gabo4au

We don't need to worry about getting players from UK... We need to worry about UK getting our coach!!

I was there when Barkley was there... We're going to have to move past the thinking that those were the golden years. It really wasn't anything close to like it is now. It's very hard to pull a program out of the depths, much harder than maintaining. Turning around a perpetual losing mindset is the stuff of legends. It amazes me that everyone wants to minimize what CBP has done. We have a few good seasons because of CBP and everyone thinks we can be Duke or Kansas with a new coach.. But maybe they're right, we've had a bunch of new FB coaches and become Duke and Kansas in FB, so there's that.

Congrats to the team and to Coach Pearl for a great season and winning the SEC tourney. Let's all remember that BBP (Before Bruce Pearl) we were a perennial cellar dweller in the SEC. He's been incredible to our program. I always thought that getting even to the sweet 16 in the NCAA was a stretch based on the way we played all season. Cutting down the nets at the SEC tourney was epic in my opinion. Given two choices... Choice 1 - SEC tourney champs and out of the NCAA in round 1. Choice 2- out of the SEC tourney in the semi's or something and making to the sweet 16.. I'll take choice 1 all day. Cutting down the nets in any significant event is better than going half way in some other event. Few people ever remember that you went to the sweet 16, except hard core fans. Winning the SEC tourney puts up a banner and trophies in the case. I for one will celebrate a great season and the future looks pretty good for AU in many sports, but basketball included.

My wife went to MI ST. AU is the most stable and consistent place on the planet compared to that!! Saban was there and did well, and left. Then they had Bobby Williams, Morris Watts, John L Smith, then Mark Dantonio for some stability for a bit. Then Mel Tucker, who they paid 95 million and was a total dumpster fire culminating in getting fired for sexual harassment. The scandals, payoffs, and crazy stuff is far worse than anything that has ever happened at AU. So yes, it happens everywhere. Most people don't live it every day like they do their own alma mater or "team," so they don't realize what all is going on at other places. All this stuff is actually very common. Even look at bammer during the years between bear and saban, they had all sort of crazy stuff go on.

On kickoff, I have no idea why anyone returns any more. Most of what can happen is bad... Tackled short of the 25, penalty (which is very common), someone gets hurt. I would call fair catch or down it in the end zone every time. Very few times does anyone get past the 25 without a problem, and it's not just us it's everyone. STOP trying to run it back!

I hear you and mostly agree. However, if I have a job, even if I'm not motivated and someone else hits me in the mouth, I'm going to get fired up and respond. It's a personal thing. But I think that's a mentality of my generation, not necessarily everyone else's generation. For me either I'm not going to play or I'm going to play hard. There is no situation where I play, but don't give it my all. And I'm not giving GA that much credit.. FL ST had all their team missing and their players played unmotivated like AU's players, they didn't care.. So to say that the reason GA won was because they had their players motivated, hmm... maybe they did, maybe they didn't, with FSU's situation it's really hard to know.

I don't understand the mentality these days.. Everyone says it's the coaches fault and I agree there needs to be improvement in the coaching. But how do you motivate them? I realize it's their job and they get paid a lot to do it, but it's a really challenging thing these days. As a player, as a person, you just stand there over and over and let the guy on the other side own you! If You're a linemen, how to you look in the mirror and say "the reason I let that guy go through every play of the game was because of coach? The reason I got dominated physically was because coach didn't get me fired up? The reason I got busted in the mouth and slammed to the ground was because of coach?" A Maryland team that isn't any more talented that our team just came in and physically whipped our butts the entire game. As a person who do you just take that? I don't care if you're 18 years old or 88 years old, how do you not put forth effort when someone else is hitting you in the face?? How do you coach guys who won't respond to that? It's not just a problem of our coaches, it's a problem all across football, many of the bowl games had this problem. CHF called it the "me" mentality, "if I'm not playing for a championship, then I'm not putting forth effort, just trying not to get hurt." I don't get it.

Thanks for that, not very visible on their site. I still think they need something "subscription" that is lower than 17, I would hit a $5/month button right now if it were available. I don't need any of the "articles" and things they list as services, I would just give the money for the team. I pay $17/month for a Spotify family plan. which includes 6 accounts with ad free music, pretty much everything ever recorded. I guess musicians just aren't worth much! haha (and as a musician, I can relate!)

Problem is the lowest OTV membership is $17/month. They need a tier as low as $5/month. I pay for several subscription services that are less than $10/month, surely it's profitable to deliver "no service" and make money off a $5/month membership. Hard to get a "lot giving a little" when there is no "little" tier.

I hope you're right. Personally I only see a couple of examples of schools with 5* recruits that haven't won, YET. And I don't see any schools without 5* recruits that are winning. Is there one national champion in the past 20 years that didn't have 5* recruits, AU in 2010 might be as close as you get and they had consistent top 10 to top 15 classes back then. And Cam was a JC transfer which wasn't included in the team rankings. The top recruiting schools are always the ones in the playoffs, been that way for as long as I've watched college FB. Go to 247 sports and look back as far as their history can go. Every team that's been in the playoffs has been a top 10 recruiting school, and not just for one year but for many years. I'm all for kids getting some money, but I'm not for them getting as much as the pros. And I'm certainly not for a free for all without any caps. Even pro football has a salary cap.

