass for over 400???  I think across the board everyone thought the defense would be much better.  Hopefully they improve and I do not think many of the SEC teams ahead on the schedule can throw the ball as good as Baylor or at least I hope not.  The improvement of this defense will be a major factor in how the rest of the season goes for the Tigers.

On offense uh running-wise, Auburn was almost as potent as Baylor was through the air as the Tigers rushed for 300 yards shredding the Baylor defense who appeared dead set on not giving Auburn the deep ball.  However does Baylor have that good a defense where they can just take away the Auburn passing game?  I just do not think so as I bet we will see Baylor in many high-scoring Big 12 games throughout the rest of this season.  With that said though Auburn barely managed 100 yards passing with massively hyped returning wide receivers Cam Coleman and Malcolm Simmons only getting one catch each.  Monster wide receiver signee Eric Singleton got three but had twenty yards...  I mean yes I am very glad Auburn did what it had to do to win the game but the passing game is still a flashing red light.

Quarterback Jackson Arnold did not look comfortable in the pocket.  He did not make many good passes and he look scared ****less to make a mistake and throw an interception.  I know it is just the first game and all of that but this guy is not a true freshman.  I think he should have been better.  Most of us have watched enough football that even if a quarterback is having a bad game you can see if he is brave in the pocket, if he throws a nice ball, etc...  I did not see any of that with Arnold.  I also think that his success running in this game will encourage the bad habit of running every time he feels pressure.  I see better SEC teams shutting down most of his running.  Also why have we carried on and on and on and paid so much money for all of these wide receivers to not have a passing game good enough against BAYLOR to get them the ball?

The answer appears to be the same as it has been the last decade at Auburn.  Our head coach is an ex-high school coach who is a good salesman and sermonizer but simply does not have the ability to teach or implement modern football passing concepts.  Freeze is a little different as he usually throws a lot of short passes but the simple fact that we could not get any of these really good wide receivers the ball in this game kind of speaks for itself.  However again I would much rather be talking about getting better after a win than after a loss (just ask the other set of fans in this state).  Auburn and Freeze really had to win this game and they did.  Everyone, offense and defense, now has the chance to take to the next two weeks to improve as a team and they better because back-to-back road games at Oklahoma and Texas A&M are looming and we will find out a whole lot more about this team then.

2024 GAME 12 REVIEW: Back to Form

Bama 28  Auburn 14.  Well just like every other good moment this season things turned back to crap quickly.  Every time the last two seasons a Hugh Freeze team does something good... the bottom falls out the next week.  Auburn finally got a big win last season at Arkansas... and then lost to New Mexico State at home.  I guess lets say that Auburn played well against Bama last season even though it might have been the worst loss in the series ever, the team then followed that up with an all-time horrific bowl performance.  Auburn starts this season with a video game night showcasing some good new players... and immediately follows that up with a catastrophic loss to Cal.  Freeze benches Payton Thorne and starts Hank Brown and blows out New Mexico... and then loses four games in a row, three of them he had to work hard to help Auburn lose.  The Tigers finally win an SEC game at Kentucky... and then lay an egg at home against Vandy.  The beat just goes on and on.

Once again this week after Freeze's biggest win at Auburn against Texas A&M...  Auburn laid another giant egg in Tuscaloosa against Bama with maybe the worst game plan of the year on offense.  This latest lost featured a Freeze specialty, abandoning the run game early.  Freeze and company only used running back Jarquez Hunter 13 times this game while throwing the ball 40 times with ineffective quarterback Payton Thorne.  Auburn padded the stats to make them look better at the end but the only stat that counts is the scoreboard.  Auburn drove into the red zone four times in the first half and came away with two field goals.  The Tigers did not score a touchdown till the game was over and Bama was up 28-6.  Finally, Auburn had a chance to make it closer after scoring their first touchdown but Freeze called a stupid easily sniffed out running back pass that was easily intercepted.  It was the final embarrassment in another terrible game on his watch.

Freeze has staked everything on upgrading Auburn's roster.  I talked about this last week as well.  However after another bad coaching job I am back to wondering if it will matter?  Bama is better than Auburn but they turned the ball over three times and the Tigers were in the red zone four times and could not get in the end zone.  Bama's defense is talented but not a top unit.  A good coach would have done more today, this season, and last.  We have seen two whole seasons on Freeze's watch and you just have not seen it.  You saw good coaching when Dye started, when Bowden started, when Tuberville started, when Chizik started, and when Malzahn started.  Not many of them ended well but you saw good coaching when they started.  I just do not think you can say the same about Freeze.  Auburn has had a couple of good games and a lot of bad ones.  Are better days ahead?  I have to say after watching another egg get laid today I am not hopeful.

