TitanTiger

18 minutes ago, Bro Johnny Mac said:

You forgot the yellow font

The Society of Eeyore is a chorus around here with a one-note song.

8 minutes ago, cole256 said:

If his defenses wasn't too good at a&m do you think it was more because of personnel? Or maybe offense not being good?

Well, the offensive struggles the last few years are what ultimately caused A&M to fall short in the win column and got Jimbo fired (particularly since he's an offensive coach and until last year called his own plays).

The two years Durkin was there, A&M's offense was middling to bad:  

2023:  50th in total offense (406.9 yds per game) and 25th in scoring (33.3 pts per game)
2022:  93rd in total offense (361.2 ypg) and 101st in scoring (22.8 ppg)

But Durkin's defenses did pretty well and improved in total defense year over year:

2023:  19th in total defense (316.2 ypg) and 36th in scoring defense (22.1 ppg)
2022:  52nd in total defense (365.2 ypg) and 25th in scoring defense (21.2 ppg)

There was drop off from when their DC Mike Elko left after the 2021 season to take the Duke HC job, but they also lost 5 defensive players to the portal and 2 more to the NFL Draft.  And 2022 was a particularly abysmal year for them on offense as you can see above.

hunter also mentioned paying more attention to the metric "points per play" rather than "points per game."  The latter fails to take into account the situations a defense is put into such as having a terrible offense that gives the ball back to the opponent a lot, or whether you're facing hurry up or more traditional ball control type offenses more.

According to him, a 0.25 number in PPP is elite, anything between 0.25 and 0.30 is really good. A 0.25 PPP stat would mean it takes an offense an average of 28 plays to get 7 points.

And according to hunter, DJD's teams have had very good PPP numbers everywhere he's been.

5 minutes ago, NWALA Tiger said:

I sure wish we could have a discussion about Durkins x's and o's style. 

I'll try to summarize some things hunter48 (a well known poster and coach on the various Auburn boards) posted on one of the pay sites:

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His scheme is "versatile".  Runs it out of a 4-2-5, which is the preferred scheme by most defensive coaches in this era of spread, no huddle and RPO offenses but can adjust to run heavy schemes as well, depending on how you employ the Edge LB and the "star" (safety/nickel/LB hybrid).

Tends to use sound "pattern match" zone schemes in coverage, but when he wants to go blitz heavy will shift to more man concepts.

Places a lot of responsibility and pressure on the safeties, so pairing him with McGriff and Kelly is a good brain trust to have for this aspect.

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Others more knowledgable than me can chime in if they want.  I'm just delivering the news.  I've never been a coach and don't know all the terminology such as 'pattern match zone.'

Just now, cole256 said:

This is just my opinion, but I feel people who think yelling equals good coaching either watch too many movies or just don't get what a coach really is. There's no elite players operating in fear. 80% of college players could stomp the s*** out of their coach if that's what they wanted to do. 

Sometimes you yell but even then it's just frustration but you don't win a team from yelling. You win a team from respecting and loving them. Then you can yell if you need too, it's not the other way around. You watch Dan Campbell with Detroit Lions it's so much respect in that organization right now they are literally changing a culture that's been holding them down for years. 

I don't know why average fans some who may not have ever played get joy or feel that a bunch of yelling is the way to get guys to play. What elite level player have you ever seen get yelled at? It's a reason you don't really yell at the leaders of your team. Why in the most important situations it's getting close looking your guys in the eye and you are talking? 

If you really want this school to be good you'd be making posts about do this coach really care about his players? Do they respect him? Then you would see a max effort team. 

People always bring up Saban, he does much more talking than he does yelling. And when he does yell he's yelling at his coaches more than anybody. 

