Fire Gus!

[gr82b4au 5,568]

11 hours ago, AUBourne said:

why Clemson for example is a power and Auburn is 2nd tier program.

Well Clemson hired from within and took a chance on a guy that had no experience. They also play in the ACC. I would say if you exchanged AU and Clemson the last 5 years, we would be a national power. There is No competition in the ACC. 
 

but I do agree that it is time to move on...

[Zeek 16,614]

Since Gus got here:

Auburn 147 - Georgia 219 (without the 40-17 butt beating we had over them this gets a lot worse)

We've scored under double digits 4 different times

We've scored 14 or less 7 out of the last 9 times

Before Gus got here Auburn was an even 54-54 with UGA... we are now 0-4 the last 4 years (meaning seniors never beat them) and they have a 61-56 lead in the overall series. We'd have to win 5 in a row to get back to where we were before Gus.

[AUBourne 425]

23 minutes ago, gr82b4au said:

Well Clemson hired from within and took a chance on a guy that had no experience. They also play in the ACC. I would say if you exchanged AU and Clemson the last 5 years, we would be a national power. There is No competition in the ACC. 
 

but I do agree that it is time to move on...

Gus lost at home to Tennessee. Gus is 4-3 vs Mississippi State in the last seven games.. Any claims that AU would = Clemson if we were in the ACC is just conference bravado and not based on facts.

[metafour 4,958]

14 hours ago, weagl1 said:

As I have said many times before, run him off then who you gonna hire?  No ridiculous pipe dreams such as we gonna take Nick away from Bammer, Kirby away from UGA, Dabo away from Clemson, Urban away from retirement, Belichick away from the Patriots or any other great coach who would have no interest whatsoever in coming to Auburn.  Most good coaches are going to take one look at our schedule and figure “this ain’t gonna be good for my career path.”  How many coaches have we had to go on to bigger and better things?  In my lifetime Shug retired, Barfield fired, Dye resigned under pressure due to the Ramsey thing, Tater Tot quit, Tubby quit under pressure when he saw the handwriting on the wall (Saban) and now Gus is on the perpetual hot seat.  My guess is we would end up taking a chance on some up and comer that may or may not be better than what we have plus we would likely lose a good defensive staff in the process.  I’m as frustrated as anyone with Gus and I don’t claim to know what we need to do, but I do hope our decision makers will look at our situation realistically and not give in to those who think we need to fire the coach after every loss with no consideration as to what’s next.  

 

I called out this chicken-s*** loser mentality on page 7, and it took only one page for someone to prove my exact point.

This is literally Stockholm Syndrome - we have a large portion of the fanbase deathly afraid to demand a move as if Gus has a gun to their heads. 

My man; Gus Malzahn is 9-9 in SEC play since 2018. Given how the team looks this year; its looking entirely likely that that record is going to drop below .500 after the 2020 season. He's paid $7+ million a year (playoff-expectation type money) while producing .500 results in conference play...and you are worrying about who we'd get to replace him? 

Do you want me to go even further? The three seasons prior to 2017, our SEC record was 11-13 (.458). So really; what you actually have is a .500 or below SEC coach who has had two outlier seasons (2013 and 2017). We can now safely conclude that those two seasons were in fact complete outliers, by the fact that his overall ineptness for long stretches surrounding those seasons proves that he literally just got blessed by the football gods in 2013 and 2017. If they weren't outliers, he'd have some sort of answer for the shitshow he's responsible for. 

Should I go even further? He is 2-5 in Bowl Games as the head coach at Auburn. His two wins being against a Memphis team that was playing with an interim head coach after Fuente bolted for the VTech job, and a 6-6 Purdue team. So not only is he a .500 or worse SEC coach, but he can't even beat Bowl opponents that have a month to prepare for us - and some of those losses were to clearly less talented teams who just out-coached and out-schemed us.

What we have is a literal average as **** coach (if that...like I'm actually being generous) and you're over here in year 8 asking who we're going to get thats better. My man, even if we fire him and hire a complete flop to replace him...the results aren't going to be that much worse. This is still Auburn - we're not going to drop to being a 1-4 win team with some other coach. If Gus ******* Malzahn can win ~8 games a year here, I'm sure that any replacement coach you throw a rock at can do the same.