I guess maybe if Freeze got a great quarterback and a great offensive tackle in the mix something might can change but what are the chances of that?  I mean a quarterback and offensive tackle that could be real difference makers in tough SEC games?  I think the chances of that are pretty low.  I think Auburn might can have a winning season next year and start going to a bowl regularly with Hugh Freeze but outside of lucking out in a few like last week I always see him ultimately coming up short.  It has now been six long years since Auburn ended a season with a win and four years since even having a winning season.  Auburn has never been this bad in my lifetime.  As I say in the title of this blog, I know it is just a game but it is getting to me.  I am so tired of watching games like today.  I am so tired of every good moment like last week being short lived.  I guess it is good the season is over because I do not think I can do another post on this team or about Hugh Freeze anytime soon.

I do have one more comment on football in general after watching a lot of it, college and professional, over this weekend.  These million dollar braniacs calling the plays today might want to go back to doing a few things like they did in the old days.  First, in college, stop making your offensive linemen stand set for so long while you overcoach and try to change the play.  I have never seen more procedure penalties in the red zone in my life as I have seen these past few weeks.  You can say what you want but they are killers and being able to change your play doesn't matter if it keeps happening.  Next, in both college and the pros these geniuses might want to go back to using the good old goal line heavy formation inside the five yard line.  Yes there were epic goal line stands back in the old days but not near as many as I saw just this weekend with teams lined up in spread formations.  I mean it is unbelievable how many teams came away with nothing after having first and goal around the three yard line.  Sometimes you cannot trick the other team, you simply have to line up and run it in.

2024 GAME 11 REVIEW: Just Auburn Being Auburn

Auburn 43 Texas A&M 41.  I predicted twice this season that Auburn would lose this game on the way to one of the more disappointing seasons in Auburn history.  I am sure glad I was wrong. I believe that prediction contained emotion but it did also contain logic.  Auburn, as in the losses this season, tried really hard to lose this game and the refs certainly helped out in overtime.  As I was texted last night, nobody has ever seen a team that finds more ways to lose than this one.  It is mind blowing some of the dumb things this team does with victory literally in its grasp...  Last night they had the ball first and goal on the seven yard line with less than a minute left needing a touchdown to win... and then they get TWO procedure penalties and barely get the field goal to send it to overtime.  I do not think any of us felt confident going into overtime.  However I could still barely hear that little voice I heard after the Kentucky game and last week that even though I do not like this coach, this team was just due to have something good happen to them.

Regardless of the coaching, the officiating, the quarterback, etc...  regardless of all that, this team and this fan base was due to have something good happen to them.  I think the last truly good night at Jordan Hare was a long two years ago against Texas A&M with Cadillac Williams leading Auburn to the win.  There is just something special in the air at Jordan Hare Stadium in late October and November.  Some seasons the team is too bad for it to help and sometimes it does not pan out like the Iron Bowl last season but eventually something special happens on that hallowed ground when it gets to be real football weather.  Nick $aban said the place was "haunted" and while I am not sure I would put it that way, there is something special there.  I was lucky enough to be there for a bunch of those special moments and I am sure happy for everyone there last night who took one more chance on this team.

It is a cliché and one head coach Hugh Freeze has way overused but this team and this coaching staff have not quit in the face of overwhelming disappointment and I have to give them a lot of credit for that.  It is hard to keep getting back up and give great effort after watching your season go down in flames.  Head coach Pat Dye called it "wrestling with them angels" and every team goes through it.  There is always a reward for that kind of determination but it is special when that reward takes the form of a monumental win.  That is what happened on Pat Dye field at Jordan Hare Stadium last night.  After COVID, two years of disaster under Bryan Harsin, and almost two complete seasons of disappointment under Hugh Freeze the Auburn football Tigers won their biggest game of this decade.  The collective response was immediate with the students rushing the field and the rest of the stadium letting it all out while watching them.  

In this post I have been obviously concentrating on the context of this win and not analyzing the game itself.  I think that is what interests me the most thinking about this game but I do have to pause and look at a couple of things that happened last night.  Again I have obviously just lost it with Hugh Freeze over what I consider some ridiculously bad coaching this season and this game does not make up for all of that however some credit has to be given.  I have pointed out that a lot of Auburn's offensive stats that the coaching staff keeps crowing about were compiled in Auburn's three nothing games this season.  This was not the case last night.  Texas A&M came into the game tied for first in the SEC.  They are a very good team.  Quarterback Payton Thorne had 300 yards passing against them and for the second week in a row Auburn had two wide receivers over 100 yards.  I do not think that has ever happened in Auburn history, seriously.  Also the scrappy Auburn defense under coordinator D.J. Durkin continues to amaze.  There was plenty of mistakes made but Auburn went toe-to-toe with a good team and won.