What's the old adage I hear from time to time?  You can push them as hard as you love them.  If a player really feels and believes that you care about him, want the best for him, want to help him be not just the best player he can be, but the best person he can be, he'll take a whole lot of intense coaching from you.  You can yell, push him to his limits, and all sorts of things we'd call "hard coaching" or being a "hard-nosed disciplinarian" and he'll take it and work his ass off to meet those expectations - because you've shown him it's more than just a job.  It's more than football (or whatever sport).  It's more than just somebody with power getting to exercise it.  He knows you're doing all of it to help the kid reach his goals and his full potential.

Just now, NWALA Tiger said:

I agree. We also have coaches who have worked with thus guy. Their opinion should hold the most weight

I think they should certainly be given serious consideration. It's quite possible that people on the coaching staff, in the athletic department, and in the broader university administration have relationships with people in similar roles at Maryland, Ole Miss and Texas A&M.  I'd think those people's experiences and thoughts on Durkin while he was there would also hold significant weight.

But I don't think any of us are in good position to accurately assign appropriate "weight" to the various sources.  Too many moving parts.  I trust that people involved in the hire did give such things serious thought however.

1 hour ago, Allen_D said:

Mike Leach had a “mistreated a kid” episode in his background too… 

The coddling required by kids (and the social media armies that hold the kids blameless) has to frustrate coaches that came of age in the OG disciplinarian coaches era.

This wasn't "mistreated a kid."  A kid died.  It's completely reasonable for such a thing to be throughly investigated, especially when there are reports and complaints of how hard the coaches were pushing the kids in these workouts and the treatment of anyone who wasn't doing well in them.  

Things change.  We know more.  When I was playing football as a kid and my teens, hydration breaks were almost unheard of.  They told us not to drink too much.  Water was withheld and we were made to run more because a coach didn't like the effort we were giving.  We practiced hard no matter how hot it was.  We rightly don't do stupid stuff like that anymore because the consequences can be lethal.   We learn there are coaches that can get the best out of players by using a different approach.  You can sit here an bemoan the fact that coaches can't get away with the Bobby Knight or "Junction Boys" methods anymore or you can just adapt and move on with your life.  

The options aren't to be an a**hole that yells, screams, punishes, belittles and insults or to "coddle."  The best coaches learn to adjust their motivational style as they get to know their players.  They learn that a lot of kids come from s***ty homes with rotten dads who beat and berate them or their moms and they aren't responding to a coach that does the same.  They're looking for someone that cares about them and will push them without all that.

I can't help if you think that's soft.  But to get back to the Durkin situation, as I told Swamp, this HAD to be throughly investigated.  And when you have the complaints about how things were done at MD when he was HC there, if you're Auburn who just jettisoned a good X's and O's coach because his acidic personality was not just about to run off key players, but was running off key coaches - you can't just dismiss the MD stuff as kids who want to be coddled and babied and can't handle a disciplinarian.  And there's nothing wrong with the fans talking about it either.

15 minutes ago, Swamp Eagle said:

Its been investigated.  Who here was on the investigative team? We're not solving anything on a football forum...we just spout and read, for pete's sake.  

Yes, Maryland investigated it.  Those making or signing off on these decisions at Auburn wouldn't be doing their jobs if they didn't follow up on that, which involves more than just reading Maryland's report and moving on.  They're going to dig a bit deeper, talk to some more people, especially at his stops since then in Oxford and College Station.  

And consequently, it is completely normal for fans on a forum to talk about it too.  Maybe eventually it'll get to be more "good Lord, give it a rest" but I don't think a few weeks into a coaching search and less than two days into the actual hire is where you hit that breaking point.

9 hours ago, Swamp Eagle said:

It's a tragic story, I just dont see how talking about it ad nauseum will change the outcome. 

Because when you’re hiring someone for a position where you just let a guy walk/shoved him to a conference rival over concerns about the culture he was fostering with his abrasive style, you’re going to dig a little deeper into why a previous program he ran had similar (but worse) accusations about it reported to the university admin.  You’re going to analyze it. And frankly, the many only the people already bent because we hired a head coach with a scandalous past are going to use him hiring an assistant with something like this in his past as well because - well you know why. It serves an end. 

