New Approach to Coach Evaluation

[AUght2win 6,834]

The age old philosophy is that a coach stays until he bottoms out. Only when things are indisputably bad, and a need for change is obvious, do changes seem to occur. But I think this may be the wrong approach in sports in general.

Good is the enemy of great. Schools will elect to suffer through good, good, good seasons before waiting for the plane to completely crash.

But look at what UGA did. They got tired of just being good, and instead of waiting for the Richt era to fall apart, they made a coaching change when times and talent in the program were relatively good. This might be what we need to do.

I still wholeheartedly believe Gus is gone with an 8-4 record. But it'd be tempting to also can him at 9-3. Not because 9-3 isn't a good record. But because Gus has proven this season he has indeed plateaued, and is never going to grow. Like many posters have said, it isn't the losses, it's the way we lose.

We might as well get rid of Gus now instead of waiting for a 2012 type season. 

[TigerEyez13 46]

Another aspect to consider is that next year will be a rebuilding year, regardless of who is the coach. The seniors on offensive line will be gone. Our spectacular defensive front will be gone. Just another twig on the fire.

 

The cautionary tale is Tennessee. Be careful of over-reaching. Who are are you going to get as a replacement?

[3rdgeneration 6,469]

Yeah.  Great idea.  Get rid of Gus for losing the games we said he was going to lose at the beginning of the year.  Go ahead, get rid of Kevin Steele and Rodney Garner, too.  Because we lost the games we were supposed to lose.  Never mind that the other teams may have had better talent than us.  We should have beat them anyway.  We should totally discount any ability any other team has.  I know that there were plays called that didn’t work.  Not all plays work.  I know that our 19 year old quarterback was not perfect.  He’s 19. I agree that we should have maybe tried the other 19 year old quarterback some. But he’s 19 too.  We knew we had O Line issues at the beginning of the year.  Some of you are calling to fire the coach now.  That is ridiculous. Let’s see if we lose the other 2 games we were supposed to lose first.  

[nixtosanders94 2,180]

In year 7 there really shouldn’t be any games we’re supposed to lose. He’s had 7 years to build a program that can consistently compete with everyone and he hasn’t done it. It took Coach O 2 years to build LSU back...we’ve given  Gus 7.  Its hard to believe so many miss this point. Its not about the record, its about if Gus can move us past this perennially disappointing cycle of poor offensive performances in big games and clearly he cannot.

[lca408 366]

2 minutes ago, 3rdgeneration said:

Yeah.  Great idea.  Get rid of Gus for losing the games we said he was going to lose at the beginning of the year.  Go ahead, get rid of Kevin Steele and Rodney Garner, too.  Because we lost the games we were supposed to lose.  Never mind that the other teams may have had better talent than us.  We should have beat them anyway.  We should totally discount any ability any other team has.  I know that there were plays called that didn’t work.  Not all plays work.  I know that our 19 year old quarterback was not perfect.  He’s 19. I agree that we should have maybe tried the other 19 year old quarterback some. But he’s 19 too.  We knew we had O Line issues at the beginning of the year.  Some of you are calling to fire the coach now.  That is ridiculous. Let’s see if we lose the other 2 games we were supposed to lose first.  

I don’t disagree with the majority of what you said but here’s one simple fact that can’t really be disputed by anyone at this point - Orgeron > Malzahn.

And that’s certainly not to say that Orgeron is a bad coach. He’s actually pretty good. But to look at the last 3 years and see how from 2017 to now, it’s clear to see one program get progressively better and the other to simply stay put and spin it’s wheels. Auburn was in better shape as a program in 2017 than LSU. They were at best even in 2018, and now LSU is clearly rocking and rolling and we are still at the same level. Nothing is improving. 