[Zeek 16,614]

23 minutes ago, metafour said:

 

I called out this chicken-s*** loser mentality on page 7, and it took only one page for someone to prove my exact point.

This is literally Stockholm Syndrome - we have a large portion of the fanbase deathly afraid to demand a move as if Gus has a gun to their heads. 

My man; Gus Malzahn is 9-9 in SEC play since 2018. Given how the team looks this year; its looking entirely likely that that record is going to drop below .500 after the 2020 season. He's paid $7+ million a year (playoff-expectation type money) while producing .500 results in conference play...and you are worrying about who we'd get to replace him? 

Do you want me to go even further? The three seasons prior to 2017, our SEC record was 11-13 (.458). So really; what you actually have is a .500 or below SEC coach who has had two outlier seasons (2013 and 2017). We can now safely conclude that those two seasons were in fact complete outliers, by the fact that his overall ineptness for long stretches surrounding those seasons proves that he literally just got blessed by the football gods in 2013 and 2017. If they weren't outliers, he'd have some sort of answer for the shitshow he's responsible for. 

Should I go even further? He is 2-5 in Bowl Games as the head coach at Auburn. His two wins being against a Memphis team that was playing with an interim head coach after Fuente bolted for the VTech job, and a 6-6 Purdue team. So not only is he a .500 or worse SEC coach, but he can't even beat Bowl opponents that have a month to prepare for us - and some of those losses were to clearly less talented teams who just out-coached and out-schemed us.

What we have is a literal average as **** coach (if that...like I'm actually being generous) and you're over here in year 8 asking who we're going to get thats better. My man, even if we fire him and hire a complete flop to replace him...the results aren't going to be that much worse. This is still Auburn - we're not going to drop to being a 1-4 win team with some other coach. If Gus ******* Malzahn can win ~8 games a year here, I'm sure that any replacement coach you throw a rock at can do the same.

If Chiz can win a Natty here (even with Cam)... the sky is the limit at Auburn

[McLoofus 35,182]

Not sure if it's been said for the millionth time since this thread was (rightfully) revived, but what do Wyoming's, Samford's, Iowa State's and Arkansas State's former head coaches all have in common? They either won a national championship, appeared in a national title game, earned but were not awarded a national championship, and/or went undefeated withing 3 years of coming to Auburn. 

Another stat: In the 40 years since Barfield was fired, we've had a total of 6 losing seasons. 4 of those were succeeded by a coaching change 2 seasons or less later. The other 2 happened in a coach's 1st season. Which means that when we do have a losing season, that means a new coach and a title run are less than 3 years away. My thinking is, why wait for that losing season???

Oh, the one exception was Ole Miss's former head coach getting all the way to his 6th year before having his undefeated season. And then we proceeded to win more games over a 3-year stretch than any other program in the country. 4 years after that, we had a new coach and a national title.

I mean, people can say that trend is unsustainable, but again, it's a 40 year trend spanning 5 coaching regimes. 

Change is healthy! Change is good! 

[Barnacle 9,064]

[auburn4ever 1,266]

Wish coach Tuberville was still available

[psychhog 17]

Whoa. I didn't read through all of these pages, but I didn't realize the fire Gus camp was so strong in Auburn. I'm from Arkansas and a hog fan (not coming here to troll or talk trash, good luck in the game this weekend) just wanted to see what the fans are saying over in ya'lls neck of the woods. I remember Gus when he was coaching 2A schools in Arkansas and we played against them and have followed his progress all the way through to taking over for you guys. I even was pulling for him back in the NC game against FSU. Hell I was even one of the few who would've taken him as the head hog back a few years ago. He has quickly turned into one of the most disliked coaches in the SEC for us. I was curious too what the fans thoughts were on the hiring of chad morris as OC seeing as though he was our previous head coach and I'm sure many will remember how terrible we've been the last few years. Anyway, again good luck to you guys, hope it's a good game this weekend.

