May Update, Class of 23 Expectations, transfers, and needs to be filled

[CR]

8 hours ago, Rednilla said:

Uh, this isn't Alabama, and we shouldn't expect to be pulling in top notch QBs year after year after year, not until we get some positive momentum going. At least we're not putting all our eggs in one basket like we did with the previous administration. As I mentioned elsewhere, we have at least 3 QBs on the roster who are capable of being a successful SEC QB. That was not the case at any point (that I can remember) of Gus's time at Auburn.

Gus’s (lack of) QB development speaks for itself. But to say we currently have at least 3 QBs on the current roster capable of being a successful SEC QB seems very optimistic. We have a true freshman and 3 transfers who were looking at being backups at their previous school. Paired with a pretty weak WR group, the passing game has major questions headed into the season.

[Rednilla]

59 minutes ago, CR said:

Gus’s (lack of) QB development speaks for itself. But to say we currently have at least 3 QBs on the current roster capable of being a successful SEC QB seems very optimistic. We have a true freshman and 3 transfers who were looking at being backups at their previous school. Paired with a pretty weak WR group, the passing game has major questions headed into the season.

Well, we have at least one who is capable of it, because he's done it. The other two I'm trusting my source about their talent level. I don't think either Geriner or Ashford will be ready to start game one, but that has to do with the grasp of the offense, not their talent level.

Either way, there is a legitimate QB competition going on at Auburn for the first time in a long time.

[metafour]

10 hours ago, Rednilla said:

Uh, this isn't Alabama, and we shouldn't expect to be pulling in top notch QBs year after year after year, not until we get some positive momentum going. At least we're not putting all our eggs in one basket like we did with the previous administration. As I mentioned elsewhere, we have at least 3 QBs on the roster who are capable of being a successful SEC QB. That was not the case at any point (that I can remember) of Gus's time at Auburn.

That's great. But that wasn't what you initially said, or what I was responding to. Your initial suggestion was that it was "really tough" to convince an elite 2023 QB to sign here because we brought in Calzada/Ashford and have Geriner already on the roster. But other schools have continuously proven that to be a weak argument. If you haven't noticed, recruiting in general has been "really tough" for Harsin, and this is just a reflection of that. It's really tough when you lack the ability of an elite recruiter, I agree with that. 

[augolf1716]

8 hours ago, au302 said:

Pulling Riley-Ducker out the midwest away from Iowa

Not to be picky but Micah is from Bellevue, NE only reason I'm saying this is I lived in Bellevue for a while. You were close those because Bellevue is only a few miles from the Iowa state line.....

[Rednilla]

2 minutes ago, metafour said:

recruiting in general has been "really tough" for Harsin

I get the feeling recruiting quarterbacks isn't going to be as difficult for him as other positions might be. I mean, he was a college QB, and he coached the position on the way up the coaching ranks, so I would think if there's one position he can recruit it would be quarterback.

Besides, didn't I hear that our main target at QB got invited to an Elite 11 camp? If he gets a fourth star and comes on board, maybe it'll kill the noise a little bit.

That said, I *don't* think Harsin is an elite recruiter, at least not yet. I guess we'll find out if he's a good enough coach to make up for it over the next year or two.

[Mikey]

11 hours ago, Rednilla said:

Uh, this isn't Alabama, and we shouldn't expect to be pulling in top notch QBs year after year after year, not until we get some positive momentum going. At least we're not putting all our eggs in one basket like we did with the previous administration. As I mentioned elsewhere, we have at least 3 QBs on the roster who are capable of being a successful SEC QB. That was not the case at any point (that I can remember) of Gus's time at Auburn.

????? We have three QB's on the roster who were unsuccessful at their previous schools. That's why they entered the transfer portal. Claiming they all are capable of being successful at AU is nothing more than wishful thinking.

6 hours ago, Rednilla said:

How many times did Malzahn even have two QBs capable of stepping up as SEC-level competitors on the roster at the same time?

How many times did he need more than one? Not once that I can think of.

How much are you charging Malzahn for renting the space in your head? He sure does occupy a lot of it.

[metafour]

1 hour ago, Rednilla said:

I get the feeling recruiting quarterbacks isn't going to be as difficult for him as other positions might be. I mean, he was a college QB, and he coached the position on the way up the coaching ranks, so I would think if there's one position he can recruit it would be quarterback.

 

Yes, you would think that he would have good ability to recruit quarterbacks. However, from what I've seen so far, he has a very "blue collar" recruiting mentality in general - so I don't expect too much movement with the upper-echelon recruits. He seems happy to land the mid-to-low 4-stars and guys that fit his "mold". His mentality isn't going to attract too many 5-star or Top 100 types in the NIL era, from what I've seen so far - that requires more salesmanship, NIL promises, etc. which isn't going to be part of his repertoire or his pitch.

