Saturdays to Remember... 1982

A Saturday to Remember…
When Pat Dye came to Auburn he was asked how long it would take to beat Alabama. Dye’s famous response was “60 minutes”. Those “60 minutes” came in November of 1982. Auburn broke their 10-game losing streak to Bama and beat Bear Bryant in his last regular season game 23-22. “Bo over the top” was the signature play and Pat Dye’s “I am going to go back out there and thank our people” was the signature quote. My family watched it on TV and I just remember the absolute jubilation after it was over. You can definitely use the term “Auburn Family” for that day because if they were wearing orange and blue, they were family. It was a monumental game and marked the “turning of the tide” in the Iron Bowl. Bama had dominated the series in the Bryant era but since this game it is Auburn up 16-13 as of 2011. However it all started here in one of Auburn’s greatest “Saturdays to Remember”.

Honorable mention: Auburn went on to beat Boston College in a battle of future Heisman Trophy winners (Bo Jackson and Doug Flutie) in the Tangerine Bowl 33-26.

A Saturday to Forget…
Auburn would be back in the elite of college football the very next season in 1983 but the scrappy ’82 team was not quite ready yet. They only had one bad game all season and in it top-ten ranked Nebraska came to Jordan-Hare and laid a complete beat down on Auburn 41-7.

The Players
Award Winners...
We had five players make All-SEC this season: Dowe Aughtman, NG, Bob Harris, SS, Bo Jackson, HB, David Jordan, OL, and Doug Smith, DT. Bob Harris is the only senior of the group and I remember him being a vicious hitter at safety. Harris also made All-American.

Departures...
Dennis Collier S, Mark Dorminey S, Tim Drinkard CB, Mike Edwards WR, Bob Harris S, Chris Martin LB, and Ron O'Neal FB.

I remember Dorminey catching that fumble out of the air in the Bama game and almost taking it back for a touchdown but was caught by Bama quarterback Walter Lewis. I also remember the big fullback Ron O'Neal and him rumbling for several touchdowns the year before.

Arrivals...
Victor Beasley S, Lewis Colbert P, BO JACKSON RB, JAY JACOBS OT and Athletic Director, Tim Jessie RB, Jeff Lott OG, Ron Middleton TE, Jeff Parks TE, Greg Pratt FB, Gerald Robinson DE, Rob Shuler OG, Doug Smith DT, Steve Wallace OT, and Gerald Williams DE.

NOTE: People talk a lot about some of the great groups of running backs Auburn has had that were all there at the same time. Well this recruiting class brought together maybe the best group of tight ends ever at Auburn in Ed West who came in under Doug Barfield the year before Coach Dye came, and then Ron Middleton and Jeff Parks this year. Both West and Middleton would play a long time in the NFL.

Saturdays to Remember... 1981

A Saturday to Remember…

I may have gone down for a game this season but I cannot remember. It was only one if I did. I do not remember a whole lot about this season except what I have seen in the “Decade of the 80s” video. With that said the game that sticks out to me is the Tennessee game where Pat Dye gave his first legendary speech. Auburn lost 10-7 to Tennessee in Knoxville but nearly won it driving down to the Tennessee goal line in the closing seconds. This is probably the only “Saturday To Remember” I will list that is a loss. However it signaled that this team and any team fielded by Coach Dye was going to fight and scratch and claw and get back up “again and again and again”. Auburn then did prove it again the next week hanging with a highly ranked Nebraska team in Lincoln.

A Saturday to Forget…
This was the year Bear Bryant broke the all-time coaching victories record against Auburn, 28-17. I remember watching this game on TV. It was definitely a Saturday to forget.