You could almost hear everyone outside Auburn wondering why make such a big fuss over just beating a good Texas A&M team?  I understand why the question is being asked but again after everything this team and this fan base has gone through the last five years it was warranted and it was sorely needed.  We get so caught up in comparing teams and counting championships and such.  Auburn does not have double figure national titles but it has been and still is one of the top college football programs in this country (check the records) and it is a very special place.  There have been so many memorable wins throughout the years and a new one just got added to the list.  It could be just the only big win in a disappointing season and end up not meaning that much or...  it could mean a WHOLE LOT more.  It could help a struggling coach find his way and help a program keep a team and a recruiting class together...  It could mean maybe turning the head of more special recruits or transfers...  

It could maybe just maybe crack the door on having a chance at an even more improbable win next week?  No no no I won't go there, I still think it is a bridge too far but after an equally surprising game in Oklahoma last night I still hear that little voice...

2024 GAME 10 REVIEW: Operation "Keep Cam"

Auburn 48  Louisiana Monroe 14.  It is obvious that earlier this week the Auburn football coaching staff met and talked about what I talked about in my post last week, i.e. the sharks circling Auburn's current roster.  They figured out that obviously star receiver Cam Coleman would be at the top of many teams' wish lists.  This is the point where head coach Hugh Freeze finally showed some actual smarts when he must have told whoever was putting the game plan together and quarterback Payton Thorne to "GET CAM THE BALL".  He then cut off any response that was not "yes sir" with "GET CAM THE BALL".  Luckily for Freeze and Auburn Louisiana Monroe is terrible and the Auburn offense was pretty much able to do whatever it wanted.  Quarterback Payton Thorne threw for a career high five touchdowns, Auburn had two wide receivers over 100 yards (!!!) in Coleman and Keandre Lambert-Smith plus Jarquez Hunter got to 100 yards as well.  All in all as good a day as Auburn has had this season.

Coach Freeze can continue to brag about Auburn's offensive stats as this game will help inflate them as the Alabama A&M and New Mexico games did.  I mean you take those games away and Auburn's offensive stats especially the passing stats go down A LOT but hey that is what these games are for and at least Auburn took care of business in all the easy ones this season.  It is hard though to be real happy when you know that all those plays where Thorne got to stand back there forever and hit his receiver would never happen against anyone any good.  It is also hard to be real happy when everyone knows that with just a little good coaching Auburn would have a winning record and would already be in a bowl game regardless of these last two games.  Instead Auburn is 4-6 and looking at 4-8. 

I still think Auburn does have a small chance against Texas A&M at home.  Now the Aggies are tied at the top of the conference with their hated rival but even as bad as Hugh has coached, he and Auburn are just due to luck up at some point.  It will not be in Tuscaloosa so next week is it.  I have no doubt it will likely be a close game but Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko has already proven to be a pretty good coach... which means Auburn will likely lose another close game on a turnover or a stupid coaching decision.  It has happened in every other close game this season.  I guess the hope is that Auburn showed enough yesterday and can show enough in the last two games to help the staff not lose too many players or recruits.  That is where Auburn is at.  There will not be a bowl game.  There is only keeping the roster intact and adding to it as the season ends for this team and staff.

I am having a hard time coming up with anything else to write...  A few weeks ago I thought that Auburn could beat Vandy and then have a great chance against Texas A&M... but then Auburn lost to Vandy. After that I have a hard time seeing this team knock off Texas A&M.  Again I think Auburn has a small chance next week but a very small one.  This has been a very close and competitive series since the Aggies joined the SEC and it is currently knotted at 6-6 during that time.  There have definitely been some big wins for both sides.  Johnny Manziel and company ran Auburn out of its own stadium in 2012 while the great 2013 Auburn team knocked him off the next season.  Auburn went to College Station and beat current NFL star Kyler Murray in 2015 but A&M and another huge NFL star in Myles Garrett returned the favor in Auburn the next season.  Auburn then won three in a row followed by two in a row by the Aggies.  The teams have split the last two seasons.  

The Aggies are the clear favorites and are playing for high stakes while this Auburn team has one last chance to show some magic in Jordan Hare this season.  One last chance.

2024 GAME 9 REVIEW: Historically Bad

Vanderbilt 17  Auburn 7.  I should have known better.  Last week I actually thought optimistically that Auburn could win this game and have a chance against Texas A&M.  I was wrong, dead wrong.  It hit me after Vandy scored to make it 7-0.  They have the better quarterback and the better coach, Auburn is not going to win this game.  The defense did the job but the offense led by supposed offensive head coach Hugh Freeze and HIS GUYS that he had to have failed miserably... again.  This time nobody can talk about the roster and Auburn's recruiting being a reason Auburn lost this game.  Vanderbilt went 2-10 last season and lost to Auburn.  They had the worst roster.  Auburn still has a better roster.  This game came down to coaching and quarterback play and it was like the rest of the season... no contest.

