BHDAU1

I didnt even bother to watch the game. Nor the game before that or the one before that. THAT is how bad this has gotten. I do go to the trouble of scheduling them to record in the off chance they pull out a win I can go back and watch it. I don't know about Sanders as coach but I do know all I need to about Harsin..... We could have had Billy Napier like myself and damn near everyone else either wanted or would have been ok with, and we would all be having much better Saturdays

The pollsters know that Pearl will have a good team every year, no matter who we lose to the NBA. Pearl has built a program that has the ability to compete for championships every year. He laid a solid foundation and has continued to improve it every single year by making sure he has the best facilities, coaches, and support from the university to be among the best in the country. It is truly a remarkable achievement given where AU had been. Just getting the caliber of recruits and transfers he gets alone is amazing. If the University makes sure that Pearl stays here by paying whatever it takes I don't see any reason why Auburn wont end up a perennial top 5 program for recruits.

What pisses me off is we could have easily had Billy Napier instead of Harsin. He would have probably been cheaper at that point too! He took a Louisiana team that had 3 straight losing record seasons prior to his arrival to a 7-7 team his first year, to 11-3 in his 2nd year, to 10-1 in 3rd year, to freakin' 13-1 in the 4th year. Every year they made a bowl game. Every year his teams were disciplined and tough, and they averaged 30 points a game or more every year. It seemed to be the most obvious damn pick there was if AU was going with a lessor-known up and coming coach. Well, of course we get Harsin instead which we all know was a big risk to start with given his lack of connections in the deep south for both recruiting and relating to the culture in this area of the country. Napier is now busy at Florida building that program back into a title contender while winning at the same time with Mullen's recruits. Florida was 6-7 last year, and with essentially the same guys and some transfers/freshman Napier already has them at 4-2 this year and looking like they will finish in the top half of the SEC. Sorry for the rant, but I had to vent a little. As far as who would come coach Auburn now I think you have to find someone up and coming or someone that needs a second chance after having some rules issues. Obviously, I mean Hugh Freeze with that last part. I just don't think anyone well-established with a big name is going to come here with our terrible reputation regarding the treatment of coaches. Giving Freeze a 2nd chance in the SEC might just be the best option. Look at how amazing Pearl has done with basketball since being given his 2nd chance....

Sorry but there was no way that we were going to win this game and everyone knew it. UGA is a legit #2 ranked team and they are capable of beating anyone in the country badly except for maybe 2 or 3 other schools. A win for AU in this game would have been to show some improvement on offense and put together maybe 3 to 4 nice drives that ended in points of some kind, reducing turnovers to some degree, and keeping the score within 21 points. We have no idea how good or bad the defense really is because they are on the field for what seems like the entire game over and over again. Even an average defense is going to give up a bunch of points by mid 2nd half if they have had little to no rest and ZERO support from the offense to give them hope. Like many of you, at this point I am just apathetic to what happens.

I think Freeze would be the likely hire. He would likely be hired by AU under very specific terms in which any NCAA infractions would be just cause for termination with no buyout and probably a clause that he would owe any money paid to him by Auburn up to that point back to Auburn. Essentially how they landed Pearl for the basketball team. I think Freeze might end up being a great coach but I'm not fully sold on him yet. I want to do more looking at the candidates before I pick one guy that is 1st on my list of who I want

This team will only go as far as the offensive line will go. Period. And the offensive line play is F-ING horrible. It is truly mind-boggling that this staff wasnt able to get 5 guys in here that are SEC worthy. We could have the top NFL QB, WR, and RB come play with this team and it wouldn't make a difference. They cant pass block worth a damn and they cant run block worth a damn. Literally the only two things that they are supposed to do. You could stomach them if they could at least do one of the two but they cant. They have about two drives in them at the beginning of the game where they can compete at an SEC level, then they are toast. I honestly feel bad for the rest of the team, you know these guys have been competitors all their lives, they want to win but dont have a complete team to make it happen. The line got progressively worse under Gus and just when you think it can't possibly get any worse Harsin and his staff prove us wrong.

I gave my thoughts on the players above but forgot to add my thoughts on the coaching and play calling. What can one say about those two things..... The team was not prepared to play today, it was a sloppy joke on both sides of the ball. Play calling was pretty damn bad.

There were no silver linings to point out in this ugly embarrassment. The Oline was the worst I have witnessed at Auburn in the last 30 years. There was not a single player on the offensive line that had a good or even OK game. No push on the running plays and more often than not on pass plays there was at least one guy getting to our QB without even being bumped/chipped. The QB position is not good, but then again Tom Brady or Joe Burrow would have had a terrible game with the pathetic line play. I mean seriously, there wasnt a single pass play in the 2nd half where the QB had more than a second in the pocket. Tank looked bad and we know he is good so what does that tell you about QB? Ashford could be a serviceable QB if he had any time, like ANY time whatsoever without having to evade tacklers in the pocket or the flat for that matter. RBs had no holes to hit, and the WRs couldnt even get into their routes before our QB had to let it fly. The defense was not good either in ANY respect. Tons of missed tackles and playing out of position, huge cushions on the WRs and bad coverage, and our DEs, LBs, and DL got zero sacks and no pass rush. AU's Oline and Dline were absolutely schooled and manhandled by PSU. All-around one of the worst performances I have ever seen by AU at home. It was truly embarrassing to watch...

