AUAlumnTN

That was played in College Station as well. Who edits this garbage?

San Jose State is BAD. It's going to be a very long season if we only manage 34 points against them at home.

6 different Auburn players will score offensive TDs

The DC switch makes a difference and Ohio State runs away with the Big Ten Oregon wins at least 10 games but "Bad Bo" shows up in at least one and costs them the PAC-12 title Alabama wins the West and the SEC but loses a second straight title game The winner of UGA-Tennessee takes the East Auburn finishes 9-3 but finally takes a road game from Bama or Georgia A&M finishes 8-4 but looks bad enough doing so that Aggieland boosters start getting nervous

I will die on the hill that not having a reliable, play-making receiving option cost us multiple games last year. I think fixing that problem alone will go a long way towards making this a more successful season.

Let's be honest, you can say this pretty much every year.

MMW that the 1000 yard receiver drought continues but John Samuel Shenker becomes the first Auburn TE to go over 500 yards receiving

Let's be real here, there's been a meltdown of one kind or another just about every time there's been a quarterback battle at Auburn. Everyone has their favorites going into spring and when said favorite performs less than spectacularly, everyone loses their mind. I remember the uproar when Chris Todd started over Kodi Burns in 2009. Hell, I even remember the (small but quite vocal) faction of people who thought Neil Caudle should've gotten the nod over Cam in 2010 based on A-Day.

There's also a world of difference between being a backup pressed into service for a sinking ship of an offense whose coaches aren't on the same page and, assuming he's the starter, starting fresh for a clearly more cohesive offensive staff.

FYI, size isn't everything for receivers. The last Biletnikoff winner who was taller than 6'1 was Calvin Johnson.

I'm really hoping they'll be able to help them take the next step. It has been absolutely painful to watch guys like Anthony Schwartz come through and not get utilized properly.

Auburn's never really hurt for talent at wide receiver but hooo boy have we been allergic to modern passing schemes. I'm hoping this is the year we finally see something approaching a modern passing offense. I did a brief look back at Auburn's passing stats from the last few decades and it's pretty comical how far behind the rest of the conference we are in that category.

Something to think about: Every single SEC-title winning coach since 2000 has produced a 9-win season by year two. The only ones who haven't gotten to 10 wins or more by year two are Tubs (Year 6) and Ed Orgeron (Year 3). The last coach to win the SEC without winning at least 9 games by year two was Mike Dubose.

The offensive line is the obvious reason but related to that is that we don't have the pieces in place to scheme around that line, ESPECIALLY when Bo got hurt. When he was healthy, Bo's ability to scramble and contribute in the run game helped to disguise some of the o-line issues. TJ doesn't bring those same things to the table so the line looks worse with him under center. Further, we didn't have a receiver this year who could consistently make plays on 3rd and gotta have it. There was no Seth Williams "throw the ball in my ZIP code and I'll come down with it" kinda guy. Mix all those things together and you get an offense that can't reliably score points. The good news is, all these things are fixable.

Two things: 1. Has any good ever come from passive-aggressive social media posts? Ever? Even if his fellow students and other Auburn fans were calling him mean names Ted Lasso-style in public on the way to class, does putting this out there do actually do anything? 2. This whole saga is probably going to be forgotten by the time spring ball rolls around. You know who will ABSOLUTELY still be thinking about this though? NFL scouts and GMs. Bo's a mid-round pick AT BEST right now and his family taking public shots at his old school on his way out the door isn't doing him any favors.

He didn't finish his career at either school for self-inflicted disciplinary reasons hence "flamed out". I don't think that particular word choice is all that controversial nor was it particularly vital to the point I was making. I was mainly using him as an example of someone who, despite their obvious talent, wound up at a "lesser school" and still went on to great things. While their reasons for leaving big time programs are different, there are some parallels between Randy Moss' story and Malik Willis'.

.....you're the sort of person who would argue that a book is terrible because the font is the wrong size, aren't you? Also, considering his FSU probation violation was for marijuana use, I would argue that "flamed out" is a more than appropriate word choice.

......He wasn't allowed to enroll because he was on probation for a HS fight. He was dismissed from Florida State for violating said probation. Given that my statement about him was more to illustrate that going from a big school to a small one is not an impediment to eventual NFL success, was it really necessary to quibble with my exact word choice? I've heard of missing the forest for the trees but this is ridiculous.

Do you have custom tweezers for your nitpicking or do you use regular ole store bought ones?

Randy Moss wound up at Marshall after flaming out at Notre Dame and FSU. Steve McNair turned down a scholarship from Florida to go to Alcorn State. It's a shame for Auburn that he never panned out while he was here but I doubt any player would trade being a first round draft pick for a more recognizable logo on their college helmet.

I remember reading an article when he first started out at Liberty where he (MW, that is) pretty candidly said that transferring and sitting out a year gave him the chance to put his head on straight and really work on becoming a better player. I think he's probably a guy who was always going to shine brighter in an environment where he could develop at his own pace but it really does sting that such a talent walked out the door.

Mullen's name will be mud in Auburn forever but even setting that aside, he'd be a terrible OC hire on the merits. He famously despises recruiting. He has an ego the size of Jupiter and does not play well with others. He just finished running himself out of one of the ten or so best jobs in college football in part because of one of the most disastrous roster management decisions in recent memory (Emory Jones over Anthony Richardson). Also, he's had two teams quit on him in as many seasons. There are legions of better hires out there.

We got to an explanation eventually but in my experience the phrase “tell me how you would have done it better/differently” is quite often the prelude to an argument.

Gotcha. Glad we cleared that up. To start, A&M’s defense had A LOT to do with how poorly the offense played. They clearly made great use of their bye week. That said, I disagree that execution was the only flaw here. A 2-1 pass/run ratio in a game that was three to six points out of reach for most of the duration points to poor preparation

Not that I don’t believe you but you do see how the phrasing of your question might give the impression that you were less genuinely curious and more “trying to bait me into an argument”, yes?