Game 4 Review: Kick It

Auburn 18  LSU 13.  I was happy for the players and fans in the stadium last night.  It was also nice to break LSU's heart as well.  However, for me, I still believe 100% in everything I posted last week.  I still think Gus Malzahn is a bad offensive coach that will never challenge for another SEC title.  I still want him gone from Auburn but the point is moot.  He will be back next season.  It now looks like I should have stuck with my team preview predictions.  The SEC is just really bad this year.  Auburn with this defense could beat everyone else on their schedule except for Ole Miss and Bama.  The difference between a 6-6 and a 7-5 or 8-4 season will come down to Arkansas and Georgia.  Georgia looks really bad right now.  They will not score much on this defense which brings me back to last night...

THE GOOD
The Auburn defense and Daniel Carlson.  A defense that was completely humiliated last season by Leonard Fournette held LSU to 13 points and Fournette to only 16 carries for 101 yards.  Those were all hard earned yards as well.  I will say I was wrong about big bad strong LSU.  As I had stated before, I did not think we would win this game but the Auburn lines, offense and defense, matched LSU and clearly had the advantage the majority of the game.  My favorite part of the whole game was watching Carl Lawson bury LSU quarterback Danny Etling toward the end of the game.

I will say though that LSU's offense looked worse than Auburn's.  I think LSU fans are right about needing a change down there as well.  Miles like Malzahn has shown he cannot recruit and develop a quarterback too.  This latest guy, Etling, looked tentative and scared throughout most of the game.  I was actually pretty shocked he was able to get LSU in position to have a chance to win the game.  There is no doubt though after last season's awful game that slowing down Leonard Fournette is not easy and the Auburn defense did that and avenged last year's awful showing.

Luckily Auburn had a kicker that could make the defense's work stand up since the offense was unable to put it in the end zone.  Daniel Carlson tied an Auburn record and booted six field goals last night.  That too is not easy.  He makes it look a lot easier than it is.  He hit field goals from various lengths and angles and nailed all of them.  Of course it kind of makes you wonder why Malzahn did not kick his field goals in previous losses this season where he went for fourth down conversions before he had to?  Regardless, Carlson is awesome and is already one of the best kickers in Auburn history and might wear the crown as the best by time he leaves.

THE BAD
Again this is pretty much the whole season, the good is the defense and the bad is the offense.  There was great effort on the offensive side of the ball and some pretty good performances by the players.  The offensive line had their best game of the season, Sean White played well and Kerryon Johnson looks like a star in the making.  Unfortunately bad play calling will continue to drag these guys down as Auburn runs up the middle over and over and over again.  Also Auburn ran the ball 50 times and threw it half that.  Finally the trademark of all Gus Malzahn teams, the absolute certain run up the middle after completing a big pass. 

On top of that, Auburn's red zone woes are becoming almost comical.  It sure looks like Gus Malzahn has removed the short slant or even the fade pass from Auburn's playbook.  It is just unbelievable.  All he tries are runs up the middles, screens and trick plays near the end zone.  Shockingly they do not work and almost came back to bite Auburn last night.  Why doesn't Malzahn use Franklin near the goal line like Terry Bowden did with Pat Nix and Dameyune Craig back in the day?  The biggest problem though is just not being able to call a straight quick-shot passing play and convert.

Auburn was lucky the defense played so well and held a big time program like LSU under 20 points.  That is not a realistic regular path to winning.  The most you can expect out of a good defense against a good team is to hold the other team to around 20 points.  The offense has to score more for Auburn to win big games.  Nothing changed last night from all the other conference games Auburn has lost the last two-plus years at home except the defense holding the team to under 20 points.  Auburn will not return to being a championship contender till the offense improves and that will not happen under Malzahn unless Auburn somehow gets the same type personnel they had in 2013.

THE UGLY
I am not sure how else to say this but here goes... LEAVE THE !@#$%&! TREES ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!  Good grief many other schools in this country have natural landmarks and monuments and do not have these problems.  Why is it that every scumbag loser in the southeast has to take his shot at destroying the Toomer's trees?  I mean Auburn finally wins their first conference game at home in over two years and everyone has to wake up to see one of the Toomer's trees on fire???  Enough is enough, again LEAVE THE !@#$%&! TREES ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!! 

THE LAST WORD
Auburn gets homecoming next week and then Mississippi State.  Auburn is better than State this season but you never know with this offense.  However short of another Clemson-like offensive coaching job Auburn should win.  The Tigers then get a week off to prepare for Arkansas at home.  Those are two winnable conference games even for Gus Malzahn.  He can turn down the heat and have all the sunshine pumpers back singing his praises with those two wins.  I think it will happen if the defense keeps playing this well and the offense plays as hard as it did last night in spite of the horrific play calling.

Game 3 Review: DONE

Texas A&M 29  Auburn 16.  Gus Malzahn is DONE at Auburn barring some kind of miracle.  Last night's debacle is just the latest in two and half years of bad coaching by Malzahn.  The stats speak for themselves.  Auburn led by Malzahn has not won an SEC game at home since beating South Carolina in 2014.  Auburn has lost six conference games in a row at home starting with Texas A&M’s last visit in 2014. Counting Clemson two weeks ago, Auburn has lost seven straight at home to Power 5 conference teams.  That is behind only Colorado nationally. In that space of time, Auburn has lost 10 out of 12 games in conference overall.

It is absolutely unacceptable and the guy deserves to be fired.  I also do not want to hear us being lambasted in the national media for doing it.  Auburn is not hard on coaches and has never fired one too soon except maybe if the coup has succeeded in 2003.  Terry Bowden deserved to be fired at the time he was.  He had the worst recruiting class in Auburn history in 1998 and had turned off every high school coach in the state.  Tommy Tuberville deserved to go in 2008 as it was obvious he just did not have the drive or stamina anymore to recruit especially against Nick $aban.  Gene Chizik obviously deserved to go after the 2012 abomination.

NONE of those guys got an early hook.  They all got their full chance to prove themselves and while all had good seasons they faltered and had to go.  Time told the story as it has with Malzahn.  He came in 2013 and with the biggest stroke of luck ever he inherited a team that perfectly fit his power-running-out-of-the-shotgun read-option Wing-T offense.  He had some of the best blockers in Auburn history and was successful.  The problem as I have documented over and over since then in this blog is that he has continued to call the exact same offense without that kind of personnel.

He has also over time shown he will run on first down over 70% of the time, tip his plays by his substitutions and worst of all throw the ball as little as possible.  We now see he absolutely cannot field a competent passing game or develop a quarterback.  He stated again last night as he has hundreds of times since he was hired that we are ONLY AND ALWAYS SHALL BE A "RUN-BASED PLAY-ACTION TEAM".  So if Pat Sullivan and Terry Beasley came to Auburn now they would never do anything because he will only allow Auburn to ever be a "run-based play-action team".  The guy simply refuses to change his offense regardless of his personnel and on top of that he is ridiculously predictable.

He has had plenty of time.  He is never going to change.  He needs to go, period.  I have never seen a more stubborn human being in my life.  Pat Dye who was as ground-based as you get even changed his offense to include a competent passing game (and won three SEC titles) but not Gus.  He just continues to do the same stupid things over and over again.  It is maddening to watch.  He has reduced me to watching the games in stony silence with a lot of sighs as I watch the same stupid plays again and again and again.  I mean how ironic is it that we finally hire an "offensive" head coach and he turns out offenses this bad?