Billy Napier was the hire that should have been made instead of Harsin. The facts are that Auburn has always had a reputation for dysfunction in the Athletic Department even when I was in school there from 1999 to 2003, but it has gotten exponentially worse as social media has gotten bigger and bigger. Now it doesnt matter how much money we throw around, there are a lot of schools that can do that where the expectations are not so high and they give their hire time to build the program. No high profile guy is going to risk his future coming here with how messed up every aspect of the program is and with the knowledge they wont be given any time to fix it. We are going to have to find a young guy that has been CONSISTENTLY successful at the highest level at a smaller program. I believe that is the only way to fix this mess.

Ashford has the chance to be pretty good but this game has set him back. He has had to run for his life on every snap. Has there been ONE SINGLE STINKING PASS PLAY where he has had more than a second in the pocket?? I cant think of a single one in the second half. Its so bad the only pass plays being called are roll outs. I remember Bo having to do the same exact thing last year.

2nd string Penn State line is manhandling our 1st string line....LOL I swear Ive had Harsin's back thinking he got a raw deal after the season ended last year. I wanted him to do well this year. But after watching us just barely pull out the victory against SJSU I had a bad feeling that things were going to go downhill today and boy did they ever. I was hopeful that AU could be at least competitive with Penn State, I certainly did not expect a blowout loss at home. This was a TOTAL and COMPLETE embarrassment on national TV.

Nevermind, the oline is incapable of giving the QB even 1 second to stand in the pocket. I just cant get over how weak they are. These are not freshman lineman either. Most of them have some or a lot of experience. It is just REALLY REALLY bad...

Obviously its been game over for some time. Lets get a couple of TD drives out of the offense at least before the game ends. At least muster some glimmer of hope for the offense.

We finally get into the endzone and then get them into a 3rd and 2 or 3 and we play the DBs ten yards off the ball. You cant even make this stuff up.

How could you be an Auburn coach and have such a pathetic oline???? I mean for the love of god a line full of 3 stars with something to prove would do a better job and not even require recruiting. This is the one of the worst oline performances I have ever seen at Auburn.

Our line is sooooo bad. How could any QB succeed with this porous terrible o line. Guys running free to the QB or at best 2 seconds. Its embarrassing ..

The way I see it, the big time boosters have always meddled in the football program at Auburn. I think that goes on at every SEC school though so it's interesting that it is seen as such a problem at Auburn. After attending Auburn and as a life long fan I will say there is no denying that the negative stuff that happens at AU frequently doesn't seem to happen at other schools though. Why that seems to be more of a problem at Auburn I will never understand. There are super rich boosters at every SEC school.

My 2 cents The good: We have a great stable of running backs. 2 guys that could start on any team in the conference. The Oline played so much better than last year for the first game. Granted it was against lessor competition but it seemed like they were all on the same page and I saw lots of physicality. Robby at qb was great. Wrs are catching the ball better. I'm going to reserve judgment on whether they can get separation against better teams. Defense was good overall The bad: TJs two unpressured picks. He had time to think and still threw them. The DBs didn't come up and tackle as hard as I would like to see. I would have liked to have seen more TFLs and sacks against a team like Mercer. They were frequently in the backfield but too often overran the qb or ball carrier and lost containment. Against a better team that would have been a lot worse.

Honestly I don't mind giving TJ another start next week with also planning on giving Robby 20 to 30 snaps if the defense is playing well and giving AU a lot of chances on offense. They really were two BAD picks tonight but it could have just been nerves or trying to force the big play to cement his hold on the qb1 position. What bothered me the most was if I remember correctly, neither of the picks were thrown under pressure. He had his feet set and time to read the defense. Just going off the last half of last season and today I would say Robby will be qb1 by Penn St if I was wagering, but TJ could just as easily have a superb game next weekend and erase some of the doubt.

I sure hope he stays. I have thought he should have gotten more playing time all season long given his abilities. Like I mentioned in another thread, after he had such a great game in the 1st round of the tourney I was totally floored that he didn't get hardly any minutes when it counted in the Miami game. He had to be sore about that. I think that tweet from Pearl was absolutely made in order to try and keep him around for next season. I know if I were JW I would want an assurance that I would get starter minutes next year to stay around. He doesn't have much time left to try and prove that he can make it at the next level and he will need starter minutes next year to make that happen. This year he showed that he has developed a pretty solid mid-range game that he had not showed before, and he certainly has the ability to take the 3 pointer. In prior years he would end up driving out of control and throw up kinda wild shots or turn the ball over. This year he drove numerous times to the basket and was able to stop and hit shots just outside of the paint and in the paint. That was something we really hadn't seen from him before. With 1 more offseason of working on his offense and defense I really think he could become a star for Auburn next year.