Hugh Freeze and his brain trust once again went away from the run game when it counted and put the game once again in quarterback Payton Thorne's inept hands.  Yes Vandy stacked the line of scrimmage but I have not seen Auburn yet this season go into a two tight end power set for an entire series.  A formation with two tight ends, two wide receivers, and one running back.  

This formation seems to fit Auburn's talent, i.e. getting tight ends Rivaldo Fairweather and Luke Deal in the game at the same time along with Cam Coleman and Keandre Lambert-Smith plus Jarquez Hunter.  You can also go out of shotgun with Hunter next to quarterback or stack receivers or tight ends to one side, whatever.  You have a running formation with more blocking and you have three dangerous receivers, four if you count Hunter.  You have Deal the extra blocker to help protect.

You pound Vanderbilt the whole day using more run-based formations like this after they had a hard game at Texas there is NO WAY they do not break!  The do not have the depth or the strength to stand up to that.  Instead Freeze chooses to run the majority of the time out of pass formations and shocker they get stuffed.  He simply will not commit to the running game even after last week.  Obviously we can say the strategy in the losses is the rule and last week was an exception.  Again Auburn is still bigger and stronger than Vanderbilt but Hugh Freeze is a purely finesse offensive football coach and he is never going to change.  You give him better players he will win a few more games but he will never in a million years come close to a championship.  

There is little else than can be said now other than this has now become an historically bad season. Auburn has now lost to Vanderbilt at home for the first time ever.  Auburn will finish the season with one conference win and NONE at home.  Auburn will finish the season as the WORST TEAM IN THE SEC.  The worst team in the new SIXTEEN TEAM SEC.  Auburn will have it's fourth losing season in a row, the first time that has happened since the last 1940s.  This is all started with the absolute brain-dead morons who gave Gus his fifty million dollar contract in 2017 and continued with the WORST EVER leadership that hired Bryan Harsin.  All of that along with horrifically bad coaching the whole time has DESTROYED this once proud program.  The inept presidents, the unqualified athletic directors, and the grifter coaches all have taken their money and left Auburn with nothing.

This was never going to be a great or even a very good team.  All Freeze had to do was recruit and then do a little, just a little good coaching to get a few wins and not let the train go off the track.  He has utterly FAILED.  This team is not very good but it is much better than a 4-8 and 1-7 team.  Freeze has gone on and on about his recruiting but Auburn will most likely be worse off when the smoke clears by spring practice in 2025.  How much of the recruiting class ESPECIALLY THE OFFENSIVE LINEMEN will be at Auburn?  How many of the good players on the current roster will leave?  Everything I write here is just simple logic and the players know these facts better than the fans do.  On top of that I guarantee hundreds of sharks are already circling Auburn's recruits and roster.  Blood is in the water.

I have been an Auburn fan my entire life.  My parents graduated from Auburn.  I graduated from Auburn.  My brother graduated from Auburn.  My oldest son graduated from Auburn.  I went to my first Auburn game in 1978.  I have been to so many more since then.  There have been so many great moments.  There have also been some gut wrenching losses and bad seasons but nothing like the last four years.  There just does not seem to be ANY HOPE of having a really good football team anytime soon.  Heck there is not much hope of even having an average football team anytime soon.  Hugh Freeze has showed us what he can do over twenty plus games now.  This is it.  HE... IS... NOT... GOING... TO... CHANGE.  There has not been ONE big win in two whole seasons.  He should have at least ONE!

I was completely wrong about him.  My post about him becoming head coach was complete garbage.  The one I wrote about Bryan Harsin was garbage.  I am sorry, the next time Auburn hires a new football coach I am going to just assume he is another complete fraud.  So many of these football coaches just seem to be con men who luck their way into these ridiculous contacts that pay them tens of millions of dollars even if they completely fail.  It has just been disappointment after disappointment for over a DECADE now.  In all that time you can count the big wins on ONE HAND.  Other than that it has just been a few scoops of minor wins and huge helpings of every kind of loss imaginable.  Even the "good" seasons have turned out bad.  Auburn has only won three minor bowl games since 2010 against Virginia, Memphis, and Purdue.  The Tigers have only had about the same number of winning conference records as well over that time.  

Auburn football is in big trouble.  It is facing it's worse crisis... ever.  It doesn't seem like Auburn can fire Freeze but continuing on down this road seems like a waste of time.  In fact I know it is a waste of time.  However the problem is why in the world would I think the leadership at Auburn is capable of hiring a good football coach?  We all know they cannot do it.  They will just hire another con man who will end up with another twenty mil and leave the program in worse shape than when they came.  Again at this moment I just do not see any hope.  I guess that is what four straight losing seasons and finally losing to Vanderbilt at home will do to you...