This is no knee-jerk reaction.  This is no Monday morning quarterbacking.  This season, last season and the end of the one before that have been dismal failures.  Lets be straight, the Texas A&M team that came into Jordan Hare last night was no juggernaut.  I firmly believe Auburn actually has a better team and more talent.   On top of that, the Aggies have a coach that has done about as many dumb things as Gus.  They have faltered the last two seasons as bad as Auburn.  Kevin Summerlin is at about the same spot Gus is and he was on the road (!!!).  I think the Texas A&M will still lose several games before this season is over.

So what was the difference last night?  The difference was Texas A&M HAD A COMPETENT PASSING GAME.  It is that simple.  The Aggies made big plays and conversions in the passing game and Auburn did not.  You could not predict every play Texas A&M ran.  Summerlin went out and got him a quarterback and coached him up and Gus did not.  The Auburn defense did a pretty good job slowing down Texas A&M but Aggie quarterback Trevor Knight made the big play when he needed to including a huge fourth down conversion pass in traffic when it was still just 16-10.

Again though just like just about every other game in this horrible streak the Auburn defense played good enough to win.  They held the Aggies to under 20 points till the fourth quarter.  Last year, in the home losses coach Will Muschamp's defense did the same thing.  It is all on Malzahn's horrible offensive coaching.  Last night his defense gave the Auburn offense every chance in the third quarter forcing Texas A&M into three three-and-outs and giving the offense great field position on two of those drives.  Any kind of decent offense at home has to come up with the some points during that stretch especially when they have the best field goal kicker in college football.

I guess I am more upset about this game than most because I thought and still think this was a winnable game for Auburn.  Again I believe Auburn has more talent and was at home.  This was a game that had to be won and I thought even Gus could do it in my preseason preview but it seems I overestimated him.  Unlike the majority of people I thought this game was the big game in this two game stretch.  I never thought Auburn would beat LSU.  Again Les Miles has beaten Auburn 8 out of 11 times and LSU has the big strong defense that usually makes the Malzahn offense look worse.  Add to those facts that former Auburn offensive coach Dameyune Craig defected to LSU in the offseason and it does not look good.  Craig spent three years on Malzahn's staff and knows Auburn's offense inside and out.  It is already predictable but anything else LSU needed to know would be provided by Craig.

Speaking of Craig, who are all the Auburn fans, who have talked about what a horrible receivers coach he was, going to blame the drops from last night on?  Also I would like to point out that many Auburn fans completely overreacted to Auburn's "big win" over Arkansas State.  Please remember it only matters when you play good on offense against a decent team not a Sun Belt team.  I was completely disgusted by every Auburn site just completely making a 180-degree turn and declaring Auburn was awesome after beating Arkansas State.  I kept saying to everybody I talked to, lets see some of that against Texas A&M and then I will get excited.

Well what is going to happen the rest of the season?  At this point I think we lose to LSU, Ole Miss and Bama.  Gus still has a slight chance to cobble out a couple of wins against Arkansas and Georgia.  It is not likely but it is possible as neither of those teams are offensive heavyweights.  That would be the miracle that might save him for one more season but to me it will just be extending the misery.  I think a large amount of season ticket holders will leave if Malzahn is retained because no one can stand watching this terrible offense anymore.  Auburn needs to clean house at the end of the season and that starts in the athletic director's office where all this started.

Game 2 Review: Bounce Back

Auburn 51  Arkansas State 14.  After getting absolutely roasted by sports writers, analysts and bloggers from all over the country and even from the Auburn sunshine pumpers after the Clemson debacle last week, Gus Malzahn was able to at least pull it together and get his offense ready for Arkansas State.  Considering some of his previous awful-to-watch wins over outmanned non-conference foes, this one was pretty good.  However all this proved was Auburn is a lot better than Arkansas State.  Gus still showed all of his old tendencies that I have detailed many times in this blog.  I still think his offensive philosophy is flawed but for one night at least he can feel good.

He can probably still get Auburn some conference wins running what he did last night and that that is the only way he is going to be able to prove anything.  His offensive philosophy is ridiculously run-heavy and predictable but the SEC is terrible this season.  The SEC East is a complete joke and that does not look like it will change anytime soon.  Kentucky, Missouri and Vanderbilt are awful and the same Mississippi State that lost to South Alabama last week smoked South Carolina (and Will Muschamp) and Georgia barely beat Nicholls State (???) .

The West is better but just about everyone has problems.  Therefore again I think Auburn should be able to scratch out some wins even with Gus' flawed offensive philosophy if he can avoid any more Clemson-like meltdowns.  However he has to beat Texas A&M next week at home.  He loses that one and things look a lot tougher.  It is an absolutely huge game for both coaching staffs involved.  Both have been under fire and Aggie coach Kevin Summerlin has been a bigger flop than Malzahn after losing Johnny Manziel. 

LSU got beat up about as much as Auburn last week and it seems like every Auburn fan is now counting that as a win in two weeks but I would predict caution.  Les Miles is a complete kook but he has pretty much owned Auburn.  Auburn has only beat Miles three times in eleven tries.  THREE OUT OF ELEVEN...  Auburn can beat LSU because they are obviously "pass-challenged" as well but LSU has the defense that can stop Auburn's predictable offense.  So back to last night's game, yes while Gus threw a few on first down early and cut down on subs early it was still predictable a lot of the time. 

However Sean White, Kerryon Johnson, Kamryn Pettway and the offensive line were absolutely brilliant against the Red Wolves.  White had all day to throw and could run at his leisure.  Johnson and Pettway ran through and around Arkansas State all night.  The offensive line was a juggernaut even when running out of three to four wide receiver formations.  The wide receivers made good catches including one outstanding catch.  Auburn ran up 700 yards of offense.  Auburn absolutely dominated Arkansas State.

It was great and sorely needed but I do not think it erases all the problems of the last year and a half.  The only thing that will start to do that is big conference wins.  I will have to see it to believe that Malzahn will be balanced on first down consistently.  I will have to see it to believe it that Malzahn will not sub as much.  It is obvious that Auburn will continue to try and power run out of three wide receiver sets because Auburn just lost another tight end.  Everyone's great tight end hope, Landon Rice, just quit the team.  Auburn is back down again to the inexperienced Jalen Harris.  I just have never seen a great Auburn run game with out a good to great tight end.

Last night was also great but painful watching some of these good young wide receivers that will never be used to their full extent. Auburn made some great plays in the passing game but... Malzahn still threw the ball less than 25 times and ran the ball over 60 times.  I thought as always he missed a golden opportunity to work more on the passing game especially with John Franklin.  The guy sorely needs real-game passing reps.  Auburn had the first team out of the game.  IT IS NOT RUNNING UP THE SCORE PASSING WITH SUBS.  I mean come on!  I do not understand how it is better sportsmanship to bludgeon a team for almost 500 yards rushing than it is to throw a few passes with subs. 

There is not much more to say about last nights game.  It was a good bounce back after one of the worst offensive games in Auburn history but the next two weeks could tell the story of this Auburn season.

