Are we headed in the right direction?

[auskull 239]

This is a simple question and many naysayers post routinely. I would like to hear from those who are satisfied with the direction of our football program and why you believe so. I would also like to hear your goals for the football program and if we are moving towards achieving these goals.

[aujeff11 6,243]

35 minutes ago, auskull said:

This is a simple question and many naysayers post routinely. I would like to hear from those who are satisfied with the direction of our football program and why you believe so. I would also like to hear your goals for the football program and if we are moving towards achieving these goals.

No we are not. It seemed like we turned a corner, offered a contract extension, and then went to the same old stuff while losing more games than this ultra talented roster should’ve lost. 

Nevermind, I didn’t read that you only wanted tbe positive Pollys to answer your question.

[McLoofus 35,182]

I can't answer "yes", but I can offer some reasons why we *might* be moving in the right direction:

-We have deficiencies on our roster, but not many. We have recruited well. We continue to recruit well. At a level Auburn's never seen consistently. And Gus gets *good* kids.
-Bowl game aside, Gus's kids play hard for him.
-The program, as far as we know, is squeaky clean.
-This is a championship-caliber defense, at least for one more year. And I don't see the dark days of the early '10s returning. We'll take a step back once Brown, Davidson and Holland are gone, but our floor seems much higher than it was 5 years ago. MUCH higher.
-For the most part, Gus has shown that he can learn and evolve.
-Gus always seems to have a good kicker. In fact, Auburn hasn't had to sweat the kicker position in 10 years. I think it's something we take for granted. Even the poor kid who missed all the kicks at LSU all those years ago was a really good kicker. Damon Duvall, Scott Etheridge.... sorry. Just trying to accentuate the positive.
-Jacobs is gone.
-Building on that, a lot of Auburn's problems going back to 2003 and possibly further haven't necessarily been on the sideline or in the locker room. Gus has made a lot of that go away, and this contract seems to have given him even more leverage. These are structural issues that, if resolved, could better position the program for success even beyond Gus's tenure.
-Facilities, facilities, facilities. We might finally be catching up to the big boys. It's not just shady recruiting tactics that have given some other schools an advantage over us.

About all I've got, I think. Like you said, there is another side to the coin that has plenty of outlets for discussion elsewhere.

 

[abw0004 10,102]

Here are my thoughts if it helps.

Every year we have gone out and fixed an issue of the year before.  After the 2013 and 2014 seasons, Gus realized our biggest issue was our soft defense.  So Gus went out and hired Muschamp and then Steele to turn around the defense.  Now we have one of the best defenses in the country and the coaching staff is to continue this trend.  After the 2016 season we realized we needed to be more balanced and get a higher profile quarterback.  Gus brought in Chip Lindsey and landed Jarrett Stidham.  Auburn is one of 4 teams that average 225 yards in both rushing and passing per game this past year.  One of four teams.

Despite what many on here say, Gus is growing into the coach we need him to be.  These last two games are not a good litmus test.  In the SEC Championship we were injured in key positions.  Our top corner was out with a concussion, middle linebacker (QB of the defense) was out, and our star running back was not 100%.  Not to mention Marlon Davidson and Derrick Brown were injured in the game.  Many can turn and say we should have developed guys under them better, and we should have with our running backs, yes.  But honestly if UGA was in the same boat and the tables were turned, do you think they would have won without Chubb, Michel, and their middle linebacker in Smith?  Probably not.  The bowl game, is tougher to wrap your head around.  We flat out should have won this.  I know the players weren't in this, and this happens to teams.  Alabama did the same thing a few years back in their non-championship bowl game.  But this was still a game we should have won.

For me the key of improvement I want to see for 2018 that Gus needs to set his sights on is the predictability and if there are any "tells," work to remove them.  This and continue working on offensive depth, like Steele has worked on his defensive depth.  Most importantly, work on the offensive line depth.  My biggest question mark will be that offensive line.  Improve the line, and eliminate as much drop-off as possible, and I think it could be another special season.

[corchjay 5,311]

Gus has been at AU since 2009.  Minus 1 year for his first year being a head coach.  He has had spectacular offenses in 2010 and 2013.   Good offenses some other years.  He's won a National Championship as a coordinator and many think he was the coaching behind that championship (that's not really my opinion) but he was a part of the staff and why he was hired as the head coach.  He's had 1 loss seasons and seasons where he's barely had a winning record.  He's come in with incredible game plans that blow the competition away and others where they fall flat.  You know what.   Every other team has that as well.  We have about the same as all the other teams.  

We have been a part of 3 western division championships in his 8 years as a coach.  We have won 2 sec championships.  Made it to 2 finals winning one and losing another.  That is probably averaging way over our "standard" for success on a greater scale. 