The Players
First of all, thanks to www.lostlettermen.com for refreshing my memory on our rosters. I orginally created this post without these player sections. Later I realized how much I left out not mentioning the different players enough. I then rewrote this section several times. I could bring up so many names talking about players and of course some of the better players are key players for 3 or 4 years. I finally settled on having three different entries in this section. The first entry will list the award winners, basically the All-SEC and All-American players for Auburn that season. The second entry will list some of the more memorable or valuable seniors or players that would leave after the season in question. Finally the third entry would list some of the good or great recruits brought in that year. I do have to put out a disclaimer here that I may be off at times on when a player started at Auburn. The lostletterman site only lists the years they lettered at the school I believe. That means that a player could be at a school for four years but only letter two years. So without further ado here is my first players section.

Award Winners...
We had two players make All-SEC in seniors Danny Skutack LB and Keith Uecker OG. Keith Uecker was also an All-American and would play in the NFL for almost a decade.

Departures...
There were not too many memorable departures this season with the talent level being so low but there were a few. There was: Alan Bollinger P, Ken Hobby QB, Edmund Nelson DT, George Peoples RB, Danny Skutack LB, Joe Sullivan QB, Charles Thomas S, and Keith Uecker OG.

I remember running back George Peoples and his big run against Bama the most. I remember quarterback Ken Hobby, #13, in the Tennessee game, he did not last long after that unfortunately. I remember Joe Sullivan who also played some quarterback this year. Finally, I remember big Edmund Nelson, mostly from his interviews on the Decade of the 80s video talking about the first spring under Coach Dye.

Arrivals...
Coach Dye's first recruiting haul included: Pat Arrington OT, Clayton Beauford QB/WR, Randy Campbell QB, Gregg Carr LB, Lionel James RB, David King CB, Ron O'Neal FB, and Ben Thomas DT.

Inherited...
This is an extra section just for this season listing some of the good players that Pat Dye inherited from Doug Barfield. They are: Dowe Aughtman DT, Dennis Collier S, Al Del Greco K, Mark Dorminey S, Mike Edwards WR, Bob Harris S, Donnie Humphrey DT, David Jordan OT, Chris Martin LB, Edmund Nelson DT, George Peoples RB, Danny Skutack LB, Joe Sullivan QB, Charles Thomas S, Keith Uecker OT, Ed West TE, Quency Williams DE, and Chris Woods WR.

Saturdays to Remember... 1981 to 1985 - "Laying The Foundation"

The name for this blog comes from the book “Saturdays To Remember” written by David Housel in the 1970s. In my opinion it is the definitive work on the greatest games of the Shug Jordan era at Auburn. Also while Housel tells the story of these games he also weaves in all the history of that season, info on other teams and much more. I read the book over and over in junior high and high school. I loved reading it and still do. Just about all of my knowledge of that era comes from that book. If you can get a copy of this classic I wholeheartedly recommend it. Though David Housel made some mistakes when he was AD at Auburn there is no doubt he is an Auburn man through-and-through.

The other mandatory parts of an Auburn collection in my opinion after “Saturdays To Remember” (Coach Jordan) is “The Decade of the 80s” video (Coach Dye) along with the 1993 and 2004 season videos (Bowden and Tuberville’s best seasons) plus the 2010 complete season DVDs or at least the last three games.  With that said though it is the offseason and it is the time for lists and trips down memory lane. So… I have decided to take one of those strolls and talk about some of the “Saturdays to Remember” from over 30 years of watching Auburn football. This post is the introduction for my posts that will cover the first half of the 80s. I will also have to talk about some “Saturdays to Forget” because there are always a few of those as well unfortunately.

The book “Saturdays to Remember” ends with the 1972 “Punt Bama Punt” game. While Coach Jordan had a couple more good seasons, that game really marked the final great point of his career. There is simply not much good to say about the Doug Barfield era except for the "ABC" of great Auburn running backs in William Andrews, James Brooks and Joe Cribbs.  They were great but the teams were not.  It is the low point of modern Auburn football history. Auburn had several mediocre seasons including NCAA probation before completely bottoming out in 1980 going 0-6 in the SEC. Meanwhile Auburn’s two biggest rivals, Georgia and Alabama, won SEC and mythical national championships in 1978 (Bama), 1979 (Bama) and 1980 (Georgia).

