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Luginbill- CGM’s 2019 Best Team at Auburn


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Others are believing what @StatTiger showed in his analysis of the 2019 Auburn football squad!

https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/auburn-football/gus-malzahn-tom-luginbill-auburn-more-talent-than-2013/

ESPN analyst Tom Luginbill believes Auburn's roster next season could be the most talented of the Gus Malzahn era

 
Ugh!!!
Tom Luginbill may have just given the kiss of death to Gus Malzahn’s coaching career at Auburn.

For whatever reason, the Tigers seem to consistently overachieve whenever they are doubted heading into a season while they often fail to live up to lofty expectations when momentum appears to be building during the offseason on The Plains. Of course, it’s easy to argue that what happened in the past has no bearing on the future but until Malzahn’s program proves differently, it hasn’t proven to excel with the weight of expectations.

Well, Auburn just got a big compliment from one of the game’s most knowledgeable analysts.

During a Wednesday appearance on Birmingham-based 94.5 FM radio program “The Roundtable,”ESPN college football analyst Tom Luginbill shared his thoughts on Auburn’s personnel looking ahead to the 2019 season. When it comes to the defensive linemen, Luginbill would argue that the Tigers have the best two in the Southern Conference in senior Derrick Brown and junior Nick Coe.

“As far as proven commodities? Absolutely,” Luginbill said. “I happen to think top to bottom as a football team, particularly on the defensive side of the ball — and also offensively with some of the weapons they have got coming back, which is virtually everybody, this may be the best top to bottom team Gus Malzahn has had. The program is, outside of Texas A&M, it might be the most difficult schedule in the entire country.”

Auburn won’t just be relying on those two defensive linemen, either, as senior Marlon Davidson returns along with proven pass rushers T.D. Moultry and Big Kat Bryant.

However, as Luginbill notes, Auburn’s schedule is brutal next season. The opener in Arlington against Oregon won’t be easy before trips to Texas A&M, Florida, Arkansas and LSU must be faced. That enough would make for a tough schedule but Auburn hosts Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Georgia and Alabama in conference play.

Despite that gauntlet, the ESPN analyst believes Malzahn could not have asked for a better roster to tackle the challenges ahead. In fact, Luginbill suggested this Auburn roster is more talent than the one that went on to play in the National Championship Game in 2013.

“I think his 2013 team had a lot of things fall into place when they needed it to fall into place,” Luginbill continued. “This might be the most physically gifted, in terms of maybe not needing the ball to bounce your way, maybe able to create your own luck a little bit off of talent, being a little bit more superior than that team.”

You can listen to the segment featuring Luginbill’s thoughts on Auburn’s 2019 roster courtesy of “The Roundtable” host Jim Dunaway and you can listen to Luginbill’s complete interview with the show here.

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I am not one who thinks we do better or worse when we are highly rated vs no respect, for what it’s worth! 

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1 hour ago, toddc said:

I am not one who thinks we do better or worse when we are highly rated vs no respect, for what it’s worth! 

So I think maybe there's something to that. What I don't agree with, and what pisses me off to no end about Auburn fans, is this notion that there is a cause-effect relationship there and that we should prefer lower expectations. That's peak LBS and it's really frustrating when those same people whine about us getting no respect in our good seasons. 

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56 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

So I think maybe there's something to that. What I don't agree with, and what pisses me off to no end about Auburn fans, is this notion that there is a cause-effect relationship there and that we should prefer lower expectations. That's peak LBS and it's really frustrating when those same people whine about us getting no respect in our good seasons. 

I think it may be more of the “keep talking, give me that chip on my shoulder” mentality.  Or just maybe that I can relate as I have the underdog mentality personally so it motivates me in my personal/professional life.  My expectations are always to win a championship and I always go into every season believing that.  I can see where you are coming from though. 

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17 minutes ago, abw0004 said:

I think it may be more of the “keep talking, give me that chip on my shoulder” mentality.  Or just maybe that I can relate as I have the underdog mentality personally so it motivates me in my personal/professional life.  My expectations are always to win a championship and I always go into every season believing that.  I can see where you are coming from though. 

I hear what you're saying, and that is absolutely what the players should believe when we go into a season with lower expectations from sports media. I do not agree with fans thinking that way. That doesn't make sense to me. We don't play sports. We're just fans.

Edit: I don't agree with fans thinking that way about Auburn sports. Or whatever their favorite team is. I totally agree with fans thinking that way about their own endeavors in life.

"Let's do this Loof.. Forget the haters. Nobody believed in you but you are about to crush this Golden Corral buffet. Let's go."

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12 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

I hear what you're saying, and that is absolutely what the players should believe when we go into a season with lower expectations from sports media. I do not agree with fans thinking that way. That doesn't make sense to me. We don't play sports. We're just fans.

Edit: I don't agree with fans thinking that way about Auburn sports. Or whatever their favorite team is. I totally agree with fans thinking that way about their own endeavors in life.