Gus is a "scheme" coach.  There are tons of them.  Doesn't make them better or worse then other coaches.  Execution is the main thing and sometime you aren't going to play well or have multiple turnovers.  It's just the nature of the game.  We play on average 3 teams every year that has more talent on their roster then we do.  So just laws of averages would put you around 9-3.  

People expecting AU to continually be top 5 every year is going to be disappointed.  Should we strive for that? yes.  Should that be the expectation? no.  Should we encourage it? Yes.  

We are who we are and I'm ok with that.  

So to answer the OPs question I think we are headed in the right direction.  This is a very complex discussion that can be looked at on multiple layers and levels.  Thankfully the athletic cash cow isn't facing the FBI or NCAA.  That's a positive right there considering our other teams.  

[AUIH1 1,515]

1 hour ago, aujeff11 said:

No we are not. It seemed like we turned a corner, offered a contract extension, and then went to the same old stuff while losing more games than this ultra talented roster should’ve lost. 

Nevermind, I didn’t read that you only wanted tbe positive Pollys to answer your question.

This is how I feel as well.

wde

[Grumps 3,693]

Auburn beat the two teams thought to be the best in the country. Do you think Alabama could have beat UGA then us and then UGA again the next week? No. No team in college football could have played that 4 week schedule better than we did. THAT'S a credit to where we are.

Do I wish we had creamed UCF? Sure, but just like it was our emotion that made us better than UAT, it was our lack of emotion that enabled us to lose to UCF. We are not good enough to treat each game as a business trip. But we are already elite, and we are getting better.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

42 minutes ago, abw0004 said:

Every year we have gone out and fixed an issue of the year before.  After the 2013 and 2014 seasons, Gus realized our biggest issue was our soft defense.  So Gus went out and hired Muschamp and then Steele to turn around the defense.  Now we have one of the best defenses in the country and the coaching staff is to continue this trend.  After the 2016 season we realized we needed to be more balanced and get a higher profile quarterback.  Gus brought in Chip Lindsey and landed Jarrett Stidham.  Auburn is one of 4 teams that average 225 yards in both rushing and passing per game this past year.  One of four teams.

This ^. The first 2 years of Gus's tenure, we struck gold with an offense no one had seen and, at least in 2013, a QB/RB tandem that ran it to perfection. We rode that wave and didn't concern ourselves with anything else. At the end of 2014, it became apparent that the world had adjusted and we weren't going to be able to just outscore everyone, so we needed to start fixing what was broken... and there was A LOT broken. We were lacking at receiver, QB, linebacker, DB, and in some ways on our lines. Basically, we were our running backs, and the occasional star on the line. Since then, we have shored up our receiving corps, our linebackers, and our defensive line. We've brought our overall defense back to the top of the heap from the dumpster fire that it has been almost every year since Tubberville left. We've finally started landing some serious QB prospects (something that was never a priority up until Malzahn joined the staff in 2009), and keeping viable back-ups ready to roll. We've got a young and talented receiving corps that just keeps getting better. Our DB unit, as a whole, has started to show some real fundamentals for the first time since Tubberville... they were lights out for the first half of the bowl game. To top it all off, our on field performance keeps improving each year. Look back at 2010 and 2013. Yes, we went to the National Championship both years, but we barely beat several teams to get there. Last year, we began destroying opponents.  This year, we continued that trend, but increased the number of opponents we destroyed, and we handily beat our two biggest rivals who are both good enough that they have one more game left.

Next year is going to tell us a lot about our Offensive Line recruiting.  Are the young guys we brought in going to be the ones to take us to the next level, or is that the first thing that we set out to, but haven't fixed? We still need to build depth on the Offensive Line and the Secondary. If we can shore those two things up, we will finally be in a position where we can compete annually, and not crap the bed when we get our shot.

Look at the current situation we are in. We are surrounded by the two teams in the National Championship (which I prefer to refer to, this year, as the "lost to Auburn bowl") and they are our biggest competition for recruits. One of them has proven to have unfair advantages in recruiting and protection from the NCAA. The other is lead by a disciple of the first who learned every trick in the book from him. We, on the other hand, run one of the cleanest programs in the country and are keeping up with both of them in recruiting and on the field. There are numerous powerhouse programs around the country, that don't have to compete with them directly, who can't keep up. To me that says the most of all.

[Tiger 8,817]

Data says yes:

7-6, followed by 8-5, followed by 10-4/SECW Champs

But I feel the answers will be all over the board. It depends how much confidence you have in Gus to continue growing and how fast you think he can eradicate the Coaching 101 blunders from his game plans. I think as he is now, even with his deficiencies we can have good seasons. However if we want greatness he still has some work to do. JMO

[Barnacle 9,064]

We need to up our game in recruitment. Plain and simple. Otherwise I think we need to get used to inconsistency, regardless of who our head coach is.