One good memory from the Doug Barfield era for me was I attended my first Auburn football game. My first game was the 1978 Auburn vs. Georgia game. This game was also memorable for several other reasons. First, we came out in orange jerseys. I remember thinking we look like Tennessee. Second, the game ended in a tie, 22-22. My first game ended with a tie between Auburn and Georgia. Finally, I remember my dad being upset because I got him to take me to the concession stand and we missed a Joe Cribbs touchdown run. So I learned the golden rule of watching football games at the stadium right off and that rule is if you have to get up and miss some of the game, do it while we are on defense.

The situation when Coach Dye took over in 1980 was dire indeed. Auburn had seemingly nothing going for it at that time. Those who poke fun and disrespect Coach Dye now as an older man would do good to watch Coach Dye then. He was one tough SOB. As told in the “Decade of the 80s” video, the spring and fall workouts for Dye’s first team were legendary tough. He talked about building a foundation and he was obviously right. The results were seen in the years to follow.  He laid a foundation that all success since then has been built on.  In my next few posts I will cover each season during this period of time of "Laying The Foundation" from 1981 to 1985.

Personally, at the exact time Coach Dye took over, my life as an Auburn fan really started. I turned 12 years old and started junior high school in the fall of 1981, Coach Dye’s first season. I had of course grown up listening to Auburn football on the radio with my Dad. College football was not on TV near as much in the 1970s and Auburn was on much less. Even in the 1980s college football on television was nothing like it is now. However our family started buying season tickets in 1983. That started an 18 year run for me where the amount of home games I missed I could count on two hands and I travelled to every campus in the SEC except for Arkansas and Florida. During that time I also graduated high school and college, started my career and got married. All while being completely obsessed with Auburn football. 

My next post in this series will cover the 1981 season...

(All the 80s Part 1 posts were originally posted together in July 2011)

Auburn basketball is at a dead end

"The perception outside Auburn is that Barbee's attempts to turn a struggling program around have run into a dead end"

The quote above is from an article posted today by Kevin Scarbinsky, columnist for the Birmingham News, in response to the latest bad news out of the Auburn basketball program.  Auburn basketball players leaving the program has become an annual event at Auburn for as long as I can remember.  No matter what you can guarantee every year that several Auburn basketball underclassmen will leave the program under negative circumstances.  This year is no different as Coach Barbee dismissed Josh Langford and Cedrick McAfee from the program for an undisclosed violation of team rules and suspended Noel Johnson.  This follows the news that two other players recruited by Barbee, Willy Kouassi and Bernard Morena announced their plans to transfer.  This leaves Auburn with only two players from Barbee's first two recruiting classes, Chris Denson and the suspended Johnson.

This all follows another horrible season that ended with allegations of point shaving by another Barbee recruit, transfer Varez Ward.  I posted my comments on the season in the post below this named "Critical Condition".  I concluded that post stating: "Auburn basketball is in critical condition and the prognosis looks extremely bleak".  I am now ready to call time of death on the whole thing but will simply agree with Scarbinsky's quote above that it looks like the latest attempts to resuscitate the program have run into a dead end.  The same dead end that seemingly every coach in basketball runs into sooner or later at Auburn.

I reference many of my big posts on Auburn basketball in the "Critical Condition" post except for this post I made when Josh Langford who is from my hometown of Huntsville committed to Auburn.  This post was written almost exactly two years ago.  It is the most positive post and thoughts I have ever had about Auburn basketball.  Please read it as it was also based on an article by Mr. Scarbinsky.  See the optimism as the train left the station two years ago and now look at the train wreck things are now.  The Josh Langford saga from beginning to end as documented in that post and this one is just another sad tale to file in the annals of Auburn basketball.  It, as I wrote, hits close to "home" for me.