No, we’re not going to fire Gus after yesterday. Yes we’ll see how the rest of the season goes. I’m sure when Auburn beats Ole Miss by 4 TDs next week a lot of people will be saying that we’re back and all this crap. Who knows, we might beat UGaY too. But it doesn’t change the fact that this program is not moving forward. It’s not getting better. It’s not getting to the point where we can legitimately play for championships. LSU is a great team and Auburn was expected to lose yesterday and they did. And yes it was a good game and a close game for the most part. But it was also a game where Auburn had multiple opportunities to score and build a lead to win the game and didn’t do it. Play calling, bad QB play, and way too many false starts doomed this team. You can say that Bo’s performance isn’t Gus’ fault and even say the false starts aren’t either. Maybe not directly. But in what world does an all senior offensive line with plenty of experience have a performance like that? Guess what, Gus built that line. Everything that happened on offense yesterday was built by that man. Yes he DOES deserve blame. He gets credit for wins and he deserves blame for losses just the same.

[nixtosanders94 2,180]

1 minute ago, lca408 said:

I don’t disagree with the majority of what you said but here’s one simple fact that can’t really be disputed by anyone at this point - Orgeron > Malzahn.

And that’s certainly not to say that Orgeron is a bad coach. He’s actually pretty good. But to look at the last 3 years and see how from 2017 to now, it’s clear to see one program get progressively better and the other to simply stay put and spin it’s wheels. Auburn was in better shape as a program in 2017 than LSU. They were at best even in 2018, and now LSU is clearly rocking and rolling and we are still at the same level. Nothing is improving. 

No, we’re not going to fire Gus after yesterday. Yes we’ll see how the rest of the season goes. I’m sure when Auburn beats Ole Miss by 4 TDs next week a lot of people will be saying that we’re back and all this crap. Who knows, we might beat UGaY too. But it doesn’t change the fact that this program is not moving forward. It’s not getting better. It’s not getting to the point where we can legitimately play for championships. LSU is a great team and Auburn was expected to lose yesterday and they did. And yes it was a good game and a close game for the most part. But it was also a game where Auburn had multiple opportunities to score and build a lead to win the game and didn’t do it. Play calling, bad QB play, and way too many false starts doomed this team. You can say that Bo’s performance isn’t Gus’ fault and even say the false starts aren’t either. Maybe not directly. But in what world does an all senior offensive line with plenty of experience have a performance like that? Guess what, Gus built that line. Everything that happened on offense yesterday was built by that man. Yes he DOES deserve blame. He gets credit for wins and he deserves blame for losses just the same.

Im outta likes but that is about as well said as it could possibly be. 

[gravejd 3,270]

I don’t see anyway that Gus gets fired after this season. I know fans are frustrated and I am right there with you. Might be the best defense AU has ever had and it’s getting wasted by once again an offense that disappears against teams with a pulse. We have a championship caliber defense and those are hard to come by. But you just don’t fire a coach who has only lost 2 away games to top 10 teams and one which is considered by many the best in the country. It sucks to lose....it really does. But if we can rally and win out this is still a great season imo. If we beat one of uga or bama then I would label it as a good season. And I’ve don’t recall auburn ever firing a coach after a good season.  
 

I expect Gus will be here next season and we’ll see what we can put together as far as a team. Hard to imagine we don’t take a step back and if that happens then I think that will be when a change is made. 
 

Also keep in mind...uga is still just good after the coaching change. Very few elite teams out there and almost everyone loses games here and there. Perfection should never be the standard. 

[ChltteTiger 649]

26 minutes ago, 3rdgeneration said:

Yeah.  Great idea.  Get rid of Gus for losing the games we said he was going to lose at the beginning of the year. 

Nobody said we would lose to anybody with any degree of certainty. Thats all just pre-season talk while waiting for the season to start. Get real! Many here predicted a 10 win season. That may still be possible but I say the odds are rather low.

[ToraGirl 5,498]

I'm convinced....if you can't see it, you just can't see it....or don't want to. From this point...New echelons of accountability for CGM or CKS for interim until the season's done. The carousel can wait. I do not believe the rest of the season or morale across the board (not just literally) can. 