[AUwent 3,747]

19 minutes ago, psychhog said:

Whoa. I didn't read through all of these pages, but I didn't realize the fire Gus camp was so strong in Auburn. I'm from Arkansas and a hog fan (not coming here to troll or talk trash, good luck in the game this weekend) just wanted to see what the fans are saying over in ya'lls neck of the woods. I remember Gus when he was coaching 2A schools in Arkansas and we played against them and have followed his progress all the way through to taking over for you guys. I even was pulling for him back in the NC game against FSU. Hell I was even one of the few who would've taken him as the head hog back a few years ago. He has quickly turned into one of the most disliked coaches in the SEC for us. I was curious too what the fans thoughts were on the hiring of chad morris as OC seeing as though he was our previous head coach and I'm sure many will remember how terrible we've been the last few years. Anyway, again good luck to you guys, hope it's a good game this weekend.

Many of us have wanted him gone for half a decade now.

[stoic-one 1,543]

30 minutes ago, psychhog said:

...I didn't realize the fire Gus camp was so strong in Auburn.

First off, welcome to AUF.

Second, AU fans are pretty divided on CGM, many are just afraid of change, seemingly.

Third, how people don't know about the fire CGM thing astounds me. People must be living under rocks, perfectly fine rocks with moss growing on the North side of them I'm sure, but rocks just the same. 

[auburn4ever 1,266]

I'm not divided. I never thought that hiring Malzahn was the smartest hire the powers at be could make. But now, the Auburn Family has been paying for it 8 years later.

[McLoofus 35,182]

1 hour ago, psychhog said:

Whoa. I didn't read through all of these pages, but I didn't realize the fire Gus camp was so strong in Auburn. I'm from Arkansas and a hog fan (not coming here to troll or talk trash, good luck in the game this weekend) just wanted to see what the fans are saying over in ya'lls neck of the woods. I remember Gus when he was coaching 2A schools in Arkansas and we played against them and have followed his progress all the way through to taking over for you guys. I even was pulling for him back in the NC game against FSU. Hell I was even one of the few who would've taken him as the head hog back a few years ago. He has quickly turned into one of the most disliked coaches in the SEC for us. I was curious too what the fans thoughts were on the hiring of chad morris as OC seeing as though he was our previous head coach and I'm sure many will remember how terrible we've been the last few years. Anyway, again good luck to you guys, hope it's a good game this weekend.

A lot of us were very excited for the Morris hire. It obviously didn't work for him in Fayetteville but some coordinators just aren't meant to be head coaches. It also seems that there were some irreconcilable cultural differences for him in that locker room. I could be wrong about that, but either way, I don't think many folks here view his failure as a head coach as an indictment of his ability to train QBs and call plays for the right talent. (Josh McDaniels didn't work as a head coach, either...)

We were also excited by the belief that Gus trusts Chad and would let him do his job. Not sure if you're familiar, but Gus has become famous for exercising undue influence over the offense while claiming that his OCs had control. Then he hired an OC and didn't even pretend that guy would be involved in play calling, and things got even worse. Anyway. Most of us were in wait and see mode and, after 6 years of sustained mediocrity we feel like we've officially seen what we needed to. 

Happy for you guys that you seem to be emerging from the darkness of the last couple seasons. Best wishes for continued luck and good health. 

Oh, and welcome. 

 

[psychhog 17]

55 minutes ago, stoic-one said:

First off, welcome to AUF.

Second, AU fans are pretty divided on CGM, many are just afraid of change, seemingly.

Third, how people don't know about the fire CGM thing astounds me. People must be living under rocks, perfectly fine rocks with moss growing on the North side of them I'm sure, but rocks just the same. 

Thank you. And I've been aware of the fire CGM sentiment for awhile, I just didn't know how strong it was. It seems his strange ability to beat bama has bought him enough seat coolant with the right people to the tune of paying him $7m per year (which I was kind of shocked by). I just haven't ventured over here to your forums and seen for myself how much the fans wanted him gone.

