i felt this needed a separate thread

[aubiefifty 16,767]

Joseph Goodman: Auburn’s Bryan Harsin critical of players but not himself

Published: Sep. 21, 2022, 7:03 a.m.

6-7 minutes

---

In football, the true character of a team comes out in the second half of tough games.

How well did a team train in the offseason? Are the second-teamers adequate? Can a coach adjust against a worthy opponent?

All these things are revealed when the paint is no longer fresh on the helmets and lungs are hot. Home-field advantage helps, too, and the Auburn football Tigers had it on Saturday when the second half started against Penn State.

Auburn only trailed Penn State 12-6 at halftime. What happened after that? Auburn was exposed, and outscored 27-6 in the second half for a program-defining 41-12 loss against the first Big Ten team to ever play in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Everything went wrong for Auburn in that second half, and the team looked untrained for the fight. It was plain for everyone to see.

Everyone except for Auburn coach Bryan Harsin apparently.

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The situation at Auburn is worse than I could have imagined. The guy in charge apparently thinks he’s doing a good job of coaching his team, and that the players are the problem.

Three games into his second season, Harsin has mastered the art of excuses and pointing fingers, but I guess that’s what happens when a university launches an internal investigation and then doesn’t follow through with the point of it all.

A good coach takes the blame after a bad loss. They own it. In the Monday news conference after an embarrassing Saturday of Auburn football, Harsin instead serviced his ego by talking down to reporters and shifting the weight of responsibility away from himself. To hear him tell it, Harsin is above accountability for what happens during games.

Preparation wasn’t the problem, the coach said, it was all the players and their mistakes.

Harsin blamed his players about a dozen times for a lack of “execution” with obnoxious levels of peevishness and obfuscation.

This long, rambling rationalization for Auburn’s day of blunders explains everything about Harsin’s lack of respect for those around him.

“It is not necessarily the mentality of the team,” Harsin said. “There were mess ups, and there were things that we didn’t do correctly. That’s the execution piece. That’s the part I talk about that execution is the key.

“If you have to be in a gap, you’re in the gap. If you have to cover a man, you cover the man. If you have to run the right route, you run the right route. And that does not have anything to do with mentality. That’s simply executing the job you’re supposed to do.

“There are 11 guys who all have an assignment…You have to do your job. When you don’t do that, and somebody exposes you on that, then things happen. Then you wonder why a big play happens or they rip off a big run or we don’t have somebody in the flat when a quarterback is rolling out.

“That wasn’t designed that way, so if we execute what’s designed, we have a better shot of executing our plays and they’re going to work better and at least give ourselves a chance. To me, that’s really what it is. It’s about execution, and not so much about mentality and all those things that create the drama.”

Which is to say, Harsin is either smell-blind to the huge piles of horse manure he’s heaving over his shoulder, or he didn’t watch the same second half that I did.

Once a standard bearer of SEC toughness, Auburn’s defense allowed Penn State running backs to gain nine yards per carry in the second half. Meanwhile, Auburn abandoned its running game run (the team’s strength), and benched its quarterback.

Auburn football, after two warm-up games to begin the season, is a mystery no more. The team is soft, and ill-equipped for the rigors of second-half football just as competition in the SEC begins. That’s the coach’s fault, and speaks to something greater than one loss to Penn State. In its last five games against Power 5 opponents, Auburn has been outscored 94-18 in second halves.

Coach, the car isn’t broken. It’s out of gas.

In a game between two struggling teams, Auburn (2-1) plays Missouri (2-1) at 11 a.m. on Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Auburn is favored by seven points, but has now lost six games in a row against teams it didn’t pay after a victory.

How far has Auburn fallen over the last five years? Since 2018, the Tigers are 2-8 against teams from the SEC East. The only victories against SEC East teams during that span were in the unprecedented pandemic season of 2020 in which SEC teams played all 10 games against conference opponents. Gus Malzahn’s final season at Auburn featured wins against Kentucky and Tennessee.

Not bad in hindsight. Not nearly the standard of success Auburn demands from its football team. At least Malzahn knew how to put his players in positions to win, though, and didn’t blame the personnel for ill-suited schemes.

No wonder quarterback Bo Nix left for Oregon and defensive coordinator Derek Mason bolted for Oklahoma State. They saw what was coming before anyone else because they were on the inside and knew the truth.

How could a team play so poorly as Auburn did against Penn State? It’s got nothing to do with a game plan. A loss like that all starts with the head coach and how he built and trained his team months before the season.

Auburn’s true character under Harsin was revealed in those painful moments after halftime, and it was a brutally honest accounting of a football team unprepared.

Joseph Goodman is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama: A season of hope and the making of Nick Saban’s ‘ultimate team’”. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.

[AUApostle 7,651]

Goodman is a student writer for a school newspaper? That's what it sounds like.

[eaglenest 332]

 That's donkey droppings, I'm yet to hear the little one accepts blame in any of his losses, he has blamed his fan base and beyond for loses he has had over the years. Goodman get out of here with that foolishness. 

[autiger88 3,777]

8 minutes ago, eaglenest said:

 That's donkey droppings, I'm yet to hear the little one accepts blame in any of his losses, he has blamed his fan base and beyond for loses he has had over the years. Goodman get out of here with that foolishness. 

That's simply not true and I hate defending Saban but he does take responsibility. 😂 Good lord quit lying to yourself. 