"Let's do this Loof.. Forget the haters. Nobody believed in you but you are about to crush this Golden Corral buffet. Let's go."

That last part was funny.  It may be different for college sports fans.  Like for me, when I was at Auburn I had to endure the good years (2010 and 2013) as a student, and the bad years (2012) as a student.  The bad years, even as a fan, things were directed at you.  I remember to this day I will filling my Jeep up with gas the week before the 2013 Iron Bowl and some guy at the stoplight yelled at me that Auburn sucks.  So I went into that game with the chip to be louder than any fan in that stadium.  That the opposing team and fans would regret coming into my stadium and think they could have a quiet game.  I was going to do what I could as a fan to make sure their team could not hear the guy next to them. 

You view the team as your own since you were a student just like them.  You have more invested than just fandom.  Like a parent their their child where they hurt for them, and are happy for them.  

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4 minutes ago, abw0004 said:

That last part was funny.  It may be different for college sports fans.  Like for me, when I was at Auburn I had to endure the good years (2010 and 2013) as a student, and the bad years (2012) as a student.  The bad years, even as a fan, things were directed at you.  I remember to this day I will filling my Jeep up with gas the week before the 2013 Iron Bowl and some guy at the stoplight yelled at me that Auburn sucks.  So I went into that game with the chip to be louder than any fan in that stadium.  That the opposing team and fans would regret coming into my stadium and think they could have a quiet game.  I was going to do what I could as a fan to make sure their team could not hear the guy next to them. 

You view the team as your own since you were a student just like them.  You have more invested than just fandom.  Like a parent their their child where they hurt for them, and are happy for them.  

I understand what you're saying. But I don't think that really addresses Auburn fans being scared of high expectations and preseason respect. That is what I take issue with.

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4 hours ago, toddc said:

I am not one who thinks we do better or worse when we are highly rated vs no respect, for what it’s worth! 

It comes and goes.  In the early and mid  1970s it seemed we underperformed when expected to be good and outperformed low expectations. Late 70s we mostly performed to expectations and under dye we were mostly expectected to be good and we were. With Bowden first two years we outperformed expectations last year underperformed.  Tuberville our team performed as expected with the exceptions of 2003 and 2004. Chizek cant remember what the preseason expectations were for 2010.  Also cant remember preseason ranking for 2011 and 2012. But I have a feeling they underperformed in 2012.

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My only fear is experience with the second string o-line if we have an injury.  We might have the talent, but we just don’t know.

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14 minutes ago, auburnphan said:

My only fear is experience with the second string o-line if we have an injury.  We might have the talent, but we just don’t know.

Agreed. 

Although Cole Cubelic thinks, I just learned, that we might have the 4th best OL in the SEC. We could actually be okay with a fair to middlin' OL, but like you said, if a 1 goes down...

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Talent is there, Gus just has to learn how to use it, given the roster management. We have the talent to make a run at 10+, just use the god dang talent to your advantage for once 

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4 hours ago, McLoofus said:

So I think maybe there's something to that. What I don't agree with, and what pisses me off to no end about Auburn fans, is this notion that there is a cause-effect relationship there and that we should prefer lower expectations. That's peak LBS and it's really frustrating when those same people whine about us getting no respect in our good seasons. 

We have THE best fans in the world and we are the most loyal. But killer instinct and want to when it comes to wanting to be great and elite is NOOOOOOOOT one of our strong suits collectively. As long as the eagle flew good and we were polite to other fans along with being solid as a program..... Yah way too many are content with that.

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1 hour ago, McLoofus said:

Agreed. 

Although Cole Cubelic thinks, I just learned, that we might have the 4th best OL in the SEC. We could actually be okay with a fair to middlin' OL, but like you said, if a 1 goes down...

But that's where depth comes in. 😁

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1 hour ago, McLoofus said:

Agreed. 

Although Cole Cubelic thinks, I just learned, that we might have the 4th best OL in the SEC. We could actually be okay with a fair to middlin' OL, but like you said, if a 1 goes down...

Cole is late to the dance........It's what Mikey has been telling us all along.....

Mikey❤Mikey❤😁

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1 hour ago, Maverick.AU said:

Talent is there, Gus just has to learn how to use it, given the roster management. We have the talent to make a run at 10+, just use the god dang talent to your advantage for once 

Agree!  Gus needs to improve his roster management skills so we’ll have the horses to unleash when uga and bama come to town at the end of the season.  The past 4 years have been so frustrating (with the exception of 2017 regular season) watching us not beat weak dawg teams and not compete well with bama due to key player injuries because of limited substitutions against weaker teams earlier in the year. Specifically not having players Gus could rely on when Shawn White and KJ were too injured to be effective but he kept them in the games nevertheless. 

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First of all, Luginbill is looking at draft eligible talent.  So yeah, that DL and Prince TW.  We’ve got some pretty high draft picks.   That doesn’t mean he thinks AU has a great team by any means.