Game 1 Review: OFFENSIVE

Clemson 19  Auburn 13.  Wow.  I mean WOW.  I had already come to the conclusion that Gus Malzahn can only coach one way and is incapable of change but last night he even surprised me in how bad the team looked offensively.  In fact I have chosen the word "offensive" to be the theme of this review because our offense is in a word... offensive.  Here is part of the dictionary definition:

OFFENSIVE:
1
:  of or relating to an attempt to score in a game or contest; also :  of or relating to a team in possession of the ball or puck
2
:  giving painful or unpleasant sensations :  nauseous, obnoxious
3
:  causing displeasure or resentment

I can say for sure that watching the Auburn offense flounder around last night was "giving painful or unpleasant sensations".  It made me "nauseous" and it certainly caused "displeasure" and "resentment".  I have seen a LOT of bad offenses in my 40+ years of cheering for Auburn but I do not think I have ever seen a worse game plan or worse play calling by a coach in all of that time.  It sure looked like Gus Malzahn had lost his mind.  I do not even know where to start.  The quarterback rotation?  Having our smallest wide receiver make 3 runs to open the game?  Not using Kerryon Johnson in the first quarter?  The idiotic trick plays?  The awful blocking?  Well I will stick with my usual format and start with...

THE GOOD
Obviously this is the defense.  Wouldn't you know it?  Auburn fields it's best defense in a decade and the offense hits rock bottom when we have a supposed offensive coach.  You cannot make this stuff up.  As I write this I am just shaking my head...  back to last night though.  Auburn played it's finest defensive game in a long time last night.  Those guys played their guts out and they kept Auburn in the game till the end.  They continually got stops and gave it back to the offense in good field position.  

The defensive line got the best of Clemson's veteran offensive line most of the night except in the pass rushing department where Clemson was able to slow them down or Deshaun Watson was able to slip through.  With that said though Auburn still held one of the best offenses in the country to way below their usual output in every phase of the game.  The Auburn defense held Clemson to only 150 yards rushing on 44 attempts for only 3.4 yard average per carry.  They held Clemson below 250 yards passing and most importantly they held Clemson to just 20 points (if they had made their last PAT).  

Auburn should win any game at home with those defensive stats.  It is completely unacceptable to lose when the defense is playing that well.  Clemson wide receiver Mike Williams had 174 yards receiving and did seem to make the big catch every time Clemson needed it but overall the Auburn defense got the job done.  There is no way they were going to completely shut down Clemson.  It is just makes Auburn's pathetic offense look that much worse.  If Auburn had any of the defenses from the last 8 years playing last night the score would have been 60-13.

I saw good defensive play from all of the Auburn defense last night.  The defensive line was nasty and lived up to expectations outside of pass rushing but I believe that will improve.  I saw more plays out of the linebackers last night than I have seen the previous 3 or 4 years.  Props to Deshaun Davis, that guy was fired up!  I thought the secondary hung in there and fought hard.  Tray Matthews had that one really dumb personal foul penalty but played a great game otherwise.  Carlton Davis lost a few battles but I still think he is one of the best.  Rudy Ford had a bunch of plays as well but man I wish he would have held on to that interception early that hit him in the hands.

Again, you can nit pick some details but the defense got it done, the offense on the other hand was...

THE BAD AND THE UGLY
My constant question last night was wondering if Gus Malzahn had lost his mind.  At times it was like he was trying to put Auburn in the worst position possible to lose the game.  On top of calling one of the worst offensive games anybody has ever seen he had the temerity to get testy with reporters asking him about his ridiculous quarterback rotation.  This guy is something else.  He is paying paid over FOUR MILLION dollars to coach this team and has had a year to get ready for this game and THAT GAME PLAN is what he came up with???  Literally I do not think it is possible to do much worse.  I think anybody who has watched football for more than five minutes could have done better.  What in the heck was Malzahn thinking??????

I guess lets start with the ridiculous quarterback rotation.  Gus can be as belligerent as he wants in the post-game presser but rotating quarterbacks like that has never worked and will never work and everyone knows it.  It is not an opinion, it is a fact proven throughout a hundred years of football.  The only question is why in the world one of the highest paid coaches in college football would think it would work?  Auburn started with Sean White and the supposed "starter" played one series (a three and out) and threw one pass in the first quarter.  The next drive saw John Franklin enter the game and run another three and out.  Also these first two drives featured three runs from Stanton Truitt and none from Kerryon Johnson.  

The next drive saw Jeremy Johnson enter the game as the third quarterback in as many series.  Johnson completed three passes and led Auburn to a field goal.  Johnson returned the next drive and went three and out and got sacked twice.  White returned for Auburn's fifth possession of the night and presided over another three and out.  Somewhere in there Chandler Cox took a turn as quarterback as well.  What good could possibly come from putting Chandler Cox at quarterback?  So by halftime Auburn had four three and outs in five possessions and 38 yards of total offense with Kerryon Johnson only getting five touches. 

Auburn would open the second half with yet another three and out before moving into Clemson territory on the next drive behind a couple of big Kerryon Johnson runs and a penalty.  Johnson would then throw an ugly interception that looked a lot like last year.  The defense then intercepted Clemson and gave the offense the ball at the Clemson 35 yard line.  Auburn would then get close on a big 16 yard completion from Sean White to Marcus Davis but would stall out in the red zone as the coaches decided to go for it on 4th and 1 at the five yard line (in the THIRD quarter) rather than get the points.  This drive also featured some of the bizarre quarterback switching as they took White out after hitting the big pass and put in Johnson (???).

Also, as Gus Malzahn has always done, every single time Auburn completes a pass Malzahn calls a run up the middle the next play.  Only one time last night outside the last desperation drive did Auburn throw another pass after a completed pass.  The other team simply never has to worry about consecutive pass completions against Auburn and if I am writing it here then it is safe to say it is common knowledge among Auburn's opponents.  Gus Malzahn has to be the most predictable coach I have ever seen.  I no longer give Gus near as much credit for 2010, other coaches had to have been involved, he never would have run that offense like that as head coach.  

Back to the game last night, after getting stopped near the goal line, the Auburn defense forced another three and out and the offense got the ball back inside Clemson territory near midfield.  The offense would move into the red zone again on a big run by Kerryon Johnson and a Sean White pass to Ryan Davis (which was you guessed it followed by an inside run).  The drive would stall and Auburn would kick a field goal.  Clemson would then take it down for the winning touchdown.  Auburn would get the ball back and go on their only long drive of the night when wide receiver Kyle Davis caught an under thrown prayer from White for 43 yards (which was you guessed it followed by an inside run).

White would then be intercepted at the goal line when the Auburn brain trust decided again to go for it on fourth and goal at the 8 yard line.  So FYI the game would have been TIED after Clemson missed their PAT if Auburn had kicked chip shot field goals instead of going for it on 4th and goal twice.  Again, it is proven football strategy (like not rotating quarterbacks) to always take the points when you are on your home field and your defense is playing well.  Do not go for it till you have to.  If Auburn had done this, the game might have gone to overtime.

After this latest failure, the defense would once again rise up and hold Clemson to three and out and give the offense the ball once again in good position at the Clemson 36 yard line.  I have already read a lot of nonsense from these homer Auburn sites about how the offense picked it up in the second half.  I guess they did somewhat but in my opinion it was mainly because the defense kept stopping Clemson and giving them awesome field position.  So in other words, the little success on offense was basically a credit to the defense.   

Back to the game, the offense would finally score a touchdown on a Kerryon Johnson run but only after a Clemson roughing-the-passer penalty after they had stopped Auburn on 3rd and 10.  Clemson would get the ball back and grind out a 10 play 60 yard drive against the tiring Auburn offense aided by a clutch Deshaun Watson to Mike Williams completion on 3rd and long.  Clemson coach Dabo Swinney then chose to give it up on downs with only a six point lead rather than kick a field goal to seal it when he has a great kicker.  Clemson won the game but what a terrible call.  This decision could have cost Clemson the game when they could have easily won it with a field goal.  Obviously the ghosts of the "Kick Six" were swirling around in Dabo's head.

