culmo80

There is no excuse for this. There is only one reason this happened--our coaches failed. This is the 11th game of the season, so you can't blame Harsin. you can't blame recruiting, unless you want to tell me New Mexico State has a better roster (lol).

A&M's biggest selling point over other Texas teams was "we're in the SEC." Now that the Longhorns can say that. I think A&M missed their window to do something.

Well, it's Vandy. Auburn scored more than 30 points for the first time since the Samford game. I liked seeing Auburn not go conservative in the second half. But, they still were pretty sloppy. Dropped passes, needless penalties, etc. Arkansas isn't a sure win. We probably aren't beating Bama. So, we'll get bowl eligible when we beat New Mexico State.

The recruits aren't deciding their future based on comments on SDS. They're looking at the product at the field. That's why we've had a number of decommits in the last couple of weeks. And a guy like Freeze, with his experience, ought to be doing better than what he is doing. But it sure looks like he's just punted on the whole season. Waiting around for the ideal roster is a boneheaded move and will backfire. Jimbo Fisher has had his ideal roster for a number of years and that hasn't panned out. A good coach knows how to tailor his game plan to the players on the current roster (not the future roster). Freeze and Montgomery aren't doing that. They've made zero adjustments going all the way back to the Cal game when we all saw that this offense was in trouble. But hey, you all wanted Harsin gone after one year, but now you're urging patience for Freeze? Haha, okay. Wake up and realize that Freeze was the ONLY coach with a name willing to come to Auburn because of what the boosters have done over the last twenty years.

The team played their hearts out against Georgia, but I'd argue coaching was as much a problem as anything on the field. And that's been the case so far all season. Not having the right personnel on the field, needing to take timeouts early in the game, baffling playcalling, failure to adjust to what's going on in the game, etc. I'm getting flashbacks of Malzahn here. Will things get better? Yeah, probably, especially with better talent coming in. But I do question what Freeze saw in Thorne that he picked him out of the portal to be his guy. But with better players, will it be more missed opportunities like what we saw against Georgia? Are we going to get a bunch of "almosts" and "close losses" and "if only we had one more good player" and so on ... hope I'm wrong, but that's what I'm getting out of this coaching staff so far.

No, not a chance. We have an "offensive guru" with a horrible gameplan (or he's allowed Montgomery keep using an ineffective gameplan) and his chosen portal guy (Thorne isn't getting it done). The offensive line is also a bunch of handpicked guys that Freeze touted going into this season. Simply put, this is Malzahn 2.0, only without the great first season to skew his image....

Did Harsin get Thorne out of the portal and handpick him as the guy? Did Harsin draw up the gameplan for the first four games this season? Did Harsin decide to go with two quarterbacks going into this season (which means no quarterbacks)? I don't get why some people insist on blaming a guy who hasn't been on campus in almost a year. This is Freeze's gig. The boosters wanted him, some of you fans were gushing about him. Own it. This is your guy. This offensive guru (where have we heard that before?) has flopped so far. And don't give me "rebuilding" because a good coach can still get his team to show up for the game. Hell, I watched ASU hang with USC for most of the game and that Arizona State team just got blanked by Fresno State. A good coach uses what he has to the best of their ability. Maybe Freeze will turn things around, but he better do so in a hurry because it'll be a long October ... and those verbal commits aren't going to stay committed too long if they see more performances like what we saw on Saturday.

1. Disagree about Auburn's 2-QB approach. That may work against one of the worst FBS teams out there, but against teams that have an actual defense, probably not. I mean, when Ashford comes in, you know what the play is going to be. Still, week 1 was a good showing, and the team did what they were supposed to do. 2. Was Colorado that good, or is TCU that bad. It was a bad day for the Big-12. I think it is very likely TCU went into that game asleep, assuming they would roll over a historically bad Colorado team. No doubt Prime Time had his team ready to play, but he isn't going to catch anyone by surprise going forward. We'll see if the momentum continues. I'm doubtful, but I could be wrong. 3. Florida is just bad. Really bad. 4. Texas isn't as good as the media want us to believe. It was Rice they were playing, and the game was closer than it should have been for a lot longer than it should have been. Every year, we hear how Texas is back. I'll believe it if they upset Bama. 5. Not the best opening weekend for college football, but a decent appetizer to the main courses coming up!

Wasn't this the first time in a few decades UF has left the state of Florida for a regular season OOC game?

He didn't win it by himself, but without him, that Auburn team was 7-5 at best. Only 4 players off the 2010 roster were drafted into the NFL in total. Newton absolutely elevated that subpar team to unimaginable heights.

I think the point is that Urban's stance of giving players second chances is BS. He was willing to forgive violent thugs but not a kid who stole a laptop.

So basically every rivalry game that the preseason favorites play?

