Week 4 Review: Turbulence Ahead

Well most of us knew this was coming. Actually I should say some of us knew this was coming because they were a LOT of sunshine pumpers talking about 8 or 9 wins this summer and would tolerate no talk otherwise. Unfortunately even if you know it is coming it never happens exactly like you think it will and it still hurts just as much. This is not a very good Auburn football team especially on defense and especially where it counts and that is in the trenches. It also does not appear this team has the scrap that a under talented team like the 1981 team had. Those two things equal tough times.

There are many reasons but unfortunately there is not much that can be done at this point but ride it out and hope we can grab a big win somewhere. It will take playing a lot better than they have played up till now to get bowl eligible. It can be done. All we have to do is beat Ole Miss, Samford and grab one other win somewhere. The only realistic chance looks to be at Georgia or hope we catch Florida napping. We will have to see how the team responds after a couple of beatdowns at South Carolina and Arkansas. We will also have to see how the coaching staff responds to their first real dose of harsh criticism.  This staff has not gone through that yet.

AD Jay Jacobs quickly played his hand this week already blaming everything on Tub's last two recruiting classes. It is correct that Tub's last two classes are probably the biggest problem this season but the AD throwing him under the bus publicly is probably not the best move. Tuberville deserved a lot more credit than he received for the national championship which was won with an offensive line and defense he recruited. However it appears he will get his due for the abominations that were the 2007 and 2008 recruiting classes. It has to be said though that Chizik has had 3 recruiting classes to prepare for this and could have done more to strengthen our defensive front seven. It is not like you could not see some of this coming.

It is also hard to understand what the coaching staff's plans were for this year during spring and fall practice other than writing books and basking in the glow of the national championship like the fans. A coaching staff at this level should be able to see we cannot run the same old lay-back-in-loose-coverage Cover 2 defense with our current talent level on defense especially on the line. More disturbing is the fact that our offensive coaches who are top notch do not seem to have settled on a strategy for this offense and have been tinkering since the first game bottoming out with last night's underwhelming performance against FAU.

So that is where we are. I had marked the next two games as losses way before the season started. Revenge is usually overrated as a motivator but Auburn absolutely humiliated South Carolina last year in the SECCG and there are a lot of players back from that team as well as the coaches that are REALLY going to want some payback. I do not think we will catch them napping. Bobby Petrino always lights up our defense just like he always lays down for Nick $aban and Bama. Arkansas will look like world-beaters in two weeks.

Our team is just going to have to ride it out and the coaching staff has to use these tough games to try and get the team better and hopefully we will get one big win and get to a bowl. However before then you better fasten your seatbelts and put your food trays in their upright position because we are about to experience... turbulence.