Auburn would then get the ball back with 40 seconds left.  Sean White would then complete three passes to put Auburn in Clemson territory with 10 seconds left.  White would then chuck two passes into the end zone and both were close.  I mean it would have been one of the most ridiculous wins in college football history if Auburn had grabbed one of those passes.  I mean winning a game against the #2 team in the country with maybe the worst offensive coaching I have ever seen???  It would have been unbelievable.  Of course the next thought is what if Malzahn had just started Sean White or Jeremy Johnson and left him in the game and just had a vanilla somewhat balanced game plan?  

I think Auburn might have won the game.  Instead the Auburn nation is left to wonder what if about the game and wonder if Gus Malzahn will muster any common sense at all with his game planning and play calling.  I mean I left it out in my description of the second half above that in those drives there were a bunch more quarterback switches.  John Franklin came in to hand off the ball to Kerryon Johnson several times.  Jeremy Johnson made a few more appearances as well as Chandler Cox and Kerryon Johnson at the quarterback position.  It just does not make any sense.  It is just bad coaching. 

It was not just the quarterback rotation.  Why in the world did we have Stanton Truitt running the ball to start the game?  The guy is 5-9 and 185 pounds!?!  Why did we wait so long to start using Kerryon?  Where was Kamryn Pettway?  What was the deal with all the stupid trick plays?  Was our whole plan to try and trick our way to a win?  It is all so dumb.  Why waste valuable practice time on Chandler Cox at quarterback for a play that is never going to make much?  Sean White can hand off to any of our running backs and make the same yardage?  Again is Malzahn completely off his rocker?

Finally, I mentioned it in the preview and I think all knowledgeable Auburn fans were worried about our new tackles.  It sure looks like that worry was well founded.  Robert Leff and Austin Golson got their butts kicked most of the night.  It was painful to watch early on.  Of course like last year there was no tight end to help out most of the time and it appeared that Auburn tried to run out of a three-wide set most of the night against a stacked blitzing Clemson defense.  Stupid!  I did not see many good blocks by Cox or Pettway either.  What is Malzahn doing?  What the heck have these guys been working on in practice all year?

THE LAST WORD
This game obviously raises questions about the rest of the season for the team and especially the offense not to mention Malzahn's long term viability as head football coach.  You have to wonder about Malzahn when he stubbornly states they might actually continue this quarterback revolving door.  I mean really?  Fortunately for Auburn the SEC is down this year as I thought in my preview and was proven this weekend.  Auburn will get some wins and look better against some of these teams but will also have a loss or two more than I thought.  

Again Gus Malzahn has averaged being a 7-5 as a head coach and coordinator at Auburn outside of 2010 and 2013.  He is looking to hit right on that from where I sit.  As for his long term viability as Auburn head coach, other than defending his awesome game plan he also made his favorite reference and that is to call Auburn a "run-based play-action offense".  It is obvious now in year four that being a "run-based play-action offense" is all we will ever be under Malzahn.  He has pretty much shown he is unwilling and incapable of changing his offensive philosophy at all.

The only way he can be successful is to have the personnel to run his shotgun Wing-T offense like he did in 2013.  He has proven he can NOT be successful any other way.  Therefore from this vantage point I do not think he will be very successful the rest of his career at Auburn because I do not see the stars aligning personnel-wise like they did in 2013 anytime soon.  Malzhan has the rest of this season to prove me wrong but after last night's offensive showing things do not look promising.  As I have written in this blog many times, the problems started in 2014 but his offense last season and now to start this season is simply offensive to anyone who believes in a balanced offense and a competent passing game.

Auburn 2016 Preview: Cloudy... with a chance of rain

The weather forecasts throughout this summer have gotten pretty hilarious.  I will check them and it will show a high percentage of rain for a certain day.  When the days comes it will indeed look cloudy and dark but then clear up and everything will look great.  Another day when rain is not predicted, a beautiful day will turn dark and stormy in what seems like the blink of an eye.  Other days have just been very cloudy and you cannot tell which way it is going to go...  That is what the 2016 Auburn Tiger football team is looking like to me.  Many people see the clouds lingering from last season but know things are going to look brighter this year.  Other people see the clouds and know that more rain is coming...

Which one is it going to be?  My first thoughts on this season were that Auburn would not be a title contender but would be a better team.  I was thinking Auburn has a little more experience in certain areas and is due to have the ball bounce their way this season.  I was thinking 8-4 and bowling in Atlanta or Florida.  I was ready to create this preview and then boom Jovon Robinson was kicked off the team.  Auburn people also seemed to be split on how much that will hurt the Tigers.  Many people believe Kamryn Pettway will step up like Peyton Barber did last season and shoulder the load.  Other people do not believe a second string fullback last season is going to dominate as the star running back.

I believe it will hurt.  Auburn was a better football team last season after Robinson started running well.  However I still think the deciding factor is Gus Malzahn's stubborn playcalling.  This could be a good thing if it pushed Auburn to run a balanced offense but after the last two seasons I do not believe Gus Malzhan will ever run a balanced offense.  In fact I think the Auburn offense will look the exact same as it has the last three seasons.  Gus Malzahn has not changed his playcalling at all, The only thing that has changed is his personnel and opposing defensive coordinators have a lot more film on his tendencies.  

Auburn had the perfect personnel to run Malzahn's shotgun-Wing T power running offense in 2013.  He had maybe the best left tackle in Auburn history in Greg Robinson who would be the second pick in the NFL draft along with other great players on the offensive line and at tight end.  He would also have maybe the best blocking fullback in Auburn history in Jay Prosch who would also go on to the NFL.  He also had a great running back in Tre Mason and the best quarterback for his attack outside Cam Newton in Nick Marshall.  Finally he had a game breaking super freak in wide receiver Sammie Coates for the few deep passes you have to hit to keep running like that.  He had veterans everywhere on that offense and they were perfect for his scheme.  Auburn would then as everyone remembers win the SEC and almost win the whole thing. 

Of course then as I always like to point out, Florida State in that national championship game would be the first ones to exploit the weaknesses in Malzahn's playcalling.  Auburn in their hurry-up ALWAYS runs the ball when they get a first down.  Auburn would have won the game with a few play-action passes on those hurry-up first down plays but Gus stubbornly ran the ball.  He has not stopped since.  In 2014, Auburn lost a large part of their monstrous blocking when Robinson and Prosch left.  However they gained a great player in wide receiver Duke Williams to team up with Coates and an improved Nick Marshall passing-wise.  If Malzahn would have balanced his play calling a bit over the season, Auburn might have played for it all again.  

The defense definitely let Auburn down in 2014 but the offense died trying to run the ball too much against Mississippi State and Georgia.  Only once in 2014 did Malzahn unshackle the passing game and that was against Bama and the result was over 600 yards total offense on $aban and Bama in their stadium.  Auburn then came into last season with another good offensive line but did not have ONE single game of experience from the H-backs or tight ends who are essential to a power-running attack.  On top of that Auburn's only strength on offense was a large group of decent wide receivers.

None of that mattered though as Gus returned to running the ball most of the time and only throwing when he absolutely had to.  Auburn continued to try and power run behind a three wide receiver set when everyone knew that he just was not going to throw out of it very much.  It was hard to watch.  Everyone blames the quarterbacks and they were not that good but most successful offenses throw the ball on first down half the time (Bama under Lane Kiffin are right at 50%).  Auburn hovers between running the ball 70% to 80% most games on first down.  Malzahn continually waited till third and long to throw the ball.  