[nixtosanders94 2,180]

Just now, gravejd said:

I don’t see anyway that Gus gets fired after this season. I know fans are frustrated and I am right there with you. Might be the best defense AU has ever had and it’s getting wasted by once again an offense that disappears against teams with a pulse. We have a championship caliber defense and those are hard to come by. But you just don’t fire a coach who has only lost 2 away games to top 10 teams and one which is considered by many the best in the country. It sucks to lose....it really does. But if we can rally and win out this is still a great season imo. If we beat one of uga or bama then I would label it as a good season. And I’ve don’t recall auburn ever firing a coach after a good season.  
 

I expect Gus will be here next season and we’ll see what we can put together as far as a team. Hard to imagine we don’t take a step back and if that happens then I think that will be when a change is made. 
 

Also keep in mind...uga is still just good after the coaching change. Very few elite teams out there and almost everyone loses games here and there. Perfection should never be the standard. 

So, I agree with a lot here but two points here...

1. I don’t think anyone here is saying perfection is the standard. Everyone knows we will lose games. Its HOW we lose these games that’s frustrating. With even an average offensive performance we win that game yesterday. And so many losses under Gus have been that way. Whats really frustrating is no, I didn’t EXPECT to be undefeated right now, but we SHOULD be undefeated right now if Gus could coach an offense at all.

2. Its year 7. 7. 7. Seeeeevvvvveeeeennnnn....If he hasn’t built a team that can get over the hump by now, why think he will ever do it? 

Unfortunately I agree with your assessment that he is safe this year. He may even find a way to beat uga or bama. But what will it mean? Nothin. Sure we get some bragging rights but because once again he wet the bed in two other games he could’ve won, we miss out on something bigger with an absolute dynamite defense. If we’re just gonna keep doing that then I’d rather take my chances on a coach with a fresh look and get out of this harry high school crap we’ve been watching for several years now.

[aucom96 1,618]

If Gus gets canned after this season, it will just be because someone with deep pockets wants him gone. I never thought we'd be in the mix for any championships this season. Really, I expected the SEC to be better overall. I expected A&M to be improving, but they regressed. I didn't expect MSU or Arkansas to be as bad as they are. But we entered this season with arguably the most talented, veteran defense in the conference, a senior-laden offensive line, a lot of depth in the backfield and a considerable amount of depth and talent at wide receiver. Yes, we are green at QB but the talent is there to be better than we are. Next year we'll be patching an OL together from scraps and still running an offense that primarily asks its QBs to sit in the pocket staring 30 yards downfield far too often. At some point, A&M will find their footing. MSU will improve. Arky will get it together.  Orgeron looks to have LSU on the rise and bama is bama. This season may be our best collection of talent we'll see for a few years and we're still average at best. If that's ok, great. We're just vastly overpaying for it.

[AuMarine 1,372]

8 minutes ago, gravejd said:

I don’t see anyway that Gus gets fired after this season. I know fans are frustrated and I am right there with you. Might be the best defense AU has ever had and it’s getting wasted by once again an offense that disappears against teams with a pulse. We have a championship caliber defense and those are hard to come by. But you just don’t fire a coach who has only lost 2 away games to top 10 teams and one which is considered by many the best in the country. It sucks to lose....it really does. But if we can rally and win out this is still a great season imo. If we beat one of uga or bama then I would label it as a good season. And I’ve don’t recall auburn ever firing a coach after a good season.  
 

I expect Gus will be here next season and we’ll see what we can put together as far as a team. Hard to imagine we don’t take a step back and if that happens then I think that will be when a change is made. 
 

Also keep in mind...uga is still just good after the coaching change. Very few elite teams out there and almost everyone loses games here and there. Perfection should never be the standard. 

we do have a championship quality defense and I would agree with most of what you said except our HC is “suppose” to be the offensive guru and yet he can’t get it done. I am tired of watching us trot out hot garbage on offense and make mind blowing calls. It has gotten ridiculous. Add to that the fact that this is CGM.. all on him.. he “took over” the offense and is back to calling plays.. funny doesn’t look much different to me.. add in the horrid OL recruiting and we are what we are..i don’t care if we win out and truck both uga and bama.. that will not change my mind.. definition of insanity comes to mind. 