[psychhog 17]

15 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

A lot of us were very excited for the Morris hire. It obviously didn't work for him in Fayetteville but some coordinators just aren't meant to be head coaches. It also seems that there were some irreconcilable cultural differences for him in that locker room. I could be wrong about that, but either way, I don't think many folks here view his failure as a head coach as an indictment of his ability to train QBs and call plays for the right talent. (Josh McDaniels didn't work as a head coach, either...)

We were also excited by the belief that Gus trusts Chad and would let him do his job. Not sure if you're familiar, but Gus has become famous for exercising undue influence over the offense while claiming that his OCs had control. Then he hired an OC and didn't even pretend that guy would be involved in play calling, and things got even worse. Anyway. Most of us were in wait and see mode and, after 6 years of sustained mediocrity we feel like we've officially seen what we needed to. 

Happy for you guys that you seem to be emerging from the darkness of the last couple seasons. Best wishes for continued luck and good health. 

Oh, and welcome. 

 

I agree with you on this and thought the same thing for myself. I was on the Morris bandwagon for a while for Arkansas and really wanted him to do well here. When it wasn't showing on the field I think many Arkansas fans thought the same thing, that he's more of a coordinator than a head coach, but it was definitely time for him to go after going 4-20 and 0-16 in 2 seasons with multiple losses to teams from lesser conferences. He certainly had more success in the past as an OC. I don't necessarily have anything against Morris as a coach, it was clear that he was in way over his head as a head coach in the SEC.  Anyway hope it's a good game this weekend and good luck to you guys.

[johnnyAU 3,630]

If not for 2 miracle plays in 2013, Gus might well finish this season with a combined 5-20 against our biggest 3 rivals in UGA, LSU and Bama.  Even with them he might finish with a 7-18 record against them.  Add that to the 2-5 bowl record, which of course, could turn into a 2-6 bowl record by season's end and you have mediocrity.

[keesler 5,923]

19 hours ago, Auburn Tiger said:

Gus isn’t going anywhere unfortunately. He’s an upstanding guy, and I like that about him. But he’s just not a good coach. Auburn is still paying Chizik’s buyout, so Gus knows there is no way he gets canned during Covid. He was never getting fired even without Covid because of the buyouts to both him and Chizik, but adding Covid problems into the mix just tightens his job security for a while. He knows he kind of has AU over a rail right now, just like he and this agent played us for more money a few years ago. We just owe too much money to him and Chizik, and we are taking too much of a financial hit with Covid to buy out his contract. This has supposedly made Gus complacent, and I think it shows. 

 

Where are you getting this?  Chizik & his staff were paid their buyout in monthly installments over 36 months.  Chizik & Co  have long been off the AU teet. 

[keesler 5,923]

20 hours ago, passthebiscuits said:

None of these.

main thing: Covid changed entire infrastructure of the program...monetarily and in terms of expectations. Those in charge are just happy that we are having classes and football at all.

secondarily: this to those in charge is the yearly freak out about the program, and then Gus pulls one out (bama), and we are back to believers. 
 

Sorry to rip off the bandaid. 

This tells me "those in charge" are shortsighted, weak and are a bunch of beta's.  Gus is in good company.  

[Auburn Tiger 1,340]

9 minutes ago, keesler said:

Where are you getting this?  Chizik & his staff were paid their buyout in monthly installments over 36 months.  Chizik & Co  have long been off the AU teet. 

Just something I heard from someone around the program. Glad to hear he's off the teet.

[passthebiscuits 6,831]

5 hours ago, psychhog said:

Whoa. I didn't read through all of these pages, but I didn't realize the fire Gus camp was so strong in Auburn. I'm from Arkansas and a hog fan (not coming here to troll or talk trash, good luck in the game this weekend) just wanted to see what the fans are saying over in ya'lls neck of the woods. I remember Gus when he was coaching 2A schools in Arkansas and we played against them and have followed his progress all the way through to taking over for you guys. I even was pulling for him back in the NC game against FSU. Hell I was even one of the few who would've taken him as the head hog back a few years ago. He has quickly turned into one of the most disliked coaches in the SEC for us. I was curious too what the fans thoughts were on the hiring of chad morris as OC seeing as though he was our previous head coach and I'm sure many will remember how terrible we've been the last few years. Anyway, again good luck to you guys, hope it's a good game this weekend.