Well I hate to lose any talented and seasoned player, but if he didn't want to be at Auburn anymore then it was for the best. It's definitely a surprise but I wish him well wherever he ends up. I have always preferred Williams over DC and I am keeping my fingers crossed that Jaylin Williams stays. After Williams had a great showing in 1st round of the tournament I was very surprised that he didn't get any real minutes against Miami, and if I were him I would have been a little pissed about that.

When KD reached the point at which he was 0 for 7, you would hope he starts to impact the game in other ways, like playing the best defense he can and concentrate on getting his teammates open and good looks. Much of what has been said I totally agree with, they are packing in the paint and giving Auburn open looks from the 3 point line and they are pretty confident that AU wont make enough of them. But at a certain point I think it comes down to plain old "want to". In other words Auburn wants to be in the paint more than A&M does and so they make it happen. Walker is tall enough that if he is fed the ball up high there was no one on the court that could have stopped it. The other option is mid-range stuff. Just a few feet in from the 3-point line completion percentages should go up exponentially. Bottom line is that AU played a very bad game and next up is win or the season is over.

This is exactly what I was afraid of. We are relying on way too many 3-point shots when we have not only very capable big men in the paint but the ability to drive into the paint for points. The first half pretty much sunk the whole game for me. At one point I looked on espn gamecast and we had shot two times as many three pooint shots as we had 2 point shots. That is NOT going to get it done. We do not have a Bryce Brown or Harper on this team that reliably hits 3's when we need them. Jabari is the closest thing Auburn has and he settled for contested threes instead of creating his own shot inside. This is a VERY bad start to the NCAA Tourney. Pretty much the only thing I felt Auburn needed to do to have a good chance of going far in the NCAA tourney was win at least one game in the SEC tourney. There is no excuse for losing against Texas A&M on a neutral court. Would have been nice to be a 1 seed for once but maybe at least this way the team realizes that they aren't all that and a bag of chips. We can't play anything but the very best basketball they are capable of playing every minute of every game. If the outside shots are not falling for the love of GOD PLEASE go inside!!!!! I hope Bruce chews their asses out the entire ride back to Auburn and then they get to doa nice walk of shame from the bus once in Auburn. Pitiful how they did not play together as a team nor did they play with equal or greater energy than their opponent. Those ate two things at least that is completely under their control that they just totally crapped on.

I think it's a joke how high everyone has Gonzaga. Their schedule is mostly sub-par. They have 13 Quadrant 4 wins!!!! That is almost half their entire schedule. That is more than Auburn and UK combined. Auburn only played 4 teams that were quadrant 4 level, all of which were wins. Gonzaga is 8-3 in Quadrant 1, just as Auburn is 8-4 and UK is 8-6. The fact is that Gonzaga plays a weak a** schedule, and yes I know they have some good wins, but I would argue anyone that was top 25 would have some good wins when the rest of your schedule is mostly quadrant 4 level teams. I think we will see them bounced from the tournament as soon as they play someone seeded 5th or higher. Would Gonzaga be #1 in the country if they had played Auburn's schedule? I think most people would agree they would not. Would ANYONE else ranked number #1 with that weak of a schedule take a loss and not fall a single spot? NOPE. Im not saying they are bad, just that they do not deserve the #1 spot. There are multiple teams with a valid argument to be ranked over Gonzaga.

I'm not anti-Flanigan but I think it's pretty clear to most people watching these games that he is not going to get back to his form from last year this season. He has not been scoring much, he's turning the ball over too much, he passes on open shots because his confidence appears to be hurt, and he is not exactly lighting it up on the boards either. He does play great defense when in man to man but otherwise I feel like there are much better options at this time that give us production at both ends of the floor, even if that means a very slight drop in defensive prowess. I think the "new" three guard line-up that Bruce played is certainly viable, it all just comes down to match-ups and who is on the floor for the opposing team. It reminds me of the Final 4 team that was extremely quick and used their speed to get open looks, transition baskets, and steals on defense. I also think that you could put Moore or Williams in for Flanigan. It may be out of position for those guys but both of them are athletic enough to make up for it. Moore, who has not seen a lot of minutes this year, gives us a physical rebounder and paint player who is also pretty good on defense and seems to play at 100% effort all of the time when in the game. My 1st choice would be Williams. Williams is certainly more than adequate on defense, very athletic, and when given the opportunity has shown he not only is a willing rebounder but a pretty good offensive threat. He has developed a stop-and-pop short-range jumper he can go to instead of an out-of-control drive that would often end up in a charge in previous years. And if he gets hot he can hit the 3 ball as well so the defense has to stay with him regardless of where he is on the court. I guess what I am saying is that if I was the opposing coach I am going to try and force/funnel the ball to Flanigan with my defense as I do not think he is capable of carrying the load. I think to make the Final 4 or win the SEC Tourney Bruce HAS to find a line-up that can be put in the game that will get tough baskets when Auburn's offense hits one of these spells where they can't score. Time after time this season Auburn gets these big leads against their opponents and are right on the cusp of breaking the opponents will or belief that they can win and then AU goes completely cold for 5 or 10 mins and the opponent gets new life and starts believing they can win. That was one thing that the Final 4 team did well, once they had you down big they stayed on the gas and would just demoralize you. This team is really, really good but lacks the knack for getting that done.