 

Quote

Besides, didn't I hear that our main target at QB got invited to an Elite 11 camp? If he gets a fourth star and comes on board, maybe it'll kill the noise a little bit.

Yes, he was invited to the Elite 11 Finals and looks like he's on pace to get a bump to 4-star at some point given that he continues to impress there, however, we still need to be objective and understand that there is a wide gap between "low 4-star" and some of the QB's that our direct competition is going to sign. A lot of people in this fanbase spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince themselves that Dee Davis was as good as the QB's that Bama, Georgia, A&M, etc. were bringing in and signing, when in reality there was always a significant gap in talent. Right now our competition for Brock Glenn is Miss State and TCU, and he just landed an FSU offer. That should give you an indication on our "level" of QB recruiting for 2023.

The big miss here is that when you don't land an "elite" QB recruit, you miss out on the added bonus that brings in terms of hype and excitement for other recruits in the same class. One of the big issues with Harsin's recruiting and Portal recruiting todate is just a general sense of "non-excitement". A school like Tennessee which has a 5-star QB committed is going to generally have an easier time recruiting elite WR's and TE's than we will with Brock Glenn as the QB in the class. The same is more or less the case with Calzada being the big addition at QB - on paper we lost Nix and gained a more or less boring backup from A&M. Is it a surprise that we struggled to recruit Portal WR's? Calzada may end up being a good prospect to develop, but he's not a very enticing addition if you're trying to generate hype to other offensive recruits.

[Rednilla]

2 hours ago, Mikey said:

How much are you charging Malzahn for renting the space in your head? He sure does occupy a lot of it.

Well, some people like to bring up stuff like how well the first year coach did compared to the previous staff, so maybe that's got it on my mind a little more than it should be.

[Rednilla]

10 minutes ago, metafour said:

 

Yes, you would think that he would have good ability to recruit quarterbacks. However, from what I've seen so far, he has a very "blue collar" recruiting mentality in general - so I don't expect too much movement with the upper-echelon recruits. He seems happy to land the mid-to-low 4-stars and guys that fit his "mold". His mentality isn't going to attract too many 5-star or Top 100 types in the NIL era, from what I've seen so far - that requires more salesmanship, NIL promises, etc. which isn't going to be part of his repertoire or his pitch.

 

Yes, he was invited to the Elite 11 Finals and looks like he's on pace to get a bump to 4-star at some point given that he continues to impress there, however, we still need to be objective and understand that there is a wide gap between "low 4-star" and some of the QB's that our direct competition is going to sign. A lot of people in this fanbase spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince themselves that Dee Davis was as good as the QB's that Bama, Georgia, A&M, etc. were bringing in and signing, when in reality there was always a significant gap in talent. Right now our competition for Brock Glenn is Miss State and TCU, and he just landed an FSU offer. That should give you an indication on our "level" of QB recruiting for 2023.

The big miss here is that when you don't land an "elite" QB recruit, you miss out on the added bonus that brings in terms of hype and excitement for other recruits in the same class. One of the big issues with Harsin's recruiting and Portal recruiting todate is just a general sense of "non-excitement". A school like Tennessee which has a 5-star QB committed is going to generally have an easier time recruiting elite WR's and TE's than we will with Brock Glenn as the QB in the class. The same is more or less the case with Calzada being the big addition at QB - on paper we lost Nix and gained a more or less boring backup from A&M. Is it a surprise that we struggled to recruit Portal WR's? Calzada may end up being a good prospect to develop, but he's not a very enticing addition if you're trying to generate hype to other offensive recruits.

That's fair. And I guarantee you that the staff knows it's already getting around to put up or shut up time, even in year 2. If we have at least a decent year this year (8 wins regular season, minimum), we're liable to see a rather pronounced uptick in recruiting.

[W.E.D]

14 hours ago, Rednilla said:

Uh, this isn't Alabama, and we shouldn't expect to be pulling in top notch QBs year after year after year, not until we get some positive momentum going. At least we're not putting all our eggs in one basket like we did with the previous administration. As I mentioned elsewhere, we have at least 3 QBs on the roster who are capable of being a successful SEC QB. That was not the case at any point (that I can remember) of Gus's time at Auburn.

I like our QB commit from last year. But yall are acting like we landed a 5* QB and have multiple on our roster and any 23 recruit is scared of them. 

Our QB depth is OK but our talent isn't scaring anyone off.  That's just an excuse 

[W.E.D]

3 hours ago, Rednilla said:

Besides, didn't I hear that our main target at QB got invited to an Elite 11 camp?

Our main target is committed to Clemson and going to Michigan or Notre Dame.

I believe the kid from Tenn is a solid fall back

[JerryAU]

20 minutes ago, Rednilla said:

That's fair. And I guarantee you that the staff knows it's already getting around to put up or shut up time, even in year 2. If we have at least a decent year this year (8 wins regular season, minimum), we're liable to see a rather pronounced uptick in recruiting.

