Auctoritas

Calling it now: Chip Kelly says no, they move to Kalani Sitake who says yes, BAM Bronco Mendenhall back at BYU.

I'd just like to point out that all the chatter about Harsin to Oregon seems to be coming from a cbssports piece where it's just a list of possible candidates, not that he's talking to them. https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/oregon-coaching-search-chip-kelly-bryan-harsin-among-list-of-candidates-to-replace-mario-cristobal/ Possible? sure, I guess. But not based on any inside information.

That's the wildest part, which is saying something. They were waiting to hire AD until MC made a decision. Now that he apparently has, I think Radokovich from Clemson is headed there. Dabo may want to jump ship.

My favorite part of this is that we get to see who here are closet nerds. Side-thread: is AU chaotic neutral? If not, what alignment are we? Answer the question in the form of a bardic saga.

I figured wins vs the cupcakes, then wins vs USC, Arky, and MSST, then pick two of either picking off Ole Miss, surprising one of the traditional rivals, or winning a bowl game. But, as we say ad nauseum, it's not the wins, its how you get there. He's not on the hot seat, but going 0-fer in November is..inauspicious. (I should note that I am not defining "expectations" is not "what I think must happen to be successful" - rather, what my gut told me was logical outcomes. If we define "expectations" as what would be less-than-dumpster-fire, 6-7 was the floor. But, again, how you do it.)

It would have to be a total dumpster fire. Then again, Colorado State just fired Addazio after two years. But I say this: if you are ever in a position to fire a coach that quickly for less than cause, you're definitely closer to perennially being a Colorado State than you are to being a UGA or Bama. You fire a coach after 2 years for anything less than him being caught at midfield greased up, naked, and standing in a stolen fighter jet while doing 6 pounds of blow off the back of Bevo, you probably won't like who's going to be lining up to replace him. That is not the habit you want to be in.

I had been yelling all year that considering our limitations at OL, we needed a lot more of those plays at 10:32. The best part of that one was how fast it happened, a lot of times those inside true screen passes take too long to develop.

I think that the talk was that IF he came here, he'd probably have to be co-OC with Kiesau given the lack of play calling experience. Which, to be fair, has shown some success in places.

Given the second half results this year, a box of dog leavings is a better option than Mike Bobo.

I could see him in a Taysom Hill-type role when Drew Brees was at NO. Especially on a flier, or an UFA. Considering the roster limits, I am surprised we don't see more backup QBs that can add value in another area (such as backup DBs/WRs do on kicks). Similar stats, too: https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/taysom-hill-1.html https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/bo-nix-1.html

We might, but I would also imagine that we're running a version of Harsin's offense for the game. No way to install a new system in 2 weeks. Unless, of course, it's Kiesau, in which case that's just continuity.

For such a good game, equally a s#######g of the bed. Amazingly played, but what an amazing loss.

I'm not looking for it happening all the time. But, strategic losing-their-minds is not a bad thing. Thinking of a different sport, it's like when a baseball team is totally listless and the manager goes out and goes bat**** on an ump after a bad call, kicks dirt, screams, gets redfaced, maybe steals second base literally...it can totally energize the players. Bobby Cox was a master at it. He didn't argue every call, but golly could he get after it when the bigger picture called for it, and nobody ever called him "undisciplined."

So, premise is 100% wrong for all the reasons here, plus the fact that if you could have seen the future there's no way you would have been able to see how many vacancies are already out there. I imagine that AU would have been one of them - as noted, we are probably 0-fer in the SEC, and with as hot as the seat was it the trigger would have been pulled weeks ago. If we had Gus, we would have coaching crumbs to choose from this year vs last year. That said, the author in article linked in OP is 100% right on the stuff said about Harsin/current coaching staff. Minus the, you know, insane premise.