[aubiefifty 16,767]

23 minutes ago, eaglenest said:

 That's donkey droppings, I'm yet to hear the little one accepts blame in any of his losses, he has blamed his fan base and beyond for loses he has had over the years. Goodman get out of here with that foolishness. 

pat dye did. and you would be wrong as i have heard saban say they did not do a good job getting their team ready. and yes he has blamed the team but to say he never accepts responsibility is wrong.

[bigbird 60,513]

While he is 100% correct that coaches can only do so much, I don't agree with the public admonishment.  Great leaders praise in public and correct in private.  Execution is a major problem, but it's symbiotic with coaching.  It should be mutualistic, but it can easily become parasitic.

[woodford 3,655]

56 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

Joseph Goodman: Auburn’s Bryan Harsin critical of players but not himself

Published: Sep. 21, 2022, 7:03 a.m.

6-7 minutes

---

Auburn football, after two warm-up games to begin the season, is a mystery no more. The team is soft, and ill-equipped for the rigors of second-half football just as competition in the SEC begins. That’s the coach’s fault, and speaks to something greater than one loss to Penn State. In its last five games against Power 5 opponents, Auburn has been outscored 94-18 in second halves.

 

How far has Auburn fallen over the last five years? Since 2018, the Tigers are 2-8 against teams from the SEC East. The only victories against SEC East teams during that span were in the unprecedented pandemic season of 2020 in which SEC teams played all 10 games against conference opponents. Gus Malzahn’s final season at Auburn featured wins against Kentucky and Tennessee.

 

Holy moly LOL 

[1716AU 728]

Well, that smarts

[NWALA Tiger 3,535]

26 minutes ago, bigbird said:

While he is 100% correct that coaches can only do so much, I don't agree with the public admonishment.  Great leaders praise in public and correct in private.  Execution is a major problem, but it's symbiotic with coaching.  It should be mutualistic, but it can easily become parasitic.

Bird throwing out the big words... Making me have to fire the Google word search engine up

[JuscAUse! 1,404]

I always liked the old coaches " I apologize to the players and fans for the poor job I did getting the team ready " speeches that Shug and Dye would give. The players dreaded hearing it, however, as they knew what was in store that week.

[AUApostle 7,651]

12 minutes ago, NWALA Tiger said:

Bird throwing out the big words... Making me have to fire the Google word search engine up

We’re all very intelligent around here. You didn’t know that?

[bigbird 60,513]

Just now, JuscAUse! said:

I always liked the old coaches " I apologize to the players and fans for the poor job I did getting the team ready " speeches that Shug and Dye would give. The players dreaded hearing it, however, as they knew what was in store that week.

Exactly, players absolutely know where blame lies.  When a coach accepts the blame to protect the kids or team, it just builds more trust and pride in their coach from the players. The opposite is equally true 

[bigbird 60,513]

1 minute ago, AUDevil said:

We’re all very intelligent around here. You didn’t know that?

[NWALA Tiger 3,535]

9 minutes ago, AUDevil said:

We’re all very intelligent around here. You didn’t know that?

I'm behind I guess

[bigbird 60,513]

3 minutes ago, NWALA Tiger said:

I'm behind I guess

You should speak with Golf. Huge vocabulary, but what do you expect when he helped with the Tower of Babel 

[AUinMS9528 1,086]

First of all, Goodman writes garbage and no one should ever give him the time of day.   
Secondly, CBH is done and he knows he’s done.  His words and actions are consistent with a desperate man.   
Finally, I agree with others.   I love when a coach takes responsibility for his team.   It’s called leadership.  

[AUApostle 7,651]

17 minutes ago, bigbird said:

You should speak with Golf. Huge vocabulary, but what do you expect when he helped with the Tower of Babel 

Need more of this.

[fishepa 1,902]

Oh look, another Joseph Goodman article.  <leaves thread immediately>

[Tiger Refuge 6,662]

57 minutes ago, NWALA Tiger said:

Bird throwing out the big words... Making me have to fire the Google word search engine up

 

[imaolgatiger 523]

2 hours ago, AUDevil said:

Goodman is a student writer for a school newspaper? That's what it sounds like.

The idiot can’t get the score correct! Harsin stated that the loss was on him and the coaches. This is a typical Goodboy article.

 

[bigbird 60,513]

10 minutes ago, Tiger Refuge said:

 

Hiphopanonymous 

[fredst 9,064]

1 hour ago, bigbird said:

While he is 100% correct that coaches can only do so much, I don't agree with the public admonishment.  Great leaders praise in public and correct in private.  Execution is a major problem, but it's symbiotic with coaching.  It should be mutualistic, but it can easily become parasitic.

 

[gravejd 3,270]

Goodman has had an ax to grind with Harsin ever since the vaccine nonsense was going on. Expect to see lots of funs articles from him as the Harsin era circles the drain

[bigbird 60,513]

17 minutes ago, gravejd said:

Goodman has had an ax to grind with Harsin ever since the vaccine nonsense was going on. Expect to see lots of funs articles from him as the Harsin era circles the drain

A lot of the hatred form fans stemmed from that 

[ElkRiver 48]

His referring to the university’s unfinished internal investigation tips his hand on the real purpose of this article, which is to vindicate himself- to say that he was right all along about Harsin. I agree that Harsin had this team ill-prepared and that his days at Auburn are numbered, but the glee with which this guy spews attacks on folk’s character and personal integrity in an article about a football game turns my stomach. The only way I was able to read the article was because it was posted here, because I refuse to give him any clicks.