aucom96

This defense wasn’t supposed to be this large a liability. We are bottom of the league terrible and a noticeable step DOWN from last season.

QBs have all day long against us. Mason can’t be gone soon enough for me. We have more talent than this.

Soft. So, so soft.

Mason needs to be coaching somewhere else next year.

For Auburn, I think it is. The reason Saban can sell his "culture" as NFL prep like he does is because he was pulling in #1 classes right at the start. It's a lot easier to convince a kid who has dominated every level of play he's been at to buy into what you're selling if he's competing against two or three more kids just as good in next year's class. UGA, same story. If Harsin can't get top 10 classes, time will become his enemy. It may be better sense to do things the Mike Stoops way and wait 6 or 7 years to build everything up, but I just don't see that happening. There's too much money being sunk in Auburn football. Honestly, I'm surprised how much of a difference I already see in certain fundamental aspects of this team but if we're recruiting middle of the pack, we're going to be middle of the pack and Auburn is not going to be patient with middle of the pack for long, culture or no.

On the "throwing too hard" argument, if Bo had thrown the ball with less velocity on most of the referenced throws, you're looking at a pick six...especially on at least one of the drops by Shivers. These receivers need to be able to catch the ball, especially against a quick, disciplined defense like UGA. If they can't, we need to find some who can.

Ole Miss has enough of a threat in the air to keep Arkansas honest. No one has respected our passing game all season and I don't expect that to change next Saturday. We struggled to run against an LSU team (most of our yards came late and on big plays) that gave up over 300 rushing yards last night to Kentucky. Georgia was a great defense, but we rushed for less than 50 yards against them. That's pathetic and it's due to our sub-par offensive line. Arkansas will stack the box and make Bo Nix beat them. If our wide receivers (and Shivers) drop passes like they did against UGA, we'll struggle to keep up with Arkansas, who I think is a bigger offensive threat than LSU. Plus we're on the road after a butt-kicking at home. You're right. We need this win...and this week of practice will be Harsin's biggest job to date.

It will all come down to recruiting. I like Harsin as a football coach. He certainly doesn't seem reluctant to make tough decisions. But if he can't recruit at a high level, he's going to have a short stay. We can't run the ball against anyone with a pulse, our defense gets lit up by every QB they face, our receivers can't catch a cold and our starting QB - gutsy as he is - is still playing high school ball. Harsin has a tough task ahead of him. Culture is the easy part. Talent is the only thing that will get us where we want to be.

I think we drop Ark, Ole Miss and bama with State being a toss-up. I think we can handle A&M and South Carolina. So 7-5 is probably where I'm feeling right now...which is better than I thought going into the season.

We are a serious rebuild, granted. But if Mike Bobo and Friend don’t pay dividends in THIS YEAR’s recruiting class, they need to be gone the second this season’s over.

"Alright Bo, this is the last shot we got. We're gonna run the picket fence at 'em!"

Gutsy, gutsy win. Tonight was big. I think we learned to be a team.

Big nads, right there!

It’s early and probably unfair to say, but Harsin looks out of his league.

Eh. If our recruiting doesn't significantly improve, he may outlast Harsin.

bama's offense is just methodical, professional and consistently adjusts. It sure beats trying to cute your way out of a talent deficit all the time.

It was Akron, but that was the most I've enjoyed watching every down of an Auburn game in several years. We looked prepared, spread the ball to all parts of the field, ran the ball with authority and went after the QB on defense. Our running game, in particular, looked physical. Those backs wanted to hit somebody. That's a very different mentality and I'm thrilled to see it back. I suspect we'll struggle at times this year, but I like what I've seen so far. Harsin appears to be doing as much as I could hope for with this team and I'm looking forward to watching them develop.

I agree. People still said it.

Lord, I remember hearing this a lot during Malzahn's reign. We'll all see just how good Harsin is. I don't see why - after a number of larger names were proposed - being a little caught off guard that a longtime Sunbelt coach few have heard of was named. I haven't seen anyone on here say this guy or anyone else on the staff is going to fail.

Mason is the only wow hire on the staff, but we’ll see.

I commented on the TV show. Sorry it offended you.

The Boys started well but wound up leftist trash taking shots. Tiresome.

We know what our glaring needs are. Look at our commitments so far. There’s the problem and it’s only going to get worse.

The numbers don't support it, but I was always a fan of Ronnie Brown. When he was on, he ran with power, speed and finesse...but he was inconsistent. What a backfield we had in 2004, though. As unreal an athlete as Bo Jackson was, it's equally crazy we had the quality of backs in 2004 playing at the same time like that.

I really don't like seeing "Air Raid" associated with an coach wearing Auburn colors. The SEC is too quick and athletic to rely on a horizontal passing game, so I hope that's not what we're heading towards. We have to be able to pass, but also attack vertically. Otherwise, teams will continue to stack the line and have a field day in our backfield. Good write-up. It should be a telling season.