I keep feeling like we are all having the same argument. 1. Missed assignments (blocking and defending), bad angles, awful tackling, dropped passes, bad choices, etc is absolutely on the individual player. This is not a video game where the coaches can stop the game or click a button and fix it. 2. That said - we've seen it rear it's head over and over week to week. That's an issue on coaching - and it's position group, likely. Those player shortfalls are habits, and habits can be broken and the issue trained out. If I can train a dog to find small amounts of drugs, then you'd think a DB coach would be able to train a DB to not take dumb pursuit angles (and I think that that is a measure of reacting to the situation vs being able to see 3-4 seconds into the future - it's the old adage about leading your target is to shoot where they're going to be, not where they are). 2a. And, if it IS being trained and still isn't sticking, then you either need a new player or a different teaching method. 3. A coordinators job is to maximize your strengths while hiding your deficiencies. This is the conversation about adjusting scheme and play calling to your players. We railed for years against Gus for not adapting. It's fair game for there to be frustration at Bobo and Mason, outside of the sometimes baffling play calling on one hand and the stubborn insistence on continuing to try things that aren't working on another. When it comes down to it, the team has looked bad enough lately that there's plenty of blame to spread around. Everyone's got a part in it going sideways and everyone has a responsibility to make a change to fix it.

Thread derailment notice! I don't understand this wish. Saturdays in the fall are the best days of the year. Sundays are not. On Saturday, you can plop on the couch and you have your choice of football from noon until midnight. On Sunday, you get...3 pretty boring games, maybe 4, because the NFL has a total stranglehold on tv rights, and the game is highly commercialized. That cuts both ways, though. Back before 1984, networks had a stranglehold, airing very few CFB games a week, until SCOTUS ruled it violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. That made it POSSIBLE for more games to be aired, but without the demand-side, ESPN and other sports networks wouldn't want to spend air time on it. They probably would not spend air time on the D League either. There are major issues in CFB and major upheaval in the offing, but to be clear: you "nuke" CFB and start over, you probably won't see Auburn on TV every week, just the major national brands. And you won't get to spend Saturday in virtual heaven (at least until Auburn plays, thanks Bobo).

Thing is: twitter account was 100% right. The other thing is: OP is wrong. Changes clearly need to be made, and they have some social capital that they're deciding to spend on trying to make that happen. Any recruit that sees those tweets probably already knew that ish was really wrong and that changes are probably coming down the pipe. A forum account posting that isn't going to move the needle one bit.

Not to mention how many teams will be looking for a coach. And how many of them already are. We are looking at the leavings at that point.

If I were him, I would hit the transfer portal, sit out and train either with a team or with a trainer, and then declare. I think he's got enough film. He's not a first round player (no dig on him, RBs just seem to be going later than they used to) and I don't think he can have the kind of season that would make him one at this point. Not here, certainly. Go get your money and your happiness, young man. (Edit: all of that is hypothetical assuming that he does choose not to stick around. I hope he stays here above all.)

Was coming here to post that. From the Auburn Observer recap: "After the game, South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer told ESPN that his offense really only ran the same two plays in the second half. Linebacker Chandler Wooten said that was true. “We just didn't tackle well, plain and simple,” Wooten said. “That's on us. Wasn't really anything special they did. We kind of knew what plays they were running. We just didn't tackle.”" (end quote) So, there was an argument throughout the game thread about whether it was individual or coaching. I still maintain both. If it were one game, we could say "Coaches can't tackle" - but they can teach pursuit angles and technique. Coaches cant put people in the right spot on the field and physically keep them from getting out of position, but they can coach them on discipline. All that happens during the week, not on game day. If it's not sticking (and apparently it's not) then you either need to change teaching style, or you need to change the personnel (week to week, meaning the players, but big picture, maybe the teacher). More than anything - and this is my gripe with both Mason and Bobo - they ran the same two plays. Mason probably called the right counter to the play, the correct tactic. But it was clear that it wasn't working (like last week), and he never seemed to try to find the right "other" button to press. He didn't adjust. That goes a level deeper, too - another argument towards the end of the game thread was about talent. Jimmies and Joes. But our biggest gripe about Gus was that he never adapted his play calling to the personnel he had, and didn't adapt to their strengths. I see a lot of that on this team still, both strategically and (as we saw in both MSU and USCe) tactically. If they ran the same two plays, and we kept getting burned, you have to figure out how to outscheme. You have to adjust. You can't call plays from a perfect world scenario. Both Bobo and Mason seem to do that - calling a play saying "this should work" without making an adjustment to try to minimize the tactical weakness we are showing in the moment. CDM can call a great game, but "bend but don't break, don't get burned over the top" is so engrained in him that he is risk-averse with play calls. We got burned on 4th down and I honestly think it spooked him. But moreso, his defense was designed to stop the 2010 Oregon and Auburn of the world. The game has progressed and I am not sure that he has progressed with it.