"Why would ESPN then reach another media rights deal with that new conference, whose members broke up the ACC and cost ESPN tens of millions?" Simple. Because there is no product otherwise. Nobody tunes in to the ACC Network to watch reruns of the 2009 Syracuse-NC State game. The only reason people watch any of these conference networks or even ESPN is for live sports. FSU has live sports. So do the other schools. ESPN is simply a middle man to provide those live sports to customers. ESPN will absolutely sign a new deal with some new conference in order to get the product to paying customers right now rather than squabble about hypothetical revenue in 2036. Conference realignment is coming regardless of what any of us want. The big-10 is expanding. the Big-12 is doing everything they can to stay relevant. The SEC isn't going to sit around and wait. The PAC-12 is going to be relegated to G5 status soon, and the ACC will simply die, with the member teams going to the other conferences. If the SEC is smart, they'll gobble up as many of those ACC teams as they can. FSU, Miami, Clemson, UNC, Virginia Tech ... those are the targets. This is an arms race between the SEC and Big Ten.

I didn't go to Auburn, I went to VMI. My dad, uncle, aunt, several cousins, two of my sisters, etc all went to Auburn. It's my family school. And don't try to call me a bandwagon fan because nobody willingly signs up for this sort of misery.

@RonMexico1 As for Malzahn's 2 national championship teams: the first wasn't due to anything he did. That was all Cam Newton. In 2009, Auburn went 8-5. In 2011, Auburn went 8-5. Only 4 total players were drafted off that 2010 team. You take away Cam Newton, that team was most likely a 7-6 or ... 8-5. 2013 was simply magic. It was a fun year, and I'll give him credit for that. He used the players Chizik brought in to great success. But it was his coaching that lost the championship game. It was his coaching that had Auburn lose at least 4 games a season after that. And he ended up being one of the highest paid coaches in the country ... He was a mediocre coach.

Hard to recruit when the players you are asking to come play for you are wondering if you're even going to be there in a month. The abortive coup attempted by the boosters after his first year tanked any chance he had of landing a solid recruiting class. And by the way, he was on track to have a good class.

How did he treat the players at Auburn? Vague accusations don't count as proof. And a zebra can't change it's stripes. Notice how there were zero allegations of mistreatment at BSU? You even had a couple of those disgruntled players essentially recant after they left.

It's dysfunctional when the men with money don't get their way. They wanted Freeze and so now things are looking up. Here's what happened. The previous AD, Alan Greene, wanted to be the Athletic Director rather than just a puppet for the boosters. He spurned them with their choices for coach (Kevin Steele, among others) and went outside to get someone else. Harsin may or may not be a good coach (he seemed to do just fine at Boise State, so I don't believe him to be a bad coach), but the boosters were meddling in the program. You also had a fake scandal after Harsin year one. Remember that? There was an inquiry into the way he treated players, the way he treated staff, and into whether or not he was having an affair. All of that came from unnamed sources. Long story short, Harsin was caught in the middle of a fight between powerful rich men and Alan Greene. These same guys, by the way, went behind Tommy Tuberville's back twice (Jetgate and Jetgate 2). All schools have powerful rich men behind the scenes, but at Auburn, the problem is amplified due to the fact that these rich men really get tired of rubbing elbows of Bama's rich men, who get to talk about how great UA is compared to Auburn, so Auburn's rich men do a bit more meddling than other places. Don't believe it? Brett Venables said as much when he turned down the Auburn job. He said the Auburn job "scared me." And he wasn't talking about recruiting or the schedule. Venables wasn't the only one to turn down Auburn. Another thing ... Harsin didn't get to pick his staff when he first started. Kinda hard to build success when you aren't really in charge of the program. Freeze is only doing as well as the program allows him to. The boosters like him, so they aren't causing problems for him. But, just like with Malzahn, should Freeze grow stale, they'll kick him to the curb too.

He did all that against the PAC-12. How'd he do against your team to start the season? This isn't about Auburn but about whether Bo is as great as his stats show. He put up great numbers in high school but spent most of his career at Auburn running away from defensive linemen. Part of that was the atrocious recruiting along the line that Malzahn did, but part of it was his inability to see the field. He isn't an NFL-caliber QB. He's a hell of an athlete and a good quarterback, but he isn't NFL-ready, which is why he's sticking around "one more year" at Oregon, hoping he can make people forget what he looks like against quality defenses.

I seem to recall one of the complaints against Harsin from the boosters and those on here is that he brought in too many Boise guys. Seems like Freeze is doing exactly the same thing ....

Why does it seem like the only people who want Kiffin to coach at Auburn are the boosters and the media?