Is NIL Auburn currently paying our QB's well right now?  Top prospects especially the skill players want have to know what active players are getting through NIL & what collectives are willing to pay athletes. 

If our current roster is already bringing in NIL $$ equal to the programs we compete against in our region, then our current players can help recruit by relaying that message to visiting prospects.  Let those 5*'s know THIS is the place to play and get paid very well while they're here. 

 

[AUGoo]

1 hour ago, metafour said:

Yes, you would think that he would have good ability to recruit quarterbacks. However, from what I've seen so far, he has a very "blue collar" recruiting mentality in general - so I don't expect too much movement with the upper-echelon recruits. He seems happy to land the mid-to-low 4-stars and guys that fit his "mold".

In our rebuild process, that is all you can hope for.  Development and successful on the field is going to bring in the higher rated players at that point.  Then, NIL will also be a factor and I don't think we have the horses to compete in the NIL world.  I hope to be wrong.

[metafour]

10 minutes ago, AUGoo said:

In our rebuild process, that is all you can hope for.  Development and successful on the field is going to bring in the higher rated players at that point.  Then, NIL will also be a factor and I don't think we have the horses to compete in the NIL world.  I hope to be wrong.

The research into long-term recruiting success for head coaches actually indicates that you can get a fairly accurate idea on what you can expect long-term as early as the first or second recruiting class. If you look at Chizik and Malzahn, they both landed 5-star and Top 100 recruits in their very first class (Malzahn's first class produced Mon Adams and Carl Lawson who were both 5-stars).

This is because fresh HC's have the added "boost" of being able to pitch hype and "new vision", as well as early playing time. Head coaches who are strong or elite recruiters will capitalize on this, and thus they don't need to "prove" anything before they start landing top recruits.

If you look at Harsin, unless he starts absolutely blowing the doors down in terms of on-field performance, I just don't see the persona from him to suggest that he's going to have success with the elite recruits - and you are already seeing this so far with our recruiting. Even in this class where things are "going better", you're seeing positive movement with some ~Top 250 type players, but I really don't see much real movement with elite recruits (you had one guy in Hurley who is the product of our only elite recruiter in Zac Etheridge, but even that door appears to have swung back to Bama unfortunately).

This creates a catch-22 because in order for Harsin to start winning ~10+ games, he's going to need elite talent. But if his plan is to slowly grind and "coach" and "develop" his way with low 4-stars, the problem becomes that he's on a ticking clock so he's not going to have the time to "slowly" build his way to whatever his final vision is, even if he has the competency to achieve it. New coaches get mulligans for poor on-field results if they're creating excitement through recruiting. Harsin's results to date are providing neither, which is a big issue. And unfortunately for him, the Transfer Portal and NIL additions to this sport means that patience will be even thinner because aggressive coaches will be able to show huge turnarounds really quickly (example: Mel Tucker at MSU, what Lincoln Riley has done so far at USC) so there will be much less leeway given to guys like Harsin who seem to be tripping and trodding their way forward.

 

[Rednilla]

19 minutes ago, metafour said:

The research into long-term recruiting success for head coaches actually indicates that you can get a fairly accurate idea on what you can expect long-term as early as the first or second recruiting class. If you look at Chizik and Malzahn, they both landed 5-star and Top 100 recruits in their very first class (Malzahn's first class produced Mon Adams and Carl Lawson who were both 5-stars).

This is because fresh HC's have the added "boost" of being able to pitch hype and "new vision", as well as early playing time. Head coaches who are strong or elite recruiters will capitalize on this, and thus they don't need to "prove" anything before they start landing top recruits.

If you look at Harsin, unless he starts absolutely blowing the doors down in terms of on-field performance, I just don't see the persona from him to suggest that he's going to have success with the elite recruits - and you are already seeing this so far with our recruiting. Even in this class where things are "going better", you're seeing positive movement with some ~Top 250 type players, but I really don't see much real movement with elite recruits (you had one guy in Hurley who is the product of our only elite recruiter in Zac Etheridge, but even that door appears to have swung back to Bama unfortunately).

This creates a catch-22 because in order for Harsin to start winning ~10+ games, he's going to need elite talent. But if his plan is to slowly grind and "coach" and "develop" his way with low 4-stars, the problem becomes that he's on a ticking clock so he's not going to have the time to "slowly" build his way to whatever his final vision is, even if he has the competency to achieve it. New coaches get mulligans for poor on-field results if they're creating excitement through recruiting. Harsin's results to date are providing neither, which is a big issue. And unfortunately for him, the Transfer Portal and NIL additions to this sport means that patience will be even thinner because aggressive coaches will be able to show huge turnarounds really quickly (example: Mel Tucker at MSU, what Lincoln Riley has done so far at USC) so there will be much less leeway given to guys like Harsin who seem to be tripping and trodding their way forward.

