Auburninbham

I don't get this "sometimes you have to tear it down to make it better" nonsense. When we parted ways with Gus after the 2020 season, we were *not* in need a complete overhaul. We had a 9-3 regular season(and then lost the bowl game) in 2019 that featured wins over a highly ranked Oregon team as well as Alabama(who was 10-1 going into the Iron Bowl). That was a *good* season. Was it great? No. Was it the kind of season fans talk fondly about 20 years later like 2004 or 2010 or even 2013? No. But newsflash- 9-3 in the sec west with a win over Alabama and a top 10/15 ooc win as well? That's a good year. That's not a year indicative over a complete rebuild. Now let's look at 2020. 6-4. That's an all-sec schedule though, and 3 of the losses were to an all time great national champion team(ok), Georgia on the road and top 5 at end of the year Texas A&M. I'm not saying any loss is acceptable, but when you say "oh they were 6-4" it has to be taken into account that it was an all conference schedule and not only that it was a very tough all conference schedule(with Georgia being the west opponent). But yeah I get it- a 6-4 season on the heels of a 9-3 season is not what we strive for at Auburn. We strive for 2004, 2010, 2013. So given that, the Gus era had gotten stale and a change was good. So I definitely will admit that we fired Gus because it had gotten a bit stale and we needed to make a change to strive for bigger and better things. But that is a LONG way from saying we were in trouble as a program, we had hit rock bottom, we needed a rebuilt, etc. It's even a long way from saying we were in 'bad shape' when Gus left. Because we weren't. We didn't have a Bama/Georgia type loaded roster when Gus exited, but as far as teams who just changed let a coach go, we would have been in better shape than just about any. This was the opposite of a 2019 Arkansas type situation, where a program really was at rock bottom and needed a complete overhaul. Harsin instead took over a program in pretty good shape who over the least two years had won 65% of their regular season games with a *tough* schedule(right up there amongst the toughest in the country over that time). So while I am not anti-Harsin, I also don't get the cheerleading for him at this point when seemingly bad news hits(like Tank leaving). And I definitely don't get this idea that we as Auburn fans are going to be super patient as he takes us on a long painful rebuild while he tears it down the studs and we experience some losing over the next couple years..... I'm sorry....what? If Harsin is still losing in *year 3* of his regime, that would be a serious ******* problem for him. Even next year is a super important year for Harsin to show that he is getting things turned around from a dissapointing first year. Auburn fans aren't going to be super patient with this guy....he didn't inherit a dumpster fire, or anything close to it. Did he inherit a team ready made to win the sec? No, of course not. But he sure as hell didn't inherit a bad situation relative to most jobs. And yeah, it's a little concerning that we're just hearing now how Harsin "has to start tearing it down to the studs". Ummmm....what the hell was the first year? Was that just a freebie or a write-off? Auburn fans are willing to give Harsin a year to right the ship before expecting things to be moving in a very positive direction this year, but let's be very clear- THE CLOCK STARTED LAST YEAR. He doesn't get to come into this year, year 2, and say "ok guys, now we have to start over so don't judge me yet...." No, it doesn't work that way. So all I see to this point is the following: 1) Harsin took over a program that was winning 65% of it's game over the last 2 years(even with an all-sec schedule one of those years), and promptly went 6-6 his first year, and 3 of those victories were ooc garbage games so he was only 3-5 in conference play. 2) Harsin's recruiting in his second class(but really his first class with him at the helm as the first doesn't count) has been....underwhelming to say the least. Yes we won't finish #35 of course and we will likely finish around 20th. But that's not good. This is usually the class(the first 'real class') where a foundational coach leaves a market in recruiting- thats what Saban, Smart, etc did with this class. Instead Harsin has the class backpedaling from Gus' classes. And no I don't want to hear nonsense like "well with those other coaches you're comparing them to classes where signing day was 2 months later".....please, those are excuses. Even with a little earlier signing day it is a reasonable expectation for a coach to have a big splash recruiting class with this 'first real class'. Harsin is going to fail at that. 3) We're losing key players in the transfer portal a year into his tenure. The cheerleaders are saying "bo nix leaving is a good thing because we will get someone like Kedon Slovis who is better anyways". well putting aside the fact that it's debatable whether Slovis is better than Nix going forward, we haven't got Slovis yet. So lets hold off assuming that we are going to get a top portal guy in the first place. And while I don't think losing a rb like Tank is an overwhelming loss, it's definately not a negative to some degree. The general trend of losing key players who weren'tbad apples or bad character guys this far into the tenure is *not good*. 4) He's already fired his OC. *His* OC. I found it funny how a lot of cheerleaders were writing this off as an example that Harsin is 'cleaning house' and 'gotta tear down the studs'. Ummm.....*he* drove those studs in in this case!! It's not like Bobo was forced on Harsin. It was a very attractive job and Harsin could pick whoever he wanted, and after just one year he's had to fire *his* pick. Again....that's objectively not a good thing. And yet some of the cheerleaders on here for Harsin are using this as an example of how he's made yet another hard choice that is required when rebuilding a program. False...and false. He hired the guy so it's not a 'hard choice' but a mistake on his end in he first place; and his job here was not to 'rebuild' our program. We weren't Arkansas 2019 or anything close to that. 5) I'm not seeing what Harsin is really doing this far into his tenure(and again we are at a point where other coaches were showing momentum by this point) to address the acknowledged deficiences we did have coming into his tenure. Practically in this forum has been beating the same drum about our offensive line depth- that Gus didn't recruit it well the last several years and as a result it is a bare bones offensive line room. Ok, that's a fair point. So a year and one season later, what has Harsin done to address this? Where are the solid guys he has found in the portal to slide into OL spots? Who are the stud O-lineman in this class he is bringing in to restock this position of need? I'll acknowledge the fact that Harsin didn't inherit a stacked o-line room when he got here, but hells bells we are a year later in the process.....what has he done/doing in this last key year to get things fixed and/or moving in the right direction there? I feel like all the above are pretty objective observations and questions. I'm not an anti-harsin guy and I certainly hope he gets things turned around from his lackluster first year and gets things moving in the right direction. But I'm certainly not going to sit back and give him a blank check in terms of time to start doing well. He didn't take over a situation where that is warranted imo. And I'm just a nobody/lowly alum who doesn't write the big checks or matter in the end more than any other Auburn grad who is a fan. I do have season tickets but so do tens of thousands of others....but I think most of the big donors feel a similar way, and aren't going to have a tremendous amount of patience either. This is a *big* year coming up for Harsin, and he needs to figure out a way for year 2 to be a lot better on the field than year 1.