Been on my list for a while, and I am sorry it took this long.

That's a root cause, but the proximal cause is the total lack of adjustment to fix it. Derek Mason tried nothing, and then was all out of ideas. Saw a great analysis at Auburn Observer (which I have plugged before, its the best 6 bucks a month you'll spend): "The Air Raid is designed to neutralize a pass rush. When an offense tries to get the ball out of the quarterback’s hands quickly, it’s tough for the defense to crank up the pressure — unless the coverage is air-tight. That creates a challenge for a defensive coordinator. If the ball is almost always going to be in the air, how many defenders do you need back in coverage? How many pass rushers can you send and still be able to cover everything? Including plays that were wiped out due to defensive penalties by Auburn, Mississippi State had 59 true passing plays Saturday. On 33 of them (55.9%), Auburn only sent three rushers to the quarterback. On the other 26 (44.1%), it sent four rushers. More often than not, Auburn’s wasn’t winning with just three going after Rogers. He attempted 29 passes against Auburn with a three-man rush and completed all but two of them for 305 yards and a touchdown. That’s an average of 10.52 per attempt. That means Auburn wasn’t getting any of the benefits of dropping eight in coverage. Rogers was extremely accurate and efficient, as he had plenty of time to find the open man and keep the ball moving. With four pass rushers, Auburn had a slightly higher rate of pressures — the Tigers came up with two sacks, including the one in which T.D. Moultry was called for targeting, and linebacker Zakoby McClain swatted down a pass attempt on a blitz. Against four-man rushes, Rogers was 13/22 for 93 yards, which is an average of just 4.23 yards per attempt. Now, those numbers scream the obvious — why in the world did Auburn just send three rushers on more than half of its plays if rushing four worked? But there’s some important context to be added here. Yes, Rogers only averaged 4.23 yards per attempt against four-man rushes. However, it’s important to note that five of his six touchdowns came against those rushes. Rogers’ touchdowns were all short, and Auburn brought that fourth man almost all the time with the short field of the red zone behind it. Inside the Auburn red zone, Rogers was 7/8 passing against the four-man rush for five touchdowns and an additional first down. (He was sacked once and pressured on another dropback.) Now let’s take a look at what happened when Auburn sent four-man rushes on plays outside of its own red zone. On those plays, Rogers was just 7/14 passing for 62 yards — an average of 4.43 yards per attempt — and was pressured four times, including once for a sack. (Auburn also was called for defensive pass interference on two non-red zone plays in which it sent four rushers.) Auburn could have been better with its chances to get after Rogers on the passes in which he wasn’t immediately dumping the ball off to a receiver. Still, the Tigers could have afforded to commit a fourth man to the pass rush more often when they were between the 20s, especially considering their issues in coverage. Again, it’s not like Mississippi State wanted to rely on a vertical passing game." If an Auburn beat writer can see it, if all of us at home on our couches could see it...why can't the guy making millions see it? And by that, I mean CDM to a large degree, but also our offensive-minded head coach, who should have been able to step in and say "Hey, DC, if you haven't noticed, this is what they're trying to do, maybe you should compensate." Unfortunately, it was straight up as vanilla playcalling as you can get without coaching peewee, and when it stopped working the players panicked and started trying to play hero-ball and started missing tackles and getting out of position. That is absolutely a discipline issue - do YOUR job - but it also is a coaching issue because CDM was putting those kids in a terrible mental position where they felt like they clearly weren't getting the support they needed to do their job correctly. Often, we overreact and kneejerk. In this case, it's warranted.

The hell of it is, he gets paid for that kind of analysis.

Welp, there we go. Let's see if Bobo and Harsin are worth a damn.