I think most Auburn fans are pretty reasonable. (There are always some fringe fans.)

The Gus of now isn’t exactly the Gus we started with. The innovative, unpredictable, genius turned into predictably average. Weird thing is, just when you think there’s no way he can save it, he pulls one out of nowhere (usually against Alabama.) 

Of course, he gets credit for the two huge wins in 2013, but he also owns massive Falcons-esque collapses and a horrid record against rivals. 
 

I think most AU fans have seen all we need to see in order to figure out what we have...a predictably 8-4 (5-5 covid?) team that will occasionally stoke the fire of nostalgia and win one we shouldn’t. 
 

So the two trains of thought are:

A) 8-4 with the occasional great season is better than most, and not likely to be massively improved by a change. Besides, Auburn traditionally oversells their place in the college football landscape (previous coaching stops are Wyoming, Iowa State, Samford). And finally, nobody else is beating Bama and Georgia consistently either. We pay the man millions, and we don’t want to be in a position to keep paying him like we have so many others.

 

B ) We are a top 10 program now. We deserve better. We have recruiting talent. We are paying millions for a coach that no longer can coach his specialty. And finally, if we are consistently inconsistent and average with the occasional whisper of greatness, we might as well cut bait and move on...cuz if you’re not where you want to be, you sure as heck Better be changing something to get there. 

[nixtosanders94 2,180]

9 minutes ago, passthebiscuits said:

I think most Auburn fans are pretty reasonable. (There are always some fringe fans.)

The Gus of now isn’t exactly the Gus we started with. The innovative, unpredictable, genius turned into predictably average. Weird thing is, just when you think there’s no way he can save it, he pulls one out of nowhere (usually against Alabama.) 

Of course, he gets credit for the two huge wins in 2013, but he also owns massive Falcons-esque collapses and a horrid record against rivals. 
 

I think most AU fans have seen all we need to see in order to figure out what we have...a predictably 8-4 (5-5 covid?) team that will occasionally stoke the fire of nostalgia and win one we shouldn’t. 
 

So the two trains of thought are:

A) 8-4 with the occasional great season is better than most, and not likely to be massively improved by a change. Besides, Auburn traditionally oversells their place in the college football landscape (previous coaching stops are Wyoming, Iowa State, Samford). And finally, nobody else is beating Bama and Georgia consistently either. We pay the man millions, and we don’t want to be in a position to keep paying him like we have so many others.

 

B ) We are a top 10 program now. We deserve better. We have recruiting talent. We are paying millions for a coach that no longer can coach his specialty. And finally, if we are consistently inconsistent and average with the occasional whisper of greatness, we might as well cut bait and move on...cuz if you’re not where you want to be, you sure as heck Better be changing something to get there. 

Man this is spot on with A and B.

When I became an AU fan in the mid to late 80’s Dye was starting our run of 3 straight SEC titles, 4 in a row over the bams and we were consistently a top 5-8 program.  Being young I assumed Auburn was always that successful.  Of course I learned that wasn’t really the case.  The 90’s were mostly a letdown minus 93-94 and a pretty good 97.  Tubs comes along and after nearly getting canned puts together a good 3 year run where again we were consistently in the top 10 AND beating our rivals at least as much as they beat us.  We had some huge upsets and some demoralizing losses to teams we should’ve beat.  Then Chiz lucks into a perfect storm of Cam and Gus.  Gus lucks into the prayer at Jordan-Hare and the Kick Six but then blows it in the natty...

In between all that and before has been a whole lot of average for Auburn. With bama at a ridiculous level and UGA and LSU at times huge national powers, its definitely tough for Auburn to be a prime player.  So the question becomes, are we ok with what we are?  Do we feel there is a coach out there who can win bigger and more consistently than Gus has?  I honestly don’t know...I do know Gus has really left me apoplectic and sometimes apathetic to football.  I just think its time for some new life regardless of whether we believe a new coach can do better.

[Mustprotect 24]

I'm just here to show my support for this post!

