Auburn is good to contend for a championship once every couple years, but can it compete perennially?

That’s the question beginning to surface again about the Auburn football program.

The Tigers have won more SEC championships during the past decade than any other team, and came 13 seconds away from two national championships in four seasons.

But those same Tigers have seasons like 2011, 2012 and 2014.

Reach the top. Steadily trend downward.

After one of the most dominant runs to the national championship in college football history in 2010, it took just two seasons for it all to come crashing down and for Gene Chizik to be shown the door.

Following a miraculous run from worst to first in the SEC last season and a near upset of undefeated Florida State in 2013, Auburn regressed after a 5-1 start and now looks down the barrel at a disappointing 8-4 season.

How does Auburn make sure it does what’s needed to maintain the level of success it’s enjoyed during the past 10 years, and not fall into the trap of two losing seasons and coaching changes that also stamped the decade?

Discipline, and attention to detail. It’s those things that have been lacking as Auburn has gone 3-2 down the stretch.

Athletics director Jay Jacobs and head coach Gus Malzahn made some changes to hopefully buck that trend, and curb any small issues that could become major problems.

Jacobs and Malzahn instituted weekly 8 a.m. meetings every Thursday to make sure they, along with other football support staff members, are on the same page.

“It’s just good business,” Jacobs told Kevin Scarbinsky of AL.com in a January interview. “To make sure everybody knows what’s going on. It’s accountability more than anything, and you take away any assumptions.”

Malzahn has been quick to express his — and the team’s — disappointment in not attaining any of its goals this season, and he’s also admitted the lack of discipline manifesting itself over the past six weeks begins with him.

If the records of the last two seasons were flipped, Malzahn would be praised for the way he’s gotten the Tigers back on track and in the national spotlight. Instead, he made the national championship game in his first season on the Plains — a season in which fans had low expectations — and the bar was set higher moving into 2014.

Very few teams repeat as champions. Even fewer have that level of success in the sport’s toughest division.

Even still, Malzahn and Jacobs welcome the expectations that follow a 12-win, SEC championship and national runner-up season.

“Personally, I like the high expectations,” Malzahn said on his radio show last month. “I think our players do, and I know our coaches do.”

Said Jacobs: “All [last year’s 12-2 season] shows you is, when you have everything together, you can be here again.”

While Malzahn welcomes the expectations and admitted his disappointed of how the Tigers have played down the stretch, the second-year head coach also cautions that he’s still building a program that was left deflated.

“Last year, we almost got it done, this year we’ve done some good things,” Malzahn said. “It’s headed in the right direction.”