Secondly, he was absolutely right about our schedule!  We could be really good and still lose 3-4 games easily.  

Third, don’t worry about the “overrated jinx” or that “we always do better with low expectations”.  We will be preseason ranked somewhere between 21 and 25.  Right where you guys wanna be.  

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8 minutes ago, Gr82batigr said:

Agree!  Gus needs to improve his roster management skills so we’ll have the horses to unleash when uga and bama come to town at the end of the season.  The past 4 years have been so frustrating (with the exception of 2017 regular season) watching us not beat weak dawg teams and not compete well with bama due to key player injuries because of limited substitutions against weaker teams earlier in the year. Specifically not having players Gus could rely on when Shawn White and KJ were too injured to be effective but he kept them in the games nevertheless. 

Run a whitlow, shivers, etc tandem. Gatewood, the WR’s we have. Regardless of the OL we can work around that at times. However, the line showed, against a premier opponent; that they could push people back. Just need that consistently 

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8 minutes ago, AUpreacherman22 said:

First of all, Luginbill is looking at draft eligible talent.  So yeah, that DL and Prince TW.  We’ve got some pretty high draft picks.   That doesn’t mean he thinks AU has a great team by any means.

Secondly, he was absolutely right about our schedule!  We could be really good and still lose 3-4 games easily.  

Third, don’t worry about the “overrated jinx” or that “we always do better with low expectations”.  We will be preseason ranked somewhere between 21 and 25.  Right where you guys wanna be.  

I want us to be top 10 preseason and not be worried about the “jinx” that’s when AU will take that next step 

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5 hours ago, McLoofus said:

I hear what you're saying, and that is absolutely what the players should believe when we go into a season with lower expectations from sports media. I do not agree with fans thinking that way. That doesn't make sense to me. We don't play sports. We're just fans.

Edit: I don't agree with fans thinking that way about Auburn sports. Or whatever their favorite team is. I totally agree with fans thinking that way about their own endeavors in life.

"Let's do this Loof.. Forget the haters. Nobody believed in you but you are about to crush this Golden Corral buffet. Let's go."

I was actually thinking about this today..........I wonder at times my expectations............I keep comparing my expectations compared to others here..........we have fans on the forum from the 1960's to the present........I dont consider myself having lowered expectations.........are the expectations of a fan since 2009 different than those of a fan since 1977 like myself?...........please someone make sense of what I just typed and explain what I am trying to say........Typing with an Xbox controller my thoughts come and go before I can type them........thanks in advance.

 

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20 minutes ago, Maverick.AU said:

I want us to be top 10 preseason and not be worried about the “jinx” that’s when AU will take that next step 

I agree.  I want to see us develop consistency as a top contender.   We have that capability.

When I look at Clemson, I can’t help but think they are what we should have been.  We still could be, but if it does happen we’re at least a few years away.   

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1 hour ago, kevon67 said:

I was actually thinking about this today..........I wonder at times my expectations............I keep comparing my expectations compared to others here..........we have fans on the forum from the 1960's to the present........I dont consider myself having lowered expectations.........are the expectations of a fan since 2009 different than those of a fan since 1977 like myself?...........please someone make sense of what I just typed and explain what I am trying to say........Typing with an Xbox controller my thoughts come and go before I can type them........thanks in advance.

 

Fan since 1970 here. Not sure whether or not the expectation of the fans are that different regardless of length of fandom. We all just want to win. I can say this about mine though. My expectation isn't how many wins we will have or not have each year. My expectation is that our guys can line up and whip their opponent more times than not and if they can do that then winning will happen and it should be more than 8 times a year. Anything else does not meet expectation for me. In my opinion there should not be 4-5 teams on our schedule that are better than us any year. We shouldn't be in that situation and call ourselves Auburn University. 

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2 hours ago, gr82be said:

Fan since 1970 here. Not sure whether or not the expectation of the fans are that different regardless of length of fandom. We all just want to win. I can say this about mine though. My expectation isn't how many wins we will have or not have each year. My expectation is that our guys can line up and whip their opponent more times than not and if they can do that then winning will happen and it should be more than 8 times a year. Anything else does not meet expectation for me. In my opinion there should not be 4-5 teams on our schedule that are better than us any year. We shouldn't be in that situation and call ourselves Auburn University. 

Couldn't agree more........I hate loosing at anything regardless of stakes.........been that way my whole life.............Win or loose I will always love Auburn as most if not all on this forum...........and as you well know we waited a while for that NC with some close ones sprinkled in over the past 40 years........with that said last season was the most dissapointed I've been since mid to late 90's.........I really failed to see what the hell was being called and why...........With the occasional hiccup we shouldn't be loosing to the Mississippi schools period..........I really hope CGM can get it together and if he can't I wont fight change..........It's a shame because he seems to run a clean program..........but he can't get it together we will continually be held back.

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