[homersapien 11,353]

Gus's contract is ******* insane.  Criminally insane.

That is all.

[Tigerpro2a 5,650]

17 hours ago, nixtosanders94 said:

In between all that and before has been a whole lot of average for Auburn. With bama at a ridiculous level and UGA and LSU at times huge national powers, its definitely tough for Auburn to be a prime player.  So the question becomes, are we ok with what we are?  Do we feel there is a coach out there who can win bigger and more consistently than Gus has?  I honestly don’t know...I do know Gus has really left me apoplectic and sometimes apathetic to football.  I just think its time for some new life regardless of whether we believe a new coach can do better.

Here is my $0.02 worth. Is there a coach that can win bigger and be more consistent? Maybe. Maybe not. The thing that gets me though is not that we lose most games to our rivals, but in the way we lose. It is rarely ever a well fought come down to the wire game. We usually get dominated like this past weekend, or we completely shutdown and give up a lead.  It is painful to watch having an "Offensive Guru" or some used to call him "offensive genious" who cannot put up yards and points. It is mind-blowing. 

Another point that drives me nuts is not recruiting to our system. After seeing 2010, 2013, and 2014 teams...I would have bet money that we would be stacking up the best athletic QBs and just changing the game. Gus says hold my beer. We bring in Tyler Queen, Jeremy Johnson, Sean White, etc??? You get the point. Same thing on the Offensive Line. You know your system is all based on running game but yet you do not recruit OL. There is absolutely no excuse for the lack of OL we signed. I am not even going to harp on the fact we haven't landed an elite OL recruit since C. Ashley (who busted) but just the sheer number of OL each year. I get we are up against it with the biggest of fish, but you cannot convince me that we couldn't find 3 or 4 more guys that were low 4 star or even 3 stars that had enough potential and enough tools to offer them a spot and coach them up. They will not all pan out, but maybe 1 more out of each class develops? When you sign 2 or 3 OL for an entire class and they are just 3 star guys.....you are setting yourself up for failure. To me that looks like we said " We are good on OL for the next few years...we need someone to come run the wheel route a guy to use as a decoy on the polecat kick play" Makes zero sense.

All in all, Gus has given me some of the most excitement I have ever had being an AU fan. I mean, I literally do not remember ever feeling this way about Tubbs. There were times I questioned him, but I just don't remember feeling this way. Chizik was a different story. Wheels came off...no sugarcoating it. The question I have to ask myself often though....I never felt that way about Tubs ..."is that due to the recent successes of 2010 and 2013? That my expectations have gone too high?"  I mean...prior to 2010 a National Championship seemed like such a pipe dream to me. We hadn't won one in my lifetime or even played for one. The two years we finally put it ALL together, we were on probation or got passed up on. I literally remember after TaMu game in 2010 asking my brother if Auburn would ever win a NC in our lives? Then it happened. Then just 3 short years later there we were. Within seconds of another. I know that raised my expectations of the coaching staff. Is that fair, though?  Some would say No. Many around the Sports world say "You are crazy to want Gus Gone. Just look at how he performs against Bama. He has taken you to two SEC Championships and won one. Almost won you a natty, and has you in the talk almost every year and you all want to get rid of him?" 

So are we putting unfair expectations on Gus or on Auburn Football as a whole? I don't think so. After seeing Clemson turn into what they have, I think we should absolutely have high standards and expectations. We just need a man in charge to take us to our full potential. My first choice would be Mario C. from Oregon. I know many of you will disagree, but I think he would be a really good fit. He can recruit his rear off. HE SOUNDS LIKE A FOOTBALL COACH. He is all coach. Gus ....is Gus. I am thankful for what Gus has done. I think he is an exceptional man and good figure for the school and brand, but his fight is over for me. The darkness has settle. 

 

This turned into a long rant. Sorry guys. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

17 minutes ago, Tigerpro2a said:

The thing that gets me though is not that we lose most games to our rivals, but in the way we lose. It is rarely ever a well fought come down to the wire game. We usually get dominated like this past weekend, or we completely shutdown and give up a lead.