I said in "Critical Condition" that I did not blame anything on Barbee.  I said I thought Auburn hired the right guy at the time.  I still believe that but will have to say that Barbee must share in the blame now after seeing four more of his recruits exit the program.  What a mess.  Of course, as always, the coaches and administration are saying that this years' recruiting class will save the day.  This time it will be different!  I have heard that one way too many times as well.  I hope this time it will be different but right now all I see is another dead end.

Critical Condition

We are down to the last weekend of college basketball for this season.  I figured I needed to get in my one post on Auburn basketball for the season.  I summarized my Auburn memories two years ago pretty much spanning the modern history of Auburn basketball HERE.  I analyzed the program right after that which was right after we fired Jeff Lebo and hired Tony Barbee HERE.  I actually ended that post on a positive note hoping for a brighter future. 

Well it certainly did not come last year as I documented HERE.  The team ended up avoiding the worst team of all time tag they were closing in on but they were still awful.  This year was not much better (one more win in conference) and I guess in some ways it was worse as we sunk to an all-time low of having to endure a point-shaving scandal.  I mean really?  Point-shaving at Auburn?  Is there really large sums of money bet either way on Auburn basketball?  The whole thing from every angle has to be one of the stupidest things I have ever heard of.  I am still shaking my head.

What a complete and utter disaster Auburn basketball is.  In my opinion, it is in critical condition and is just about dead on the table.  Only South Carolina keeps us from the bottom of the conference in losses since 1992 (when the SEC added Arkansas and South Carolina).  Only Auburn and South Carolina have over 200 conference losses since 1992.  However South Carolina has had to play Kentucky two times a year since 1992 and Auburn has not so I still say that Auburn gets the award for the worst basketball program in the SEC.  Add in the fact that South Carolina just hired Frank Martin from Kansas State and it appears Auburn will soon have the title undisputed.  If Martin can win at Kansas State having to deal with Kansas then he can win at least moderately at South Carolina.

I do not know what else Auburn can do.  We finally, ten or twenty years too late, build a new arena and hire a young up and coming coach but again it may be too late.  The Auburn administrations since the early 1980s just let basketball die on the vine.  I find it hilarious that some people are giving the current administration and Jay Jacobs "credit" for building the new arena.  THEY BUILT IT ONLY BECAUSE IT WAS GETTING TOO EXPENSIVE TO KEEP UP THE OLD BEARD EAVES MAUSOLEUM.  It was finally cheaper just to build a new arena.  It was not to help the basketball program. 

No good player in their right mind now wants to play for Auburn because IT IS THE WORST PROGRAM IN THE SEC.  That has now been true for over 20 years. It is proving to be next-to-impossible to change that attitude after it has been true for so long.  The stupid administration should have really jumped in and tried to capitalize on the 1999 team's huge success but missed their best and maybe final chance to make a change in the way Auburn basketball is supported by the administration and how it is perceived.

The more losing conference seasons Auburn piles up the worst things get.  There is no point blaming anything on Tony Barbee.  We hired the right-hand man of the greatest recruiter in college basketball history which was what Auburn needed.  We hired the right guy.  He may or may not be a very good head coach but I think he can recruit better than this.  He is finding out what just about everyone knows now, Auburn is currently a black hole and a career killer when it comes to basketball coaches.  It is so bad it cannot even be used as a stepping stone.  Is it impossible?  No it is not impossible, just a few good players THAT CAN ACTUALLY SHOOT would do it and that does not seem like much but it has been 21 years with no end in sight.

These other bloggers trying to find positives and saying we are getting "closer" in basketball are defining the term "missing the forest for the trees".  Auburn has had 3 winning seasons in conference in 21 years and is statistically the worst team along with South Carolina by a long shot.  There are no signs of life coming from the program.  In fact I would say it is the exact opposite when you end a season with a point-shaving scandal.  Auburn basketball is in critical condition and the prognosis looks extremely bleak...

SEC about to finish off Auburn's tradition?

Is this a picture of Mike Slive?