[AUsince72 11,084]

Stats are great & trending records are great...but bottom line is Gus needs to reduce the number of games per year in which the team either looks unprepared or unable to adjust to adversity to 0-1 per year, rather than the 2-3 per year he's averaging.

Pat Dye didn't win them all but I can't recall too many (if any) games in the 80's where AU didn't at least give everybody hell.  Tuberville almost always had that one game per year (usually an 11 am game against Arkansas) where the team was flat and under prepared, but that was usually it..they fought hard and competed like a well coached team, even in their losses.  As much as I despise saban and give him little credit because his lordship is bought and paid for by his NCAA cronies, one thing I WILL give him credit for is his teams are always prepared and competitive.  If he bitches about mistakes or poor play after a game, I have to look hard and squint to see what he's referring to.

If Gus can stop taking 2-3 vacations during the season per year, and learn to use his multiple 4*+ RB's rather than driving one until the tires come off and then continuing to drive him on the hubs, then AU will be heading in the right direction.

[JBiGGiE 2,488]

We're trending upwards and doing it the right way, which is hard to do when you're two rivals are the STATE schools and likely enjoy extra curricular benefits. I think too often we lose that perspective.

[AUFlyer99 647]

27 minutes ago, JBiGGiE said:

We're trending upwards and doing it the right way, which is hard to do when you're two rivals are the STATE schools and likely enjoy extra curricular benefits. I think too often we lose that perspective.

I was going to say this.  

 

Our two rivals are going to have the upper hand for a while.   It doesn't mean our program isn't in good shape.  

[lionheartkc 6,150]

1 hour ago, Barnacle said:

We need to up our game in recruitment. Plain and simple. Otherwise I think we need to get used to inconsistency, regardless of who our head coach is.

Yup... and we are probably in the worst possible situation for recruiting... sharing a state with bama and constantly competing with Georgia. I can't think of another high level team in the NCAA that has to recruit against the odds like we have to, at least not since Florida and Florida State were both perennial power houses.

[Barnacle 9,064]

Just now, lionheartkc said:

Yup... and we are probably in the worst possible situation for recruiting... sharing a state with bama and constantly competing with Georgia. I can't think of another high level team in the NCAA that has to recruit against the odds like we have to, at least not since Florida and Florida State were both perennial power houses.

It's ridiculous - and I guess give us credit for doing as well as we do? If its one thing that Kirby learned from Saban its that recruiting is priority #1, and you do what you have to do to achieve that goal first and foremost. 

[CoffeeTiger 5,061]

I mean we did win 10 games, win our division, and beat our biggest rival. Of course we looked bad against UCF, and that loss to LSU was perplexing, but overall I think er’re In good shape.

 

the thing you have to do is take things in perspective. I think some on here look at Bama’s success and get angry that AU isn’t teaching that level, but I realistically know that no other team in college football is at Bamas level right now and AU has some disadvantages that other powers don’t have to deal with. I see no reason to be concerned about how things are going right now.

[DAG 33,949]

5 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

I mean we did win 10 games, win our division, and beat our biggest rival. Of course we looked bad against UCF, and that loss to LSU was perplexing, but overall I think er’re In good shape.

 

the thing you have to do is take things in perspective. I think some on here look at Bama’s success and get angry that AU isn’t teaching that level, but I realistically know that no other team in college football is at Bamas level right now and AU has some disadvantages that other powers don’t have to deal with. I see no reason to be concerned about how things are going right now.

Bama level success? No. Bama level coaching ? That is a different argument. There are a good bit of coaches out there who are doing an extremely good job with less talent but discipline football players that doesn’t show up in the W-L column. Purdue and Northwestern just to name a few. Iowa State as well. 

[Michael X 74]

2 hours ago, McLoofus said:

It's not just shady recruiting tactics that have given some other schools an advantage over us.

 

1 hour ago, lionheartkc said:

Look at the current situation we are in. We are surrounded by the two teams in the National Championship (which I prefer to refer to, this year, as the "lost to Auburn bowl") and they are our biggest competition for recruits. One of them has proven to have unfair advantages in recruiting and protection from the NCAA. The other is lead by a disciple of the first who learned every trick in the book from him.

 

 

57 minutes ago, JBiGGiE said:

We're trending upwards and doing it the right way, which is hard to do when you're two rivals are the STATE schools and likely enjoy extra curricular benefits. I think too often we lose that perspective.

Only posing the question for my own curiosity and not because I think any of the posters quoted above are "conspiracy theorists" (I've seen enough posts from most folks on here to get a pretty good idea when someone knows what they are talking about). Question is: Can someone go into more detail as to what they think are some of the advantages, benefits, tactics that the University That Shall Not Be Named (or AU's other rival) enjoys? You can PM me if you'd like, doesn't have to be a post in this thread.

