Strychnine

Pure conjecture here as well, but I suspect that recruiting at Boise State and at Auburn are vastly different. At Boise State, he probably did not have to sell the program hard, or forge relationships with high school coaches. I imagine that players without major P5 offers were lining up to go there, and evaluation was more important than actual recruiting. The high school coaches probably called him, trying to get their players recruited. At Auburn, he has two NFL pipelines to compete with, and they are both within 200 miles. Then there is the rest of the SEC, and some ACC programs to compete with. The competition is very aggressive, AND he has to convince recruits that they want to come to Auburn instead of [insert other top 25 program here]. As you said, the human aspect of it. That was probably a lot less important at Boise State.

When I read things like that, my first thought is wondering if he just did not understand what he was getting into by stepping up to this level. Auburn has two main rivals, and both have been consistently recruiting at the highest level. It is no large leap of logic to deduce that recruiting is going to be a substantial chunk of the job, if you intend to consistently compete with those programs, or beat them on the way to championships. Top players are not just going to walk in off the street, and you cannot order them on Amazon, so this is definitely not the job for someone that is not all-in on recruiting hard.

Of all the staff turnover, Mason bothers me the most, as basically none of the implications are good.

Same. Between fanbase, boosters, and possibly admin, I think there are enough people that want him gone, that he would be unable to just go back to work and pretend it never happened. In that case, it is probably best to reach some sort of settlement, rather than wait another year.

I do not see why you would get fire-branded for that, especially given some of the other things I have seen posted here over the last year.

I am not getting that one either. Prior to his stint at Florida, it might have made sense. However, given that recruiting is something that needs to be picked up, Mullen is obviously the wrong answer for that.

I really struggle with the concept of being die-hard supporters of any particular coach, unless someone has a direct link to them. They are mercenaries to me. I wanted Gus to succeed, just as I wanted all of his predecessors to succeed. If they succeed, Auburn succeeds, and that is all I care about. It finally became clear, to those that mattered anyway, that Gus was not going to succeed. Getting fired was obviously a personal low for him, but he also left much wealthier than he arrived. Now I want Harsin to succeed, and that is what I will continue to want until it becomes clear that he is not going to. I cannot rationalize being against the man before he was even finished unpacking his office.

That makes as much sense as anything else. The family situation could easily be one of his parents has a terminal illness, and he wants to spend as much time with them as possible. A personal issue could be that he has a girlfriend or fiance from Washington that did not like it in Auburn, and wanted to go home. It could be so many things, and we have no way of knowing, unless Harsin or Davis decide to clarify it for us. I will not be holding my breath for that one. I do believe that he did not resign without knowing that he was not sabotaging his career. People are talking about it not being a good look for Auburn, and they are right. It is also not a good look for him either, and he would know that, so I doubt it was a decision made on a whim.

He probably had an idea of what he was getting into, but I doubt it came from his time as a recruit. That said, there is a difference between having an idea of what you are getting into, and actually getting into it. After a month of recruiting, I can easily see someone that had never done it before, deciding it was worse than they thought. NFL QB coach was probably more of a day job than college coaching.

As a member that was here before Reddit was a thing, I agree, sober and earnest is terrible. Drunk and satirical is definitely better.

If the coach has an established track record of players getting drafted, I doubt they would find a ceiling at Auburn.

As a 42-year-old that never played a down of college football, and works in IT, my guess is that the portal gets increasingly used to test the waters. I think we will end up seeing an influx of recruited G5 players, that don't want to ride the bench, looking to transfer elsewhere.

Rather than rooting for Alabama, I look at it as actively rooting for Georgia to lose. It takes me to the same place, but is much less bitter going down.

This. If you want to keep the pitchforks at bay long enough to recruit and then develop incoming high school players, JUCO/portal is basically a necessity.

It may not be popular, but it is quite rational.

That is not really unusual for assistant coaches.

I can see why a new coach might be interested in a transfer with 3 years of SEC starting experience, especially if the new OC is the one pitching him. Unless the freshman is just that good, no one wants to have to rely on a freshman QB being ready to start.

My guess is that there was an understanding between Bo and the new Ducks staff before he committed to it. Transferring to a team where he might not get the starting job would be rather foolish on his part. I can see the new staff wanting to bring in an experienced transfer, rather than working to start one of a trio of freshmen.

If his father's request is true, I think Harsin would honor it, to whatever extent was reasonable. I think he would respect the nature of the request, and see the wisdom in it. I also think he would have put Davis on the field, if he thought it would have a good chance of preventing a loss. Harsin was planning to kick off the season with a two-year starter, a transfer with SEC starting experience, and a #3 with G5 starting experience. It would just make sense to focus reps on the 3 QBs in front of him, and have DD do what most freshman QBs traditionally do. If Davis took a snap during the regular season, it was only going to be in the kind of mop up duty where the #1 and 2 QBs have already had their workout. After game 2, there was no mop up duty like that to be seen. I doubt Harsin ever considered putting him out there against Alabama. My guess: 2021 was going to play out that way for Davis, regardless of any request from his father. If anything, such a request from his father reinforced it. I think the only exception to that would have been if Davis was just blowing the coaches' minds in practice.

If his goal is to get drafted into the NFL, as he has stated, then Gus and UCF seem quite counterproductive to that goal. I would hope that anyone giving him advice would steer him away from that option.

If I ever got that email, the sender's inbox spends the rest of its existence as the target of a spam bot.

Spurrier called plays, and I would say it worked out for him.

FTFY....again. You should hire an editor. Better communication, more time freed up for drinking. It is a win-win.

FTFY

No worries. You mentioned Waffle House, and those bathrooms have an odor that transcends bad decisions. It is a combination of shitrus, bleach, and broken dreams.