I also suspect that Auburn runs the same passing plays over and over like they do running plays.  For example, Malzahn loves calling the wheel route to the H-back once a game and last season you could see the other teams would read it immediately and that H-back would be covered up.  Malzahn also got White sacked several times running that stupid slow-developing double play-action play (fake to running back and fake to reversing wide receiver) on an obvious passing down.  Those are just the two that were obvious to me, again I believe there are others.  

I have read other Auburn writers pointing out Sean White having some great games last season but in all those games Auburn was behind or it was close game where Auburn was continually stopped for no gain on first down.  He did do some good but the overall offensive attack was still predicated on running the ball most of the time.  Malzahn, other than the 2014 Iron Bowl, never continues to throw the ball.  I am not talking about being Mike Leach here, I am talking about some games depending on your personnel and the opposition being much more balanced. Bama with monstrous Derrick Henry still averaged more passing yards per game than rushing.  Auburn has been the opposite last season and probably every other season Malzahn has been at the helm.  

Malzahn and Auburn in general seems to think a great passing game is bad.  You always have to run the ball the majority of the time.  That is the reason Auburn only has two wide receivers that have had 1000 yards in a season in the history of the school.  So coming back to 2016... I think Malzahn is going to do exactly the same thing this year.  "We are a run-based play-action team".  That is a quote directly from Malzahn and he obviously means it.  I thought it was just describing a certain season but it appears to be his prime directive for all seasons regardless if he has the right personnel for it or not.

That is why Auburn has under achieved the last two seasons and I think it will continue to be the reason Auburn cannot beat the big boys this season.  Fortunately for Malzahn I think Auburn will be able to run on many of it's opponents this season and Malzahn can always beat somebody he can run on.  However I think Auburn will struggle as they did last season against the big strong defenses like LSU, Georgia and Bama usually have.  It will be especially tough as it will be for all future Auburn teams in even years when the Tigers have to play Georgia and Bama on the road at the end of the season while Jordan Hare Stadium lies dark and dormant in November.

Auburn has not played a big game at home in an even year in November since Cam Newton and company beat Georgia to win the SEC West.  Right now it looks like they never will again thanks to AD Jay Jacobs "helping the conference".  I notice there is no way Bama would ever let Auburn and Tennessee be paired together like that on their schedule.  This single act by Jacobs will continue to haunt Auburn football for a long time if it is not fixed.  The season ticket holders who have a job are sure getting hosed this season with five straight home games to open the season.  It is really tough to go back and forth to Auburn five weeks in a row.  

I see Auburn beating Arkansas State, Texas A&M, Louisiana Monroe, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Vanderbilt and Alabama A&M.  That is seven wins right there.  Texas A&M and Arkansas could upset the Tigers and the loss of Jovon Robinson could raise it's ugly head in those games but I still think Auburn is the better team this season and is due to win some home conference games.  Things get dicey after that.  However if the ball bounces right and of course depending on the opposing run defense I see Auburn upsetting one of these remaining five teams on the schedule.  I think the loss of Robinson will stick out more in these games but some of these teams have issues as well.

Clemson has a history a lot like Auburn.  They rarely do well as a favorite and while they still have a great team they also lost some great players from their national runner-up team last season.  I think having to play a solid Auburn team in Auburn to open the season is a tough assignment for anyone.  I would favor Clemson but I would not be surprised a lot if Auburn pulled the upset.  I also think Auburn has a good chance against Ole Miss.  They return maybe the best quarterback in the conference in Chad Kelly but lost a LOT of good players off their Sugar Bowl champion team last season. 

I do not think this Auburn team has much of a chance against LSU or Bama.  I think this is where Malzahn's play calling and Auburn's deficiencies at quarterback will catch up with them.  I do not think Auburn can consistently run on either of these teams and I do not think any of Auburn's quarterbacks are good enough to beat them through the air.  If the Auburn defense is as good as advertised then I think Auburn can hopefully keep it close but I just do not think the offense is good enough.  Finally there is Georgia.  The Georgia game is the hardest for me to get a read on with a new coach and new quarterback.  

Kirby Smart was a great coordinator at Bama and Mark Richt had his deficiencies in other places but not against Auburn.  Mark Richt dominated Auburn over fifteen years going 10-5 and it could have been worse.  It took last second plays in 2001, 2005 and 2013 for Auburn to win and two of the greatest teams in Auburn history to win the other two in 2004 and 2010.  I simply cannot see Kirby Smart doing that well against Auburn.  However they do have a dominant back in Nick Chubb if he can make it to the Auburn game and the home field advantage has definitely kicked in for this series in the last decade.  Auburn has not won in Athens since 2005 so I think you have to favor Georgia but Auburn might have a decent chance in this one.

Now a quick look over this year's team...  For the first time in a long time, Auburn is supposed to have a good defense.  It seems like forever since that has happened.  However Auburn has proven talent on the defensive line and in the secondary.  I think Carl Lawson, Montravius Adams and Carlton Davis could be some of the best in the country.  The Tigers also have a ton of good recruits on the line.  The coaches have done a good job stockpiling the defensive line after struggling with depth for so many years.  I mean at least some of these big time recruits have to come through right?!?  There are a bunch of them that everyone else wanted including the #1 recruit in the country two years ago, Byron Cowart.  Cowart and a bunch of the interior linemen got some good experience last season and should be much better this year.

The Tigers also have a ton of solid experienced players in the secondary.  If the line is better you have to think they will surely benefit and be better as well.  I look over the roster and see: Carlton Davis, Rudy Ford, Tray Matthews, Josh Holsey, Stephen Roberts, Nick Ruffin, etc...  Again these guys are good experienced players.  The only question mark on defense is at linebacker where you do not see the experience you do at the other positions.  However Tre Williams looked better at the end of last season and T.J. Neal transferred in after a big year at Illinois.  If the linebacking can just be solid and as always if Auburn can avoid injuries, it sure looks like the Auburn nation will see a real Auburn defense for the first time in a long time. 

Things do not look as good on offense.  The line is solid but you have two new and inexperienced tackles in Austin Golson and probably Robert Leff and that is a big red flag right there.  Auburn also still has zero experience at tight end since Jalen Harris got hurt last season and the tackle they put in to sub for him transferred.  The interior of the Auburn line is the strong and experienced but those guys cannot do it all.  They will finally have some help at H-back with Chandler Cox and Kamryn Pettway stronger and a full season of experience under their belts.  They struggled at times last season but hopefully they will be much better this season.  

It looks like both Cox and Pettway will also be in the lineup a lot at the main running back slot as well.  These two players appear to constitute the bulk of the Auburn power running game now.  As I stated above I am still not sure about Pettway as the main guy at running back but I guess it does not matter as there is no one else to do it.  One thing is for sure, an injury to either one of these guys could be devastating.  The star outside the tackles and Auburn's premiere playmaker will be running back Kerryon Johnson.  He showed flashes of being a great player last season and should only be better this season.  The problem is that every defense will be keying on him every play especially if he only comes in game when we are going to use him.  

That is another problem that people seemingly just do not understand and that is offensive substitution packages.  All I hear is how Gus wants to get back to the hurry-up but you simply cannot run a hurry-up offense anymore substituting like Auburn does.  Basically the defense is allowed time to sub if the offense subs.  The only way to really run the hurry-up now is to not sub for a series but Auburn seems to sub on just about every play.  Another problem is that all these substitution packages also many times telegraph what you are going to run.  I have heard more than once that other teams can make a high percentage guess on what Auburn is going to run according to who is in the game.  I know I can guess many times or I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt Auburn will not throw to a certain wide receiver.  Which brings us to the wide receiver slot...