Continuing the theme from my last post, this latest news has our roller coaster going down and I mean REALLY DOWN...   The news is the SEC possibly stopping the Auburn vs. Georgia game, the best football rivalry in age and stats-wise in possibly all of sports, as a continuous series.  Yes, I mean reducing "The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry" to Auburn vs. Vanderbilt level.  Think about that.  I am trying not to completely lose it on this but if they cancel the Auburn vs. Georgia series then what is the point?

If we do not move to the East and they do this, it is just not Auburn football anymore!  They have taken Tennessee from us, then Florida and now maybe Georgia?  All for Arkansas, South Carolina, Texas A&M and Missouri???  I understood all the arguments I am hearing now when the SEC expanded the first time.  There was also a good reason, to get the SEC championship game which I love.  Now it seems like we are splitting into two conferences and our only continuous games will be Arkansas, Bama, LSU, Texas A&M and the two Mississippi schools and then playing our real rivals every few years. This is the last test for Jay Jacobs, he lets this happen and finishes throwing away our tradition except for playing the stupid Iron Bowl he will in one way ruin Auburn football forever.

I would gladly give up the Bama game for Georgia.  I would gladly join the SEC East and get all our old rivals back and give up the Iron Bowl.  The Iron Bowl is not an enjoyable game and is only good when the game is over and you have won.  Of course even our latest and maybe greatest win in the series cost us a large part of our tradition at Toomer's Corner.  I actually enjoy the Georgia game.  I look forward to it.  I enjoy the lead up to it and the game (most of the time) and everything about the rivalry.  I know they will never cancel the stupid Iron Bowl but I just wanted to make a point.

Putting Auburn in the East or going to a nine game conference schedule seem to be the only way to save this series.  However Bama has stopped our move to the East and no one wants a nine game conference schedule even though they want to expand again???  All these morons running this conference seem to have no clue what they are doing.  You expand to 14 teams but act like a nine game conference schedule (which the Big 10 and Pac 12 already play) in a crazy idea?  Did they think this thing through at all?

I mean how stupid do you have to be to mess with the most successful conference in college sports?  You have won six national titles in a row and even had both teams in the game this year.  Yet you are dumb enough to drastically change it because "everyone else is expanding"?  Again there was a reason for going to twelve teams, what is the reason to go beyond it?  Just a little bit more money to the pile of it you are already making?  And then to do it you kill two of the greatest rivalries in the SEC in Auburn vs. Georgia and Bama vs. Tennessee?  To add two middling Big 12 schools out of the SEC geographical area?  Staying within the defined geographical area is one of the reasons the SEC has been so successful in my opinion.

It is just pure greed.  I am all for making money but when you start sacrificing the things that made you successful you are making a big mistake.  Mr. Blutasky from the Georgia side probably says it better than me.  Please hit the link and read his comments.  This is such a big deal because it is not something that can be undone or will get better with some time.  We hire a bad coach or a series of bad coaches, we can recover in time and have.  We have some bad recruiting classes, we can recover and have.  We go on NCAA probation, we can recover and have.  We stop our longest running rivalry and reduce it to the same as Auburn vs. Vanderbilt and I do not think we can recover.  We will have lost something very precious that we will never be able to get back again. 

State of the Program - Roller Coaster Ride

For the last two signing days since I started this blog I have done a "signing day review - state of the program" post.  The national "state of the union" is always around this time as well and it just seems like the perfect time to do it for a college football team.  It is the end of a complete cycle of college football starting with spring practice through the regular season and then the all important recruiting season.  You really have a good pretty good feel as to where the program is since most big fans have been into it almost daily for six months.  You have seen your team play an entire season and know the latest batch of recruits coming in.

The first thing I want to say which is also the theme of this post is that I have learned more than ever before how much being an Auburn fan is a constant roller coaster ride.  Up and down, up and down, up and down...  It never ends.  It also seems like it is getting worse.  Certainly all football seasons are like this but the supposed "offseason" has become even worse.  Just look at the small sample size of the month of January on this blog: the Chick-fil-a Bowl was an up, losing Michael Dyer was a down, hiring Brian Van Gorder was an up, Bama winning was a down, and on and on it goes.