I mean, both programs were desperate for a win, so let's not make this out to be some earthquake of a victory especially with a final score of 13-10. But, hey, a win is a win, and the team is having fun. We can probably beat WKU, but we aren't beating Bama at Tuscaloosa. We don't have the offensive or defensive line, we don't have the quarterback, we don't have the receivers nor the secondary. All that said, take the interim tag off Coach Williams. If he wants the job, give it to him. No need to go after some expensive hire like Freeze or Kiffin or Sanders ... not when we're just going to fire them in 2 years anyway.

Here's how it plays out with the most prominent names: 1. Prime Time. Coaching JSU and Auburn are very, very different jobs. He owns JSU but at Auburn, the boosters would either own him or get him fired. Y'all like to forget that the boosters are still a big problem at Auburn, but they're still running the show. But, let's say Prime Time does okay (8 wins in his first year, which would be an incredible feet considering the roster Auburn currently has and likely will have next season). How long until he bolts for a better job, such as FSU? I see Prime Time going to Auburn now much like the Kiffin hire at Tennessee 12 years ago. He wouldn't be at Auburn long and we'd be back where we started. 2. Speaking of Kiffin, he isn't coming to Auburn. At least, I don't see why he would. Remember the boosters? You think Kiffin won't clash with the likes of Lowder and Raines? And considering how much Kiffin has bounced around, he'd walk the second those good old boys tried to tell Kiffin what to do. Back to square one when he leaves. 3. Freeze. The irony.... they tired to fire Harsin over a trumped up claim that he had extramarital affairs and yet they want to bring in a guy who actually did have many, many extramarital affairs. I'm all for second chances, but you gotta be kidding me here, right? I mean, he did well at Ole Miss (and sure he was cheating to get those recruits in the door) and people say he'd recruit well at Auburn. But can he now that NIL is legal and he no longer can entice players to play for him with under the table money? I'm doubtful. Auburn needs to forget about a big name hire. Forget about turning things around right away because that isn't going to happen. Whoever is the coach next season is going to be looking at 6 wins max, but probably 5. The same problems plaguing Harsin's teams will still be there for the next coach. Whether it's Sanders, Kiffin, or Freeze, Auburn's going to really suck next season and possibly for the next couple of seasons. Accept that. Get out of the mindset of "Malzahn did it in year 1 and Chizik did it year 2!" because that is unrealistic, but then again, Auburn is a college of unrealistic expectations.

Why would he come to Auburn? No coach in the modern era of college football has left Auburn to go on to bigger and better things. They all have been fired and faded into oblivion, forced to resign, retired, or in TT's case, they violated his contract and he walked away. Auburn is a dead-end job, and until Auburn wrangles those boosters, that'll never change. The ability to run a lumber company does not equate to being able to run a football program.

Can any of you name a former head coach that left Auburn for bigger and better things? Because ever since Shug Jordan retired.... Barfield was fired and ended up coaching high school teams. Pat Dye was forced to resign. Bowden resigned and was never again a P5 head coach. Oliver retired. Tuberville left after boosters violated his contract (and he got paid bunches) but he never reached the same sort of success that he had at Auburn. Chizik, fired after 4 seasons and only 2 years after winning a national title. He's bounced around and hasn't really done anything meaningful. Malzahn, currently coaching the reigning national champions UCF. Steele: his defenses are doing wonderful things at Miami ... So, Auburn isn't a career builder. It isn't a stepping stone. It's a dead-end. You're naive if you don't realize that.

But he didn't. He had at least 4 losses per season after the 2013 campaign. He probably would have stayed, but he got that absurd new contract which made him one of the top ten highest paid coaches in the country. He was getting a lot of money to lose 4 games a year.

You're forgetting all the years before "two years ago." Namely, all the years since Fulmer's ouster.

You do realize that about 85% of the team on the field right now are made up of guys Malzahn recruited, right? This isn't the NFL.

Correct. Auburn's going to Auburn. Ah well, a solid decade of failure ahead of us ...

Most of those coaches who "ran off" weren't his hires and you know this. How could they be his hires since both the OC and DC were hired BEFORE HE WAS? Never forget that the same boosters who ran off Tuberville are still calling the shots at Auburn. Greene, for all his faults, stood up to the moneymen and defied them when they wanted to hire Steele as their puppet--I mean coach. There is a reason Brett Venables said the Auburn job "scared me" and it wasn't due to the recruiting or the schedule. There's a reason Kirby Smart ultimately was not picked for the job back in 2012. There's a reason Auburn had to grin and bear it when we got Gene Chizik from Iowa State (who had a stellar record of 5-19) after Tuberville had his contract violated and took the money and walked. Auburn has a toxic booster problem. guys like T-bone refuse to see that. They want to only blame Harsin. Now, maybe Harsin wasn't right for the job, but to focus solely on him as the problem is missing the whole story. Auburn's in for a long, long time in the wilderness. Guys who run lumber companies really need to stay in their lanes.