 

 

[Gowebb11 9,319]

36 minutes ago, 3rdgeneration said:

Yeah.  Great idea.  Get rid of Gus for losing the games we said he was going to lose at the beginning of the year.  Go ahead, get rid of Kevin Steele and Rodney Garner, too.  Because we lost the games we were supposed to lose.  Never mind that the other teams may have had better talent than us.  We should have beat them anyway.  We should totally discount any ability any other team has.  I know that there were plays called that didn’t work.  Not all plays work.  I know that our 19 year old quarterback was not perfect.  He’s 19. I agree that we should have maybe tried the other 19 year old quarterback some. But he’s 19 too.  We knew we had O Line issues at the beginning of the year.  Some of you are calling to fire the coach now.  That is ridiculous. Let’s see if we lose the other 2 games we were supposed to lose first.  

If we finish 10-2, or even 9-3 Gus isn’t going to be fired. But if we go 8-4 and he gets canned, it will not be just because of this past weekend or even this season. Gus’s offenses have performed miserably in the biggest games over several years. He cant stay out of his own way, and he’s too insecure to hire a legit offensive coordinator. I’ve posted this before, but to improve his chances for a championship, Coach O hired an NFL coach to implement a sophisticated passing scheme. Gus hired a 28 years old QB coach from an AAC school 3-4 years removed from being a grad assistant. Those decisions are a world apart. Regarding Nix, he has already shown regression in Gus’s system. He rolls him into deafening stadiums against top defensive teams and then calls plays and schemes that give him virtually no chance to succeed. Our defense is good enough to win at home vs Bama and UGA. But if we don't, he needs to go. 

[NoALtiger 3,860]

I’m not sure UGA is the best example to use. Smart has won the same amount of Nattys as Richt and they are not the favorite this year as well. Best that can be said is at least they have tried to better themselves, nothing wrong with that. 

[DAG 33,981]

40 minutes ago, gravejd said:

I don’t see anyway that Gus gets fired after this season. I know fans are frustrated and I am right there with you. Might be the best defense AU has ever had and it’s getting wasted by once again an offense that disappears against teams with a pulse. We have a championship caliber defense and those are hard to come by. But you just don’t fire a coach who has only lost 2 away games to top 10 teams and one which is considered by many the best in the country. It sucks to lose....it really does. But if we can rally and win out this is still a great season imo. If we beat one of uga or bama then I would label it as a good season. And I’ve don’t recall auburn ever firing a coach after a good season.  
 

I expect Gus will be here next season and we’ll see what we can put together as far as a team. Hard to imagine we don’t take a step back and if that happens then I think that will be when a change is made. 
 

Also keep in mind...uga is still just good after the coaching change. Very few elite teams out there and almost everyone loses games here and there. Perfection should never be the standard. 

Perfection  was never ever ever the standard. Consistency , consistency, consistency. Gus has proven to be consistently inconsistent.

[dyehardfanAU 2,117]

4 hours ago, AUght2win said:

The age old philosophy is that a coach stays until he bottoms out. Only when things are indisputably bad, and a need for change is obvious, do changes seem to occur. But I think this may be the wrong approach in sports in general.

Good is the enemy of great. Schools will elect to suffer through good, good, good seasons before waiting for the plane to completely crash.

But look at what UGA did. They got tired of just being good, and instead of waiting for the Richt era to fall apart, they made a coaching change when times and talent in the program were relatively good. This might be what we need to do.

I still wholeheartedly believe Gus is gone with an 8-4 record. But it'd be tempting to also can him at 9-3. Not because 9-3 isn't a good record. But because Gus has proven this season he has indeed plateaued, and is never going to grow. Like many posters have said, it isn't the losses, it's the way we lose.

We might as well get rid of Gus now instead of waiting for a 2012 type season. 