 

[Barnacle 9,064]

7 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

I think some on here look at Bama’s success and get angry that AU isn’t teaching that level, but I realistically know that no other team in college football is at Bamas level right now and AU has some disadvantages that other powers don’t have to deal with. I see no reason to be concerned about how things are going right now.

In general, I feel the same way. In general. I wish we were a little bit more consistent both in game planning and roster management. Last year's Clemson, Georgia, and this year's LSU and to a similar extent Clemson are the games that drive me nuts. Until we recruit at the level that Alabama does, we won't be able to do what they do.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

12 minutes ago, Barnacle said:

It's ridiculous - and I guess give us credit for doing as well as we do? If its one thing that Kirby learned from Saban its that recruiting is priority #1, and you do what you have to do to achieve that goal first and foremost. 

Yup... "do what you have to do"... It's going to be interesting to see if Kirby has enough leverage with his knowledge of bama recruiting practices to stay clear of the NCAA, if he really is "doing what he has to do".

I know I'm among the minority of hardcore fans, but I'm still very glad that Gus does things the right way, even if it costs us recruits.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

1 minute ago, Barnacle said:

In general, I feel the same way. In general. I wish we were a little bit more consistent both in game planning and roster management. Last year's Clemson, Georgia, and this year's LSU and to a similar extent Clemson are the games that drive me nuts. Until we recruit at the level that Alabama does, we won't be able to do what they do.

Fingers crossed, that lesson has been learned.

[Barnacle 9,064]

4 minutes ago, Michael X said:

Only posing the question for my own curiosity and not because I think any of the posters quoted above are "conspiracy theorists" (I've seen enough posts from most folks on here to get a pretty good idea when someone knows what they are talking about). Question is: Can someone go into more detail as to what they think are some of the advantages, benefits, tactics that the University That Shall Not Be Named (or AU's other rival) enjoys? You can PM me if you'd like, doesn't have to be a post in this thread.

I can't answer your question (although I think there are a couple posters here with actual, personal knowledge), but at this point Alabama has some perfectly legal advantages that are likely more difficult to overcome than any of the under the table advantages. Mainly, they've established themselves as the best program in the country. They have, arguably, the best coach in the country. They have among the best facilities in the country. They place ____ amount of players into the NFL each year, etc. All else being equal, those advantages alone place them ahead of the 8-ball. 

[Barnacle 9,064]

4 minutes ago, lionheartkc said:

Yup... "do what you have to do"... It's going to be interesting to see if Kirby has enough leverage with his knowledge of bama recruiting practices to stay clear of the NCAA, if he really is "doing what he has to do".

I know I'm among the minority of hardcore fans, but I'm still very glad that Gus does things the right way, even if it costs us recruits.

And, that's all good, great, grand and wonderful - so long as people understand that is the formula. It starts at recruiting and I'm pretty certain Saban says it himself. I think most Auburn fans are okay with this fact, and the frustration comes from what we do with the talent we have. 

[Michael X 74]

1 hour ago, lionheartkc said:

We are surrounded by the two teams in the National Championship (which I prefer to refer to, this year, as the "lost to Auburn bowl") and they are our biggest competition for recruits.

The Lost to Auburn Bowl, can't give this enough likes. IMO, a step in the right direction would be having a ginormous "Lost to Auburn Bowl" banner made and finding a way to get it up on the side of Mercedes-Benz Stadium in the wee morning hours of Jan 8th!

[lionheartkc 6,150]

9 minutes ago, Michael X said:

Only posing the question for my own curiosity and not because I think any of the posters quoted above are "conspiracy theorists" (I've seen enough posts from most folks on here to get a pretty good idea when someone knows what they are talking about). Question is: Can someone go into more detail as to what they think are some of the advantages, benefits, tactics that the University That Shall Not Be Named (or AU's other rival) enjoys? You can PM me if you'd like, doesn't have to be a post in this thread.

It's documented all over the Internet. Yahoo Sports provided paperwork of illegal benefits... the NCAA did nothing. Photos were posted about illegal benefits from T-Town Men's Ware selling player memorabilia, and a rim shop giving players rims... the NCAA did nothing. There's photo evidence of poor players driving expensive cars, custom painted with their name on it... the NCAA did nothing. There's evidence of the same poor players wearing a different custom suit to every game... the NCAA did nothing. Then you get into recruits being taken across state lines to prevent them from having contact with Auburn coaches, or committing to Auburn, but then signing with bama after a bama coach intervened. I could go on, but the truth is that bama is Teflon when it comes to the NCAA.