Wide receiver is obviously a big question mark.  It looks like Auburn will open the season starting the veterans that do not appear to have game breaking speed or athleticism.  Of course I guess job #1 for them in Malzahn's offense is blocking.  Auburn has several top flight wide receiver recruits coming in but I am not sure what kind of impact they can make in an offense that throws as little as Auburn.  Auburn only completed 179 passes for the entire season in 2015.  I guess the main thing Auburn needs is someone like Sammie Coates or Ricardo Louis who can stretch the field for those occasional bombs if Auburn has a quarterback that can even throw them.  That brings us finally to the biggest question of the pre-season...

Who will start at quarterback to open the season?  I have never had a doubt.  While I have seen others go back and forth I have never wavered.  I have thought it was going to be Sean White as soon as the bowl game ended.  Once the coaches changed to Sean White last season they did not waver in their commitment to him.  They brought him in on one leg in the Georgia game when it was obvious he should not be in there.  They started him in the bowl game after he had not played in almost two months other than that series in the Georgia game.  They were never going back to Jeremy Johnson and I think they knew Franklin was too raw from the start but wanted that option for spot duty this season and hope that maybe he can start next season if White does not live up to expectations this season.

I think they will bring in John Franklin for wildcat duty as Malzahn still loves that antiquated package but White is the man.  I think they have dragged it out to make sure none of them leave because they might need all of them.  They need some athleticism at the quarterback position for certain situations so they need Franklin. I think they wanted Johnson to hang around because White could easily get hurt again and it is nice to have an experienced senior as a back up no matter how maligned he is.  It all makes sense.  I cannot fault any of their thinking there. 

I think Sean White is a decent quarterback but I just do not think he can lead you to a championship or beat Bama.  I just do not think he is good enough.  However he should do a decent job in most of the other games as I talked about above.  I think again he could be better of course if we ran a more balanced offense but that is not going to happen.  The offense is going to look just like last season but hopefully White himself will be better after getting a bunch of playing time last season.  The X factor is going to be those new tackles, the tight end spot and the wide receivers.  I just think it is going to be hard to run consistently with inexperienced tackles and tight ends.  

The biggest thing Auburn has going for it is the rest of the SEC West outside LSU and Bama losing a lot of good players.  Again I think that opens up a couple more wins for the Tigers.  I think I am going to stay with an 8-4 prediction but as always there are a lot of variables out there with the biggest being injuries.  I see a bit of sunshine peeking through but it is still very cloudy out there and there is still a chance of rain.  Let's tee it up and find out.  War Eagle.

THE BIG CON

During a spring where I guess after reading other Auburn sites we are all supposed to be super excited about softball and gymnastics, I find myself not that pumped.  Oh and I forgot the equestrian team.  I do not mean to poke fun or marginalize these sports.  I have a daughter who plays sports.  I am all for women's sports and Auburn being successful in every sport it fields a team.  However there are three large facilities built for the three largest and most popular sports at Auburn and they are men's football, basketball and baseball.  Like it or not, these sports are the main indicator of athletic success at any university. 

I am tired of many Auburn fans seemingly ignoring the absolute disasters men's basketball and baseball have become not to mention football at times.  The NCAA men's basketball tournament is considered one of the greatest spectacles in all of sport.  I am sorry people, I am not excited when our men's basketball team is not a part of it for the THIRTEENTH YEAR IN A ROW.  And until they give Plainsman Park to the softball team, baseball is more important.  Other than two great seasons in football these sports have not been successful at all during the decade plus reign of athletic director Jay Jacobs.  Jacobs continuing to remain employed as Auburn's athletic director really is "The Big Con". 

Here is Jacob's flowery bio from Auburn's website.  The bio starts with his brilliant five goals which are basically the same five goals of any college athletic department.  They are: "Winning, graduating student-athletes, managing the department's fiscal affairs, complying with SEC and NCAA rules and providing a positive gameday experience."  First "providing a positive gameday experience" does not mean jack if you do not meet objective #1, winning.  Jacobs can build all the fifteen million dollar scoreboards he wants but if the football team finishes last in the division, it really does not matter.

Auburn should be able to find plenty of other candidates that can handle graduating student-athletes, managing fiscal affairs and dealing with compliance.  An AD can get himself fired by failing in those categories but any decent one should be able to take care of them.  The difference between a great AD and the rest is winning and taking care of business in the rest of them.  This is where Jay Jacobs has miserably failed and if he is conning people in the other categories like he tries to do in the "winning" category, he might be worse than even I think he is. 

The next thing Jacobs brags about in his bio is "The Auburn Athletics Department has consistently ranked in the top 10 percent of the NACDA Directors Cup."  Read it carefully, not the top ten but the top ten percent.  I mean the number of athletically successful "Power 5" schools is not that big.  I am not sure how great an accomplishment it is just being the top ten percent for overall athletics for Division 1 schools.  It is good but I think Auburn could accomplish that feat without Jacobs.

Next we come to the national championships at Auburn since Jacobs took over...  Auburn has clamed 11 national championships during Jacobs' reign but lets take a closer look.  First, three of those national championships are from the equestrian team.  Again I do not want to demean or take anything away from that great accomplishment but I am going to go out on a limb and say Jacobs has pretty much nothing to do with our equestrian team strength.

(NOTE: The equestrian team has just won another national championship this spring and shockingly they have not updated Jacob's bio with it yet so you will soon hear of another national championship won under him.)

Second, the rest of those except for football in 2010 and women's track in 2006 are all swimming and diving national championships and were all won under coach David Marsh except for 2009 which was won with his recruits.  It is so pathetic that Jay Jacobs tries to take credit for anything David Marsh has done since Jacobs is widely credited with hastening Marsh's departure from Auburn.  He can deny all he wants but there was friction between the two.  Why Jacobs was not giving David Marsh anything he wanted is beyond me.

I stated earlier that the three men's major sports are the main indicators of athletic success at any university.  As with just about any rule there are exceptions.  There are times when a coach and a school becomes so good in one of the other college sports that they rise up and join football, basketball and baseball.  This happened with swimming at Auburn with David Marsh like it did at Bama in gymnastics under Sarah Patterson or at Tennessee in women's basketball under Pat Summit.  Most smart athletic directors then do anything they can do to keep these legendary coaches.

Bama and Tennessee did with Patterson and Summit.  These coaches stepped down from their positions for health reasons.  David Marsh left Auburn still in his prime after becoming one of the most successful coaches in the history of sport.  He has more national championships than Patterson or Summit or even Bear Bryant.  Marsh won twelve national championships at Auburn.  Any decent athletic director should have done just about anything to keep him and Jacobs did not.  He did not do everything he could to keep Marsh and then he tries to use Marsh's success for his own personal gain.

Jay Jacobs had little to nothing to do with David Marsh's success at Auburn.  Marsh won five of those national championship before Jacobs even took over.  I think you could even say seven.  Jacobs is apparently claiming the two Marsh national championship from 2004 when Jacobs did not even officially take over till December of that year.  Jacobs will stop at nothing to grab something that makes him look better.  I think he did not like Marsh having a much higher profile than himself at Auburn.  I think Jacobs wanted all coaches having success to be ones hired by him and maybe that is why he spent so much time trying to run Tuberville off and why I do not think he was too sad to see Marsh go.