As badly as I want to see him gone, Gus isn't getting fired for 8-4.  The money is too big and the brain trust is too small.

[bigbird 60,515]

1 hour ago, 3rdgeneration said:

Get rid of Gus for losing the games we said he was going to lose at the beginning of the year.

It's not who but how we lose. We have a championship level defense but our offense is terrible with zero direction. It's the definition of a rudderless ship. Nothing has changed in 5 years and it won't if we continue spinning our tires with Gus. We might as well pull a LSU and get rid of Gus like they did Miles. JMO

[Barnacle 9,064]

1 minute ago, bigbird said:

It's not who but how we lose. We have a championship level defense but our offense is terrible with zero direction. It's the definition of a rudderless ship. Nothing has changed in 5 years and it won't if we continue spinning our tires with Gus. We might as well pull a LSU and get rid of Gus like they did Miles. JMO

Only thing I'm scared of is losing Steele and this type of defense. It's a joy to watch.

[bigbird 60,515]

On 10/27/2019 at 9:00 AM, Barnacle said:

Only thing I'm scared of is losing Steele and this type of defense. It's a joy to watch.

LSU under Chavis was really good. LSU under Aranda has been equally good. 

[dyehardfanAU 2,117]

9 minutes ago, Barnacle said:

Only thing I'm scared of is losing Steele and this type of defense. It's a joy to watch.

I want to go with a defensive head coach who has worked well with modern offenses.  Aranda seems to be hitting the checkboxes and he might could bring Herman in as OC in another season.  Fill up his staff with proven SEC recruiters and get everyone in line from compliance to bagmen and have the whole program row in the same direction for once in my life.

[nixtosanders94 2,180]

3 minutes ago, dyehardfanAU said:

have the whole program row in the same direction for once in my life.

This would be a nice change of pace.

[Gowebb11 9,319]

1 hour ago, gravejd said:

Also keep in mind...uga is still just good after the coaching change. Very few elite teams out there and almost everyone loses games here and there. Perfection should never be the standard. 

Gus is now 6-14 vs LSU, UGA, and UAT. I’m not seeking perfection, but a strong directional improvement is very necessary. We can pay a lot of coaches to compete well with Ole Miss and Arkansas. 

[auskull 239]

Just hard to figure out how we have inexperience at QB, no depth at OL and a converted QB as our RB after 6 years. Key offensive staff that in some areas are still really young and inexperienced. Where are the O position coaches that have been there and done that?

[Never2Yield 1,005]

17 minutes ago, auskull said:

Just hard to figure out how we have inexperience at QB, no depth at OL and a converted QB as our RB after 6 years. Key offensive staff that in some areas are still really young and inexperienced. Where are the O position coaches that have been there and done that?

Two words .... "Gus Malzahn"

[Tampa Tiger 30]

1 hour ago, Gowebb11 said:

Gus is now 6-14 vs LSU, UGA, and UAT. I’m not seeking perfection, but a strong directional improvement is very necessary. We can pay a lot of coaches to compete well with Ole Miss and Arkansas. 

Numbers don't lie and this just makes me depressed. I like Gus as a person but he doesn't have that killer instinct, just watching the Auburn Review it's "Gosh they fought their guts out" , golly gee whiz, etc.  

 

I wonder what kind of practices we really have.  You never hear about it being grueling or bad, always "Great practices" and our offense just looks like it's the first time they've seen pressure with false starts, grounding, etc., To put them in huge 3rd down situations. 

 

Gus has just not grown either.  Let's bring in the wildcat and run up the gut.  Gatewood.  Up the gut.  Let's waste two downs on 3 total yards and bring Nix back in to hope he can convert.  I'd rather keep Nix in and just let the RBs take a handoff.  And very little option.  It felt like Nix took off more in other games but stayed home all day in this one. 

 

Going to Ole Miss next weekend with the family but depressed.  Those kids need better direction. Looking forward to some Lemonade and Niffers corn nuggets.