There are a lot of things that have happened since my last post that I have been wanting to comment on.  Unfortunately they started coming so fast and furious that I thought I would wait till this annual post to cover them all.  Of course then I had to wait till I had a considerable amount of time to write this.  However I will try to keep my takes as tight as possible so this does not turn into "War and Peace" which could also be a good title for this post as well...

• Going up...  LSU's dumbness is Auburn's gain.  I want to continue to illustrate the roller coaster theme I introduced earlier.  Again we started the year on an up with the the Chick-fil-a Bowl, then losing Michael Dyer for good was a down, hiring Brian Van Gorder was an up, Bama winning was a down and then we were due for an up.  Of course like a real roller coaster not all the ups and downs are the same size.  The up we got shortly after Bama's horrific win was Les Miles' dumbing it up and thus causing a very good offensive tackle prospect in Patrick Miller (and an early enrollee) to switch to Auburn at the last minute.  We also gained an All-American fullback in Jay Prosch but of course I wish the kid's mom was well and he did not have to transfer to Auburn but from a pure football standpoint it is a good thing for us.

• Going down...  The hiring of Scott Loeffler as offensive coordinator.  As usual unlike seemingly most Auburn fans I did not think this was a great hire.  It might turn into one but I thought we could have done much better.  Obviously we tried on several others and struck out.  I thought the entire process was handled poorly.  I do not think you can wait that long, strike out and then go with your C-list guy that you could have had a month ago.  It ended up not hurting us on offense recruiting -wise but I think we are very fortunate that it didn't.  I also do not like the way the presser was handled including Chizik's and Loeffler's inane comments toward what we will use for our base offensive set.  Back to Loeffler, he has only been a coordinator anywhere for one season.  We would be better off not having his NFL experience on his resume and for the record BEING A GRADUATE ASSISTANT does not count toward "coaching Tom Brady".  If I hear that line again I am going to scream.  Finally, passing over Trooper and Luper, our best recruiters, for this position could hasten their departure from the Auburn program.

• Going up...  Auburn's expectations going into final stretch on Signing Day from being on so many big-time prospects' final short list.  The anticipation was high.

• Going down...  The horrific first 12 hours of Signing Day where Auburn was completely shut out and was being embarrassed nationally.  It all started around midnight before Signing Day when safety Patrick Moore chose TCU over Auburn (I mean really?).  Then the hits continued the entire next morning as Auburn lost out on DT Eddie Goldman, CB Ronald Darby, DE Leonard Williams, LB Kwon Williams, etc...  Auburn adding lightly regarded QB Jonathan Wallace seemed to signal the panic button had officially been hit.  I sat in my car at lunch listening to the carnage wondering how bad it was going to get.  This particular dip on the roller coaster ride was tough.

• Going up...  Five star offensive tackle Avery Young signs with Auburn and stops the bleeding.  As I said above, I was about as down as you could get football-wise till this news came in.  My gosh we needed something good to happen and it finally did.  Auburn would add another big time tackle in Jordan Diamond a few days later rounding out a great offensive recruiting class.  The other really good news out of signing day was Auburn suffered no defections and signed all the guys that had already committed.  That is no small feat in today's recruiting world.  Kudos to Trooper, Luper and Grimes for shoring things up on their side of the ball.  After the smoke cleared, we still need another good tackle and linebacker on defense but put together an outstanding class on the offensive side of the ball.  We got good players at every single position on offense including these sorely needed tackles.

