aucom96

I'm not saying it is rational, but the money they spend on football isn't rational and the expectations brought on by that money isn't rational. Malzahn made it through 8 years largely based on 2013. Harsin has a likely 6-6 reg season and a bad recruiting year starting out and he was not a prestige hire by any measure. His leash will be far shorter going forward.

No. And if Auburn spends the next four years getting obliterated by bama and UGA, they'll be calling in a different builder. That's just reality. Harsin is on a tighter clock than his progress allows.

Harsin inherited a mess, no doubt about it, but I just am not seeing what some are seeing. This guy looks like either a guy in over his head or a fish out of water that will take years to acclimate. Our recruiting is bad. Everyone wants at least the two coordinators gone, which is a large portion of the staff with actual ties within the SEC. Harsin would be just as likely to promote and bring in more Boise connections to replace them than hire top level coaches from what I've seen so far. I don't see a coherent philosophy on the field. We're not physical, we don't establish anything offensively, the only consistent is that we're inconsistent. If his recruiting the next couple of years doesn't pick up substantially, we'll be looking for another coach in a few years. Auburn isn't sinking all the money into new facilities for nebulous "culture" changes. Wins will have to come and that's not going to get any easier with a number of programs trending up and Texas and Oklahoma coming into the league.

He does, but he also can make it a longer fix than he will be given time to make. We’ll see how the off-season goes.

1. C- Some high points, such as Arkansas, but our consistent decline from first to fourth quarter shouldn't be so pronounced. 2. C We have underutilized our strengths (Tank, TEs), tried to shove a square peg into a round hole too often on defense and some of our players on special teams are out of place. 3. D We are at the bottom of the SEC. Many are predicting better, but they clearly have to know something most don't or are just pumping serious sunshine. 4. D We have a weird mix of washed up SEC journeymen, green coaches with SEC ties and Boise buddies. Harsin has already fired one of his coaches and it doesn't seem like a staff entirely on the same page at all.

True, but the team got worse over the course of the season. Bobo was brought in to recruit and develop QBs. Mason was brought in because he has multi-year SEC experience. Our recruiting stinks. We have a rebuild, but how many years of 6-7 win football seasons do you think Harsin will get? From what I've watched this season, this guy has a lot of growing as a coach himself to succeed at this level.

Tonight sold me that Harsin was a bad hire. He was brought in to change culture. It's gotten worse. We are sloppier in every phase of the game, have no offensive identity, are fundamentally poor and have declined over the course of the season. He preached being more physical. We are as soft an Auburn team as I've seen. Outside of a scripted drive or two, we are always reacting, never dictating. His recruiting is bad. People always warn of us becoming Tennessee and I see Harsin as our Derek Dooley moment. We can't afford the three or four years a bunch of west coast coaches will need to build relationships around here, but that may just be the boat we're in. We need recruiters. Hopefully changes to that effect are made, but I've seen nothing from Harsin at this point to be optimistic about.

As others have said, I'm not ready to want the guy gone or anything. We need stability and it's not a good year to go coach shopping again. However, what truly can't happen again is a ridiculous panicked contract extension to a guy who is basically still an unknown. Recruiting isn't good and improvement on the field has been very marginal. I think even an SEC assistant with promise could deliver that much in the short term.

The only reasons I could see us hire Bobo are QB development and recruiting. I've seen some evidence of progress on the first front, less on the second. Offensively, I think Bobo is a wash from what we had. He spreads the ball around a bit more, but our running game is even more mundane and ineffective than it had become with Malzahn. Some of that is on our OL, but not all. Mason... I just have to say up front that I absolutely loathe bend don't break defense. We've been through this before with Chizik, Roof and Johnson and it always looked like a mess. But outside of the 12 season - which was its own special problem - I don't know that Auburn has had as hapless a defense as what was on display Saturday. Mason was brought in to make us more efficient and successful against more dynamic offenses and recruit. I had seen little positive on either front. Right now, Harsin's job is 1) recruit 2) recruit 3) everything else. If we don't significantly improve in 1 &2, cut our losses and find people who can.

Harsin looked like a coach out of his league yesterday and recruiting is bad. He seems to favor stuffing his staff with Boise guys who have no relationships built down here. All signs point to a very long rebuild. I don’t think Harsin has the kind of name to survive that kind of rebuild, but we will find out.

I worried about us getting a mountain west coach with no experience recruiting down here. Harsin looks and talks a good game, but I fear he's in over his head. If we're as bad as we looked today, we're looking at several years to right this ship WITH good recruiting. Right now, we're not getting good recruiting. Harsin won't get 8 years to figure this out. He might not have five.

Defensively, I expect what we've seen so far. State will shred us between the 20s. The question is whether we can keep them out of the end zone. This will be a more dangerous offense than what A&M showed us. Offensively, again... more of the same. We'll struggle to run, Bo will be under fire and how he responds will be the difference. If we look like we did Saturday, we lose. If we can shake it off, limit mistakes and manage to establish something approaching run/pass balance, I think we can handle them.

The Tennessee factor is also in play. 8-9 wins is looking a lot tougher to accomplish after the past weekend, recruiting is less than optimal at this point and the reality of a long rebuild is looking more likely. For a fan base that has just come out of the schizo doldrums of the Gus era, waiting another 4 to 5 years to compete with the big boys is disheartening.

Newton has better numbers than Archie Manning. He took a mediocre team to a super bowl 5 years after perhaps the most dominant season a player has ever had in college football. He may not be NFL HOF material, but saying he isn't "great" is just a strange definition of the word.

Very true, but Fisher's first class was ranked 17 (24/7) and he's been top 10 ever since. our current class is 34 and at the bottom of the conference. Signing days are still ahead, but that's not encouraging and is going to have to improve very quickly.

The offensive line is trash. We can't run the ball and our QB can't keep his head under pressure. Recruiting is key and it has to get much better than it is right now. This was the risk of bringing in a guy from across the country with no SEC experience. He's outperformed my expectations many times this season, but if this team doesn't get better quickly then we have two more losses ahead of us heading into the bowls. That's not going to make his job any easier.

Harsin had better get better at recruiting quickly. And Nix should be holding a clipboard from here on out.

Soft.

The university is hiding behind a federal mandate that is likely unconstitutional. I would be interested to see if Auburn has the cojones to fire Harsin over this. Regardless, I'm pretty ashamed of their stance.

Ted Roof part deux

I don’t want it, but you know what this league is, you know Harsin was an underwhelming hire by an AD who could be headed out the door. Looking like we do right now, we’ll be lucky to get out of this season with 6 wins. That’s not going to help recruiting or attitude. But you’re right, we need patience. We shouldn’t be this bad, though.

If he gets that kind of time.

Not that I entirely disagree, but when does this become Harsin’s team? 2,3,4 years? This sounds like all the Malzahn arguments all over again.

We have bigger problems than just Mason.

This team is softer than a Malzahn team, both sides of the ball.