That's too bad. As a kid growing up, one of my first games at Jordan-Hare. I don't remember the game, but AU lost a close one. On the way out of the stadium everyone started chanting "it's great to be an Auburn Tiger." Till this day, that is very high on the list of most awesome things I've ever witnessed at a sporting event! Imagine fans, at the lowest point, rallying around the team, the players, the school to voice how awesome it is to be a part of Auburn. I could easily see a recruit, even today with all the social media, saying that it was different and even gave them goosebumps. As fans, we need to make this a big time tradition at AU. We need cell phone video of this at every loss! To be posted across every social media platform. For Football, Basketball, Baseball, and every other sport. If people on this board want to make a difference, make it a point to build this as tradition.

As Auburn Alumni and Fans, we have to always strive to be better. We all need to call out people who act ridiculous. No excuses like saying "every fan base does this," or it's "bammers" or whatever. It's unacceptable and we all need to police it and make it unacceptable to do this and be an AU fan. I wasn't at the game, but I sure hope someone started the chant "It's great to be an Auburn Tiger" as the fans were walking out of the stadium. That's the way to act when something like this happens. I'll just leave this here, live your life by it or change Universities! THE AUBURN CREED I believe that this is a practical world and that I can count only on what I earn. Therefore, I believe in work, hard work. I believe in education, which gives me the knowledge to work wisely and trains my mind and my hands to work skillfully. I believe in honesty and truthfulness, without which I cannot win the respect and confidence of my fellow men. I believe in a sound mind, in a sound body and a spirit that is not afraid, and in clean sports that develop these qualities. I believe in obedience to law because it protects the rights of all. I believe in the human touch, which cultivates sympathy with my fellow men and mutual helpfulness and brings happiness for all. I believe in my Country, because it is a land of freedom and because it is my own home, and that I can best serve that country by "doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with my God." And because Auburn men and women believe in these things, I believe in Auburn and love it.

I'm sure you're right about those Universities. However, it only takes one billionaire sports fan and if you've got more billionaire's there's a chance you find your Phil Knight. Like SMU.. USC, Texas, Miami, MI, OR, and a few others do have a lot of rich alumni who will pour their money in. It's going to be a challenge to compete with them. Another thought is that schools with larger enrollments, hence a larger alumni pool, can get more donations. Schools like A&M, Texas, FL, OH St, Rutgers have more than twice as many students as AU. Which means they have more than twice as many alums. If each of them gives $1, they have twice as much money as we do. But on the bright side, there are enough good athletes coming out of high school to support quite a few good teams. Can we maintain top 20 NIL $'s or top 30? Time will tell. We've always been near the top of what I would call the 2nd tier in Football. We're not quite in the top tier, but we're close. If our NIL administration is creative and works at it, we should be able to stay there.

Yea, unfortunately in the days of NIL, bammer is like a few other schools (including AU) in that they aren't the top of the heap when it comes to wealth. Yea, both of us can put together some pretty good money because we have a lot of fans that care about football. When bammer loses Saban and can't outright pay players as much as some other places, it's going to be difficult. Compared to the wealth of Texas, USC, A&M, Notre Dame, MI, OH ST, and a few others we're way behind. I've heard that we're all giddy that we have something close to 30mil in NIL money, way ahead of the projected amount. But schools like Oregon... Phil Knight will write a single check for that amount! He's spent far more there on facilities and other things and Nike basically gets advertising off his contributions. If you go look up the number of "billionaire alumni" from schools. You'll see that most of the top 10 are ivy league schools, the only traditional football powers in the top 10 are USC, Texas, and Notre Dame. A single billionaire could donate 10+ million every year and not even miss it. I don't think AL or AU is anywhere in the top 100 for billionaires. As time moves on it's going to become more and more about getting paid for the players. It's a travesty, there are even a few schools that have traditionally not been that great that could become power houses. Northwestern, Rutgers, Rice, Stanford, or any Ivy league school that decides they want to do that. The next 10 years will be interesting to see how it shakes out. I think we need to be aligning with a Pro team! Do a partnership with a pro team where the pro team selects our coaches, defines our schemes, and pays us money to get players. Basically become a "minor league" team for a pro team. Or corporate sponsors, or some tie in to big business. Things like that could keep enough money flowing to offset not having outright "sugar daddy" donors. I believe tomorrows top teams will be the ones who do this the best and can raise enough money. It's now another league of pro ball, we haven't yet seen enough cycles to really show the impact. Although we already see TX, USC, and a few others rising higher than they have in many years with just a couple of recruiting classes. Problem is, once someone does the corporate affiliation thing, the wealthier schools will join in and just have more money. I don't know, but to me it doesn't look great for either AU or AL. Although not as bad as it does for most "group of 5" schools. It's going to become harder for those schools to pick a couple of really good players and keep them if they can't pay them. They find a gem, they lose them in the portal to someone with money. We might also see colleges doing what some pro teams have done. Spend a bunch for a bit to see if they can win a championship and if they do, sell it all off. That will actually would be easier in college because you don't have to sell it off, just stop paying for the next batch. It's all short term contracts. Crazy times..

Yes, bad officiating.. Like the push off their receiver did on that last touchdown! Not only pushed off, but held him at arms length till the ball got there. They even grinned and mentioned it wryly on SEC Final..