• Going down...  The lack of people commenting on Auburn athletics that have a backbone.  As I have stated before, one difference between Auburn and Bama used to be that Auburn fans would for the most part have a more realistic view of their team and coaches as opposed to the homers across the state.  That is no longer the case.  In the name of "not wanting to write anything negative" it appears no one will post an honest opinion about anything on an Auburn site.  If anybody dares do it on one of the many Auburn message boards they are crucified.  It is amazing how just like the "tolerant left" politically, many of these "positive" Auburn posters will tolerate no dissent.  I am pretty sick of it.  The longer I live the more I realize that football coaches (and those in athletic administration) are not the smartest people in the world.  I am not going to blindly pledge my allegience to Gene Chizik and Jay Jacobs for all of time.  I, like many people, am a college graduate who has worked in my industry for almost 20 years.  I believe I, like many people, am qualified to give an educated opinion on how a business or football program is run.  I, like many people, have also played, coached and watched sports almost my entire life and again feel like I am qualified to give opinions on them.

• Going up...  Phillip Lolley "steps down" as Auburn's cornerbacks coach.  All I can say is FINALLY.  After watching Auburn's secondary get shredded over and over the last three seasons this is welcome news.  This news also proved my previous point as even Jay Tate was saying how great Lolley was.  The FACTS say different as Auburn has had one of the worst pass defenses in the nation for the last three seasons and this is the second time Lolley has "stepped down" as cornerbacks coach.  This along with replacing Ted Roof with Brian Van Gorder is just huge.  Auburn might actually field a decent defense, in all areas, for the first time since Will Muschamp's final season in 2007.

So after this roller coaster ride over the last two months and over this past year, what is the state of the program?  Things certainly have changed a lot.  Obviously coming off conference and national championships with a top five recruiting class in the house the state of the program was pretty good.  I gave kudos to Chizik the last two years for keeping the coaching staff together (obviously I meant our good assistants).  Unfortunately, right after I wrote that we lost Tracy Rocker to the NFL.  That was a big loss as Rocker had been an exceptional position coach.  The staff then came apart after ending the season but as the season proved, things needed to change.  Defensively at least, we are much better off now with Brian Van Gorder and whoever he hires in the secondary than we were with Ted Roof and Phillip Lolley.  Offensively, Gus Malzahn was the perfect guy to coach Cam Newton but his offensive style was never going to be a long term solution in the SEC.  I am not sure how much we upgraded in Loeffler but it was time for Malzahn to go.  Therefore I think overall we are better right now coaching-wise mainly because of the defensive changes.

As for the player-side, as I stated above I did not think things looked too good for most of the last three months.  However after the dust cleared, things look a little better.  First, again I thought we were able to hopefully add quality players at every position on offense especially offensive line which is where it all starts.  Defensively things were not near as good as we only signed seven defensive players and desperately needed a one more good recruit at both tackle and linebacker.  We should be better at both of those positions next year but we are still short on depth.

At the very least, after analyzing our roster as it is right now, our numbers look a lot better.  Our roster looks to have about the right amount of scholarship guys at each position.  Last season as I pointed out in this same post the situation at defensive tackle was dire with no experience and no depth.  It looks a little bit better this year but now we need some of these guys to start performing.  That is pretty much where we are at on the offensive line.  We have depth but no experience.  We were there last year as well and we saw that depth was meaningless if no one was good enough to play against good SEC teams.  We are in the same boat this year again.  We have a lot of young guys but somebody is going to have to produce.

Final words...  The state of the program is good but right now we do not look like a strong contender to get to Atlanta and that is the measuring stick.  The schedule is easier but like last year we are once again breaking in a nearly all-new offensive line and quarterback.  IF we can get decent play from the offensive and defensive lines, and that is a big IF after watching them get destroyed this last season then I think the biggest question mark is quarterback.  In my opinion it is all about Kiehl Frazier.  Scott Loeffler's job in my opinion is getting this guy ready to play.  I think Frazier should have been redshirted.  People need to remember that Frazier was the best mobile quarterback prospect in the entire nation and the USA Today Offensive Player of the Year.  We needed to replace Cam Newton (who we thought we would have for two years when we signed him) and we went out and signed the best mobile quarterback in the country to replace him.  Clint Moseley is not the answer and neither is a true freshman.  Our short-term future, in my opinion, lies in the hands of Kiehl Frazier.