So again we are left with the 2010 Auburn football national championship and a 2006 women's track national championship on Jacobs' resume.  I guess Jacobs gets credit for hiring Chizik who hired Malzahn who convinced Chizik to recruit Cam Newton.  However he also should get the due blame for Chizik's complete meltdown two years later.  Also, the bulk of the 2010 team outside Cam Newton and a few more was recruited by Tommy Tuberville.  The offensive and defensive lines were recruited by Tuberville.  Also, all of the champions on the 2006 women's track team were seniors recruited before Jacobs ever took over.

The rest of Jacob's bio blathers on about all the building projects he has been involved in as well as media and apparel deals.  Of course the first one he brags about is Auburn Arena which as I have said in this blog many times he and the Auburn administration deserve no credit for.  They only built Auburn Arena for basketball because it was cheaper in the long run than renovating and maintaining the Beard Eaves mausoleum.  The Auburn administration would get credit if it has been built after the great 1999 season or earlier.

 Am I saying Jacobs deserves no credit for any success at Auburn?  No.  I am saying the record of success is much smaller than it is made out to be.  This is also just establishing a base for the most damning evidence against Jacobs and that is Auburn's record in the men's major sports during his tenure.  Most Auburn fans seem to have no idea how bad it is.  It is always about how things are "looking better next year" yet that year never seems to come.  I do not know think there is any athletic director in modern history that has survived at any of the SEC's traditional top tier schools with a record like Jacobs.

LET US LOOK AT THE NUMBERS...  beginning with baseball since it is the first men's major sport that started after Jacobs took over in December of 2004.  In the ELEVEN seasons since Jacobs took over Auburn has gone 137-193 in conference.  This has included FIVE last place finishes in the SEC West compared to only one first place finish.  In fact, the one first place finish in 2010 was Auburn's ONLY winning season in conference in the eleven seasons of baseball under Jacobs.  Folks, that is TEN losing seasons in conference out of eleven under Jacobs.  COME ON.

This has also included THREE coaching hires made by Jacobs, he inherited Tom Slater.  It is still ridiculous though this man has gotten to make three hires in this sport.  Especially after his first two were dismal failures culminating in the embarrassing hiring and firing of Sonny Galloway.  Everything is supposed to change, again, with his latest hire in Butch Thompson yet at the date of this post Auburn is once again back in last place in baseball in the SEC West.  Auburn is already guaranteed ANOTHER losing season in conference right now.  That brings it to 11 out of 12 losing seasons under Jacobs.  COME ON.

Moving to basketball which I pretty much covered in my last post but let's just do a quick recap...  Auburn is an ABYSMAL 58-126 in basketball under Jay Jacobs.  This has included THREE last place finishes and as with baseball only ONE season with a winning conference record and NO NCAA tournament appearnaces.  Like baseball that is TEN losing seasons in conference out of eleven under Jacobs.  During this time Jacobs also made the worst hire in Auburn basketball history in Tony Barbee whose surly conduct was about as embarrassing as Sonny Galloway in baseball.  COME ON.

Some people would argue that he made the best hire in Auburn basketball history in Bruce Pearl.  Technically that is right but going after a disgraced Pearl was an obvious move anyone at Auburn would have done.  First, Auburn would never even have a chance with Pearl without his NCAA violations at Tennessee.  Next, nobody was going to give Pearl, who was still under an NCAA show cause penalty, the money a desperate Auburn was so it was not like it took much skill or maneuvering to get him.  I am glad we got him but I do not give Jacobs much credit for "pulling it off". 

Finally, we come to football...  first are we supposed to give Jacobs a lifetime contact because we won an SEC and national championship in football in 2010 and the SEC again in 2013?  It seems many Auburn fans would answer "yes" to that question.  I guess all I can do is agree to disagree.  Jacobs started his career as AD at Auburn embarrassing himself and the university with his public feud with Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville.  It was more than obvious that Jacobs wanted Tuberville gone and wanted to make his own hire in football.  That is why I do not think Tuberville's football record should count much for Jacobs.

In football we are only 48-40 in the SEC under Jacobs WITH Tuberville and ONLY 28-28 WITHOUT.  That is counting Auburn's 8-0 and 7-1 records in 2010 and 2013 folks.  Jacob's first embarrassed himself with his public bickering with Tuberville and then topped that by running one of the most embarrassing coaching searches ever that culminated in the hiring of Gene Chizik.  It was obvious in both cases how inexperienced and unqualified he was to be an athletic director.  Things were looking bad till the magical 2010 season.

Again though as I stated earlier the bulk of the 2010 team outside Cam Newton and a few more was recruited by Tommy Tuberville.  The offensive and defensive lines were recruited by Tuberville.  There were 27 seniors on that 2010 team and that was the foundation Newton was able to work his magic on.  If Cam Newton had come back for his senior year in 2011, Auburn would still have gone 7-5.  The offensive and defensive lines were terrible plus several other spots that had been manned by seniors the year before.  It is hard to give Jacobs much credit for things done by Tuberville because again he made it clear he did not like or want Tuberville.

Of course, even if you give Jacobs full credit for 2010 you also have to give him full credit for 2012, arguably the worst season in the history of Auburn football.  It was a meltdown of unprecedented proportions.  That was his guy and the buck stopped with him.  Jacobs should have been gone after a season that bad along with his failures in baseball and basketball I list above.  However a weak president not wanting to rock the boat before his retirement and an even weaker board of trustees allowed him to stay.  Those same reasons are why he continues to enjoy job security.

We now come to Malzahn and opinions obviously vary on him and his future at Auburn.  Let's just look at the facts and those are that Malzahn is 13-11 in the SEC and has one first place finish and one last place finish.  He did a great job in 2013 but has done a mediocre to bad job the last two seasons.  This has culminated in a 2-9 record in conference since Auburn won at Ole Miss on November 1st in 2014.  Auburn has gone 0-5 in conference games at home during that time.  I do not know how hot Malzahn's seat is but we know nobody is super secure in the SEC.  Is the Auburn leadership going to let Jacobs select yet another football coach if things go bad?  I shudder at the thought.

I did not even mention the cowardly way Jacobs tried to hide behind a committee of Auburn's two greatest players when hiring Malzahn.  I cannot fathom watching him lead a third head football coach search.  On top of that, as I will continue to point out, Malzahn and all future Auburn head football coaches can thank Jacobs for having to play Georgia and Bama basically back-to-back on the road every other year.  That one thing might be Jacobs biggest failure at Auburn as it has doomed Auburn to basically never having a chance to win the SEC in football in even years. 

There you have it.  Again, Jacob's football hires are 28-28 in conference with two first place finishes and two last place finishes.  Auburn's baseball record is 137-193 in conference with only one winning season and five last place finishes in eleven years (soon to be twelve) under Jacobs.  Auburn's basketball record is again 58-126 in conference with only one winning season and three last place finishes in eleven years under Jacobs.  Those teams play in Auburn's largest sports facilities on campus and bring in the bulk of the revenue that runs the athletic program.

Auburn's men's major sports outside two magical years in football have been spectacularly awful under Jay Jacobs.  He has had over a decade running Auburn's athletic department but has failed in his stated goal of winning in the most important sports on campus.  He has been given more than enough time to try and successfully run Auburn's athletics department.  It is obvious now that he is not the man for the job and change is needed.  There is absolutely no reason Auburn should be this inconsistent or flat-out bad in the men's major sports.  How much longer do we have to suffer through this?  LOOK AT THE NUMBERS.  #FIREJAYJACOBS.