All that to say, it’s unavoidable. It should be investigated more and there’s nothing weird or wrong about discussing it. 

I stated earlier in the search some hesitancy about Durkin.  It wasn't really because of that kid's death though, as tragic as it was.  He wasn't there at the workout where it happened (and under NCAA rules wasn't permitted to be there for these conditioning workouts), and didn't make any of the decisions surrounding it.  His responsibility basically comes down it being his employee (the S&C coach) that ran the workouts.  

My problem was with the culture of the Maryland program with Durkin as HC.  Several players claiming they were mistreated, humiliated, belittled, harassed, insulted, and so on.  Some of the anecdotes seemed over the line.  That's on Durkin.  Then after the Maryland administration cleared him of any wrongdoing in the player's death, he had a team meeting and 2-3 or so players got upset and walked out the meeting.  A day or so later Maryland seemed to cave to the bad PR coming from that and the deceased kid's parents and fired Durkin.  

So I wondered what playing for Durkin is like.  I wondered what kind of leader he is.  Having told Roberts to find another job because of his abrasive nature and the dysfunctional culture it was creating here (McGriff quitting, then staying in an off field role, then deciding to leave for A&M when Roberts wasn't gone immediately after the season, only to come back once he was shown the door.  Multiple players threatening to transfer only to stay after Roberts was gone, etc), I was worried about whether we were going to hire another guy with similar personality traits and be back in this same turmoil ala Roberts in a season or two.  I think it was a valid point to bring up.  Apparently some at Auburn had similar questions and wanted to be sure about what happened at Maryland and what people who played for or coached with Durkin the last four years at OM and A&M had to say about some of these things.  I think it was something that needed to be done.  

So all that said, I believe these folks must have received feedback that settled their issues.  I'm trusting that's part of the reason it took this long to pull the trigger on him.  So I'm on board with Durkin until I hear a (current) reason not to be.

Our long national nightmare is over!

Just now, GTNupe11 said:

Damn, I forgot about Westry... what could have been...

I wonder if Bruce gets an upperclassmen portal PG after the season is over. Not sure it makes sense if both Tre and Aden come back and we assume they improve from year to year. Neither is pro ready but the portal giveth and taketh so who knows if they'll remain...

The way Pettiford is shooting up the rankings and how he's playing, whatever he does he's not scaring him off.

Just now, aubiefifty said:

i see a lot of people take shots at people all the time they just do it suttle like. after a while it gets old and people are human and do not take being disrespected on here well or even being talked  down to. so they  respond. i am sixty eight years old and i do not ever care to be lectured.ever. tell me what i did but if you talk down to me you are just as bad as folks starting fights. most of us try to abide by the rules.i do i have been guilty of stuff and i have no problem excepting my punishment if i deserve it but do NOT talk down to me. i understand mods and admins have a tough job because you will never make everyone happy. i appreciate your efforts but sometimes you need to talk to someone and ask them about something. i got in bad trouble for saying the word neggers and accused of being racist. i was talking about the red thumbs down as being negative. i am still upset about it.

Honestly, aubie, I don't have any ongoing issue with you.  I barely even remember the incident you're referencing.  If you got in trouble for something it was basically isolated to one incident and we moved on after that. I haven't intended to make you feel talked down to or like you're in some sort of ongoing trouble. 

46 minutes ago, cole256 said:

Everybody deserves its own space, this place likes a certain poster, just wish there were spaces inclusive to other groups. Maybe someone needs to create one, seems to be a lane wide open for it. 

But no matter what there's no cure for being able to play tough on the Internet when you know there's no consequences to words. 

When we get older we laugh at highschool but I know in school people knew to at least fake respect because you had to pay the cost for what you say good or bad. As you get older you get more freedom to hide.

