Simplified scheme, better results.

That’s the hope of Auburn interim defensive coordinator Charlie Harbison during its Outback Bowl matchup against No. 18 Wisconsin.

Harbison, a longtime staff member of former defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson’s, is keeping the old boss’s 4-2-5 scheme around for one more game before newly-hired defensive coordinator Will Muschamp takes over the reins in January.

Harbison, the Tigers’ safeties coach, and Auburn fans are seeking better results on New Year’s Day, though.

“It’s not like anything’s different,” cornerback Jonathan Jones told AL.com last week. “It’s just the same old, same old.”

Reports out of Auburn indicate the intensity in practice is at a different level as the Tigers continue bowl preparations, presumably to impress Muschamp as he evaluates his current stock of roster talent.

“It’s a whole lot of carryover,” linebacker Kris Frost said. “It’s really not much different at all, to be honest. The intensity and the urgency of practice is higher, because obviously we have a new coordinator. Just the feel of practice is quicker, more intense. But other than that, it’s pretty much the same stuff. We’re going into this game just polishing things up, making sure that we do everything we can to have everyone in line when it comes time to play.”

Is it realistic for the scheme to be the same and execution to be different?

Auburn’s last outing was an Iron Bowl loss in which Alabama exploded for 55 points — most in the rivalry’s history — as the Tigers extended a five-game streak of allowing at least 31 points to Power 5 opponents to six games.

The defense during six of the final seven games was so abysmally bad that it seemed, at times, as if Auburn defenders had no idea of how to execute the play calls. Johnson’s scheme is notoriously complex — he had to simplify it in each of his two seasons at Auburn — and while Harbison is looking to strip it down the bare bones, that doesn’t mean Tigers players will be able to execute.

Sure, players want to impress Muschamp, and they want to “leave out on a good note” as safety Rudy Ford put it to AL.com. And coaches do, too, as staff changes are likely imminent after the bowl game.

Auburn faces a one-man wrecking ball in Badgers tailback Melvin Gordon, and while the Wisconsin passing game is pedestrian at best, Gordon is good enough to run his way to a Wisky win himself.

Fans are clinging for better results as much as coaches, chiefly Harbison, are. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.

This, this just might be insanity.