Auburn Basketball 2015-16: BROKEN

Another year, another disaster for Auburn basketball.  It seems like it will never change, in fact at this point I think there is a good chance it does not ever change.  There are always plenty of excuses.  This player did not make it, this player quit, this player got hurt, etc...  Blah blah blah...  I have heard that my entire life yet the record never changes.  Auburn is now the worst program in the SEC officially, Auburn now has the most conference losses since the conference expanded in 1992.  Auburn is now 151-257 in the conference in that time.  Auburn hired the best basketball coach they will ever have on the plains two years ago and things have gotten WORSE record-wise.  Yeh yeh I know, it is all about to change next season.  Whatever.  Here is how we got here as I have documented in the past:

• Jeff Lebo was fired at end of 2009-10 season.
• After 2009-10: Auburn Basketball Memories
• After 2009-10: Auburn Basketball Analysis (Auburn has only won 27 conference games since this post was written)
• During 2010-11 season: Is Auburn Basketball Cursed? (The Barbee era was over before it barely began)
• After 2011-12 season: Critical Condition (Auburn now has only three winning conference records in TWENTY FIVE YEARS)
• After 2011-12 season: Auburn Basketball is at a dead end
• After 2012-13 season:  "I did not post one thing on basketball this year.  Nothing has changed since the post I wrote last year titled "Auburn Basketball is at a dead end".  In fact things only got worse.  My gosh we lost our last 10 games in a row and 16 out of 17 games to end the season.  Coach Barbee even gave up during that span.  He completely lost his fire, never got off the bench and just doled out platitudes after games.  Basketball is a complete and full blown disaster.  It is dead and it is the Auburn administration's fault for letting it die on the table over the last 20 years... There just seems to be no hope for Auburn basketball."
• After 2013-14 season: A Pearl of Great Price (We got Bruce Pearl!  He can save us!)
• After 2014-15 season: More of the Same till the End (Maybe things are still looking up?)

 

That brings us to the end of the 2015-16 season.  I will start out saying the same thing I wrote last year: 

"Nobody was more excited about Coach Bruce Pearl coming to Auburn than I was...  However I was pretty disappointed watching another season completely unravel.  I certainly knew he would not do it overnight but I expected more than a 4-14 (5-13 this season) conference record.  That is only one (or two) more win(s) than Tony Barbee's "worst season ever" in 2012-13.  Barbee went 3-15 in conference that year.  

I know Auburn did not have a lot of talent for Pearl to work with but I am sorry they had enough talent with a good coach to do better than 4-14 (or 5-13).  It has been extremely difficult to watch.  I have heard a lot about this team fighting and not quitting but you can say that about Jeff Lebo's teams.  The only thing that matters is wins and losses and again 4-14 (and 5-13) just does not cut it.  This team has as much or more talent than many teams Auburn has had over the last 20 years that had better conference records with worse coaches."


I know the team had some serious problems with injuries and defections so maybe some of those comments are unfair.  However the facts are sobering.  Pearl became the first coach in Auburn basketball history to lose 20 games in back-to-back seasons and set another infamous record of being the first Auburn basketball team to have SEVENTEEN DOUBLE-DIGIT LOSSES.  Auburn now has SEVEN losing seasons in a row and again only three winning conference records in TWENTY FIVE YEARS.  I mean COME ON!!!

I then wrote after last season that I thought Auburn needed to finish with a winning conference record or at least go 8-8 this season.  I thought another losing conference record would hurt Pearl's sales pitch and make it more difficult to convince recruits that Auburn is turning it around.  I thought the home attendance would drop as well.  Well here we are and we went 5-13.  The Tigers were only one game better and there was no great tournament run this season.  In fact Auburn was flat-out embarrassed in the first round by a bad Tennessee team 97-59.  At one point the Vols led 74-37?!?  That is just completely unacceptable.

Will it make it more difficult to recruit?  Or can it get any harder to recruit to Auburn for basketball?  Probably not.  I think the attendance will drop without winning.  Nobody wants to watch teams this bad.  I will say that once again like last season there was one lone bright spot during the season.  Last season it was the tournament run and this season it was consecutive wins over Kentucky and Bama at home.  Those were huge wins and if the bottom had not completely fallen out of the season they would be a lot bigger.  I definitely understand you cannot take any win over Kentucky in basketball for granted.  It just does not happen much.  Also it was very important for Pearl to get a win over Bama this season.

The major reason for the season going down the tubes was the suspension and then the departure of leading scorer Kareem Canty after those big wins.  Everyone wants to use that as an excuse but a player misbehaving is still on the coach.  Senior Cinmeon Bowers also had to be disciplined during the season.  Can we not find a decent player without all the drama?  I do not understand why so many of these players cannot stay out of trouble.  You are playing big-time college basketball and you have a good thing going.  Why can't you just PLAY THE GAME???  Every year it seems something like this happens.  I keep reading that this season is just a blip on the radar?  What???  It is par for the course in Auburn basketball.

Where does that leave this program?  I have used terms like: "cursed", "critical condition", "dead end", "disaster", etc...  I think at this point I will just simply say Auburn basketball is BROKEN.  I still think Bruce Pearl is a great coach.  He just has too long a track record of success.  I think these two seasons reflect more on this broken program than on Pearl.  Now I think he could have done some things better but it is mostly on Auburn.  At this point I do not think he is going to be able to fix it.  We might get one decent season out of him but I have no doubt he is just waiting for a spot to open at any decent basketball school.  I do not blame him.  As I have written before, the Auburn job appears to be a career-killing black hole for coaches.  The longer Pearl stays, the longer he will be stained by the program.   

On top of all this as I wrote last season, I am not sure when or if Auburn will ever make it back to the NCAA Tournament.  Things have changed so much since Auburn last made it to the Big Dance in 2003.  At that time, a winning conference record pretty much guaranteed an NCAA Tournament berth.  Auburn got in with an 8-8 record in 2003 (and 9-7 in 2000).  Nowadays an SEC team can go 12-4 in conference and not make it.  That does not bode well for Auburn.  You have to get some big wins against out-of-conference foes in addition to doing well in your conference.  It all paints a pretty bleak picture.  People can debate some of the subjective opinions I have written here but the actual events and records cannot be debated.  The program is broken.
 

I wish I knew a solution.  I wish anybody knew a solution and they could do something about it.  The only thing I can think of is to just try only taking kids from Auburn's base recruiting region.  Just take the best available and grow that team to seniors.  They will not be world beaters and probably won't finish near the top of the standings but they might could finish 8-8 and doing it with more of a homegrown team might bring the fans out.  Recruit the best available from as close to Auburn as you can get.  Get kids that have grown up around the SEC.  It certainly cannot hurt, things pretty much cannot get any worse.

 

I base this on Auburn's greatest team, the 1999 team.  Every starter on that team except Mamadou who was a special exception was from Alabama or Georgia.  Chris Porter, Doc Robinson and Bryant Smith were all from Alabama.  Scotty Pohlman was from Georgia.  I know that is a once in a lifetime team but I think that is one of the reasons that team came together.  I think it is also true about many of Bama's special basketball teams as well.  These coaches continue to bring in these mercenaries who have no attachment to this area of the country and have proven they will quit and leave as soon as they do not get their way or something bad happens, i.e. Kareem Canty.

 

I am not sure how to end this.  I get the feeling I will be writing the same things next year again.  As evidenced by the list above and this post I have already written them many times already.  I do not have any illusions about championships in basketball but Auburn should have more than three winning conference records in TWENTY -FIVE YEARS.  Auburn should be better than this.  The buck ultimately stops with the administration.  It is not all this administration's fault basketball is in this state but they have done their part like the ones before them.  Auburn basketball is broken.  Can anyone fix it?