But I'm just thinking this early morning while I walk around a control room of a site that manipulates the most destructive force known to man. 😂

I hate continuing the derailment here, but since comments are being made publicly, I'll respond publicly.  But we aren't going to drill for oil on this.  

I'm not sure why the ownership and management of this site should decide how to handle the way some people behave on whether or not they're big enough to take them in a fight one on one.  It's an internet forum, not high school or the playground.  Nobody cares if someone usually intimidates folks face to face from saying what they really think of them or their behavior.  It's not relevant.  The basis for respect or not saying what you really think isn't tied to such considerations nor should it be.

If folks are told multiple times over many years to alter their approach here based on how the people who own and run it want the parameters to be and they keep not heeding that, eventually something is going to be done about it.  Those who are fine with it or it doesn't affect will stay.  Those who don't like it can decide what they want to do - adjust to the climate or move somewhere more palatable to them personally.  But no forum is going to be able to accommodate everyone or make everyone happy.  This is true whether they're free or pay to play.  Every place has its own feel and personality whether it's rigid and controlled, everything goes, or something in between.  But I'm not going to apologize for how the owner of this site wants things to be and how the mods and admins do their best to manage things.  I'm just stating facts - if this forum doesn't have the vibe you or someone else personally prefers or thinks is more interesting and fun, that's understandable.  Everybody's different.  But maybe it means rather than veiled complaints and jabs about the situation, folks who don't like or agree with it explore some other options.  Maybe there's something out there that will be more in line with how you think it ought to be.  

We certainly aren't perfect, but I'm comfortable with the decisions we've made and how we're managing the site.  I stay in regular communication with @RunInRed about these things.  He lets me know if he has different ideas on how to handle stuff - whether to take action or hold off.  Whether to address something head on or let it ride for a bit.  Contact him if you feel you've got a case to be made otherwise.  

 

I think assuming Bruce is around for another 7-10 years, if Steven stays on that whole time I wouldn't be opposed to elevating him to HC.  Other places such as Duke have done that with long time assistants.

I think Bruce's run over the last 6 years or so has got people thinking that somehow we're a permanent fixture at this level of competitiveness.  We aren't.  Auburn in basketball is basically a hair better than Vanderbilt in football historically.  We've had a few well-spaced out pockets of success followed by many, many consecutive seasons of utter futility.  There's something to be said for continuity and experience knowing how to recruit to Auburn, how to interact with and engage the power brokers and the fanbase, how to be successful and popular at a football school, etc.

Now, if some really great current HC just happened to be interested we'd certainly have to give that person a serious look too.  I'm not saying we mail it in and bank on that right now.  But grabbing the next up and comer from a mid major just because he's got HC experience doesn't seem like a clearly better choice to me.

4 minutes ago, NWALA Tiger said:

Wen zep and kd weren't the reason we won An SEC reg season Championship.  That would be  Jabari Smith LOL.

I didn't argue otherwise.  I simply pointed out we had three returning guards from a team that went 28-6 and won an SEC title and that Alabama was in a much more dire position on paper at the guard position going into the 2022-23 season where Sears was in the portal.

4 minutes ago, NWALA Tiger said:

And for Bruce to say they should have recruited Sears harder. That's stretching the truth. They didn't recruit him at all, cause like it was posted BP didn't want to recruit over,  Green, Zep and KD head. It's a colossal  failure of talent evaluation. 

Which I acknowledged.  He had way too much confidence in the progression Wen and Zep in particular would make with a full offseason.

4 minutes ago, NWALA Tiger said:

For all the good BP has done for AU, this isn't one of them and it's fair to criticize him over it.

I didn't say anything to the contrary.

2 hours ago, DAG said:

It certainly has lost its character. 

Well luckily the internet's a big place.

7 hours ago, cole256 said:

No we didn't offer, and we didn't really try to get him out of the portal, we have been paying for it ever since. But it's just a lesson on making sound decisions and judgements.

If anybody had actually paid attention it was easy to see he was better than anybody we had. Also you would know you have a guy for at least 3 years to develop. They have to start playing chess instead of checkers.