 

When you put it that way, feels like the odds are stacked pretty heavily against Harsin.

[CR]

22 minutes ago, metafour said:

The research into long-term recruiting success for head coaches actually indicates that you can get a fairly accurate idea on what you can expect long-term as early as the first or second recruiting class. If you look at Chizik and Malzahn, they both landed 5-star and Top 100 recruits in their very first class (Malzahn's first class produced Mon Adams and Carl Lawson who were both 5-stars).

This is because fresh HC's have the added "boost" of being able to pitch hype and "new vision", as well as early playing time. Head coaches who are strong or elite recruiters will capitalize on this, and thus they don't need to "prove" anything before they start landing top recruits.

If you look at Harsin, unless he starts absolutely blowing the doors down in terms of on-field performance, I just don't see the persona from him to suggest that he's going to have success with the elite recruits - and you are already seeing this so far with our recruiting. Even in this class where things are "going better", you're seeing positive movement with some ~Top 250 type players, but I really don't see much real movement with elite recruits (you had one guy in Hurley who is the product of our only elite recruiter in Zac Etheridge, but even that door appears to have swung back to Bama unfortunately).

This creates a catch-22 because in order for Harsin to start winning ~10+ games, he's going to need elite talent. But if his plan is to slowly grind and "coach" and "develop" his way with low 4-stars, the problem becomes that he's on a ticking clock so he's not going to have the time to "slowly" build his way to whatever his final vision is, even if he has the competency to achieve it. New coaches get mulligans for poor on-field results if they're creating excitement through recruiting. Harsin's results to date are providing neither, which is a big issue. And unfortunately for him, the Transfer Portal and NIL additions to this sport means that patience will be even thinner because aggressive coaches will be able to show huge turnarounds really quickly (example: Mel Tucker at MSU, what Lincoln Riley has done so far at USC) so there will be much less leeway given to guys like Harsin who seem to be tripping and trodding their way forward.

 

Auburn is getting very little recruiting wise from the HC, the OC and the DC. Assistants can only do so much when recruiting against Smart, Saban, etc. plus those coaches expect coordinators to carry their weight recruiting as well. 

[VAtiger12]

2 hours ago, Rednilla said:

When you put it that way, feels like the odds are stacked pretty heavily against Harsin.

This comment and what Metafour was saying is how I've felt about the Harsin hire in general. I did not immediately dislike an outsider, and I didn't even dislike the attitude adjustment that he brought. It felt like bringing in a bunch of his Boise guys and then hiring Mason and Bobo.. he did not bring an energy that I feel like a new coach in the SEC has to bring with him. Then with the changing landscape of transfers and NIL, a new coach's energy could definitely reshape a team much, much quicker than we've ever seen in the past. It feels like he's a guy who was expecting to build something for 5 years in a new landscape where you will be sunk in 2 cycles if you don't show momentum. 

[Hank2020]

3 hours ago, Rednilla said:

When you put it that way, feels like the odds are stacked pretty heavily against Harsin.

This assumes recruiting remains the same all the time which is a ridiculous assumptions I believe.

[Mikey]

6 hours ago, Rednilla said:

Well, some people like to bring up stuff like how well the first year coach did compared to the previous staff, so maybe that's got it on my mind a little more than it should be.

I brought up how poorly the current 1st year coach did compared to the previous SEVEN 1st year coaches. Harsin and Barfield stand alone in having worse 1st year records than the guys they replaced had in their final year. That you conflate that into a Gus topic only reveals how much of your brain Gus occupies.

[au302]

10 hours ago, augolf1716 said:

Not to be picky but Micah is from Bellevue, NE only reason I'm saying this is I lived in Bellevue for a while. You were close those because Bellevue is only a few miles from the Iowa state line.....

Sorry, didn't clarify well, meant Iowa University. Those guys are arguably tight end U, so getting him from their backyard was an impressive pull to me 

[slyinsocal]

[SumterAubie]

21 hours ago, SumterAubie said:

Well the former regime did have a qb drafted into the NFL.

 

17 hours ago, Rednilla said:

The former regime had more time in service at a P5 school...and had as many QBs drafted as defensive back as at quarterback. You're dealing with a different level of athlete in the SEC compared with the Mountain West.

But that wasn't the point. How many times did Malzahn even have two QBs capable of stepping up as SEC-level competitors on the roster at the same time?

Well, the former regime did have a qb drafted into the NFL.  But out of Liberty University.  

[gman87]

Malzahn had a history with AU of winning a National championship as OC and only losing 1 game regular season his 1st year as HC, leading us to within 7 seconds of another National championship. To compare his ability to recruit to AU compared to Harsin, a complete outsider from a minor league, is like comparing an apple to a watermelon.