1) Bo played great. There is no qb competition lol. And he looks like our starter for a long time going forward. 2) The secondary started playing a *lot* better in the second half. Some of it is that Max Johnson is not a good qb and played a really poor second half. But a lot of that was we just played so much better. Those things were really the story of the game. First Bo, and then the improved secondary play along with Max Johnson not being very good. Couldn't be happier now. Next week is not a winnable game, even at home imo, which means all pressure is off. UGA looks like a truly great team, so *anything* we do against them will be seen as a positive. I think 4/5 opponents this year haven't even mustered an offensive td, so if Bo can put just 1-2 tds on the board(hell even in garbage time) and we lose by less than 25 I'll take it as a positive.... WDE

this is the game where Bo brings us back to win and starts creating his legend

This is Bo's night.....

people on twitter are saying this is johnny manziel circa 2011-2 type stuff.....it's really more Patrick Mahomes.....

The thing is our secondary has played much worse than the score and numbers indicate(and they don't look good). Johnson has missed a number of relatively easy throws and been late on some others as gmac pointed out; without those we'd be down more than 6.

lol you must not be that familar with how these here message board thingies work. That said, I see you have a literal army of posters in here who ridicule your posts and bias daily, so even if you don't want to 'argue'(and btw I don't think that word means what you think it means) there is plenty of entertainment value in reading that alone.

his situation is totally different. Of that 235 he's had a first round stud wideout take dumpoffs and slants for 100+.... give Johnson what NIx is working with and they would have 0 pts lol....

Bo nix is going to single handedly win us this game. He's also putting himself in position, as I posted this week, for another 30 or so starts(and all the auburn records) with a game like this. DD isn't watching this thinking he is getting on the field anytime soon lol....

LOL....he's playing the game of his life. good for him.

Hopefully this is the version of Nix we get for the next 2 and a half seasons!!

lol if you think he is going back to the bench for TJ freaking finley you're smoking something. That was an unreal play....a play of the year type play. The job is his for the future.

QB competition = OVER LOL.....

Nix slicing and dicing....he looks really sharp here

Would like to see Bo back in there the next series. He didn't produce points the first two series but the offense just looked more dangerous, and the missed fg wasn't his fault. We don't need to be flipping back and forth, and as Greg Mac said his mobility and feet with this offensive line is probably the biggest difference between these two guys that matters....