Say what you want about bammers coach but if he doesn't know anything else he knows how important it is to have quality guards and he's hasn't been caught lacking and he had transfers and NBA departures as well. He recruited Mark and he had guards coming out his ass we didn't and Mark was better than every guard on our team when he was a sophomore. 

You'd be in a position to know if we offered him.  The only thing I'll take issue with is that Bama took him even though they had plenty of guards.  They didn't.  Jaden Shackleford and JD Davison declared for the NBA Draft and Keon Ellis graduated. 

Quinnerly was their only returning guard of any consequence.  

They added Sears, Dominick Welch and Nimbi Burnett in the portal.  Signed Jaden Bradley. 

I think it's reasonable to argue that on paper at least, Alabama felt a stronger need to grab some guards in the portal than Auburn felt.  Now, I won't argue that Pearl's confidence in Wen and Zep's progression ended up being misplaced.  We clearly could have used Sears.  But going into 2022-23 by comparison, Auburn had this set up:

Returning guards Wen, Zep and KD from an SEC Championship team.

Signed #7 PG Chance Westry
Signed Tre Donaldson

I can see Pearl's dilemma there a bit, while still acknowledging he misevaluated.

But Bama was in a much more desperate position in terms of guards going into that season.

Just now, arktiger1975 said:

Sounds like he is aware of the grumbling!

How could he not?

1 hour ago, arktiger1975 said:

I know winning on the road, especially against quality teams, is difficult. But I thought this team was different. 

And they very well may prove to be. Lots of season left. 

9 hours ago, AURex said:

I'm not disagreeing wityh you, I'm just being a bit more objective ... I think ... maybe not.

If the likes of UNC, Purdue, UConn, etc -- the better teams -- are only winning 35% - 40% of their road games (I don't think that is correct, but okay), still they are playing Quad 1 teams and winning some of those games. Auburn is not (so far).

I'm not saying Auburn will not win any Quad 1 games. I'm just saying the best teams do win some of their Quad 1 road games and Auburn is not doing so. Auburn SHOULD HAVE won at Miss State.

 

I found the tweet with the stats I was thinking of. It’s not exactly what I said, but close enough:

6 hours ago, Golden Eagle said:

He was a 3 star coming out of high school and Auburn did not recruit him (nor did Alabama).  He had 3 offers - UAB, South Alabama, and Ohio.

https://247sports.com/Player/mark-sears-46083972/high-school-241203/

 

Bruce went after him in the transfer portal last year but lost to Alabama.  He said he should have tried harder to get him from the portal.

Yeah I was thinking about the transfer portal when he was at Ohio. 

I’ll also note Sears was 6-0, 155 lbs coming out of HS. And Auburn signed two guards in that class -Sharife Cooper and Justin Powell.  We were cursed on both - NCAA and daddy issues, but I can see why we didn’t offer out of HS. 

7 minutes ago, AURex said:

I'm not disagreeing wityh you, I'm just being a bit more objective ... I think ... maybe not.

If the likes of UNC, Purdue, UConn, etc -- the better teams -- are only winning 35% - 40% of their road games (I don't think that is correct, but okay), still they are playing Quad 1 teams and winning some of those games. Auburn is not (so far).

I'm not saying Auburn will not win any Quad 1 games. I'm just saying the best teams do win some of their Quad 1 road games and Auburn is not doing so. Auburn SHOULD HAVE won at Miss State.

 

I’m trying to find the citation but I’m almost positive it said Top 15 teams. Meaning the stat included all of them, not just the 2-4 best teams at a given moment. 

Yes, we need to get some Q1 wins. Yes, some others up in the top 5 have some. We’ve also been unfortunate not to have a Q1 game at home yet. Give it some time. 

4 minutes ago, TigerOne said:

Auburn is really in a must win situation now don’t you think?

Um, was someone arguing we should keep losing games or something?