Rebuild vs Reload

[AdamsHouseCat 43]

So I guess next year is rebuild?  Will we ever get sufficient depth of talent at all positions to reload?

[SumterAubie 3,031]

4 minutes ago, AdamsHouseCat said:

So I guess next year is rebuild?  Will we ever get sufficient depth of talent at all positions to reload?

Auburn has plenty of talent. The head coaching spot is where a reload is needed.

[sevenlee36 1,654]

When Bama and Georgia get the death penalty 

[auburn4ever 1,266]

Auburn will be rebuild straight across board. In fact, the 2020 season could Malzahn's worst year with so much rebuilding that he and his staff have to do.

[abw0004 10,134]

I trust the defensive staff in who they have recruited and their developing skills to be able to reload on defense.  Offensive line will be a reload/upgrade.  The rest return on offense really.

[bigbird 60,580]

Every single year under Gus is a rebuild.  There hasn't ever been any progression from year to year. We have no identity, no direction, and no hope for it to change. 

[Sully to Beasley 643]

11 hours ago, sevenlee36 said:

When Bama and Georgia get the death penalty 

They both deserve it and more. Especially bammer...what are the odds of them getting top rated QB's from Hawaii and California to come to "beautiful" tuscaloser  to play college football.? Obviously the REC and $aban are paying players left and right to come play for the tahd. And old kirby at ugly learned from the master and the money is flowing in Athens as well. I am sick of what college football has become. We constantly have pretty much the same old teams making the playoffs most years. The whole thing is a joke and no one is doing anything about it. I may not live long enough to see these issues addressed and corrected.

[McLoofus 35,182]

20 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Every single year under Gus is a rebuild.  There hasn't ever been any progression from year to year. We have no identity, no direction, and no hope for it to change. 

2018 should've been the year. It was a damned train wreck. 

2015 should've been a pretty good year. It was even more of a train wreck. 

2014 was the last time we actually went into the season with an identity on offense.

5 full seasons of figuring it out- or not- on the fly. 

[bigbird 60,580]

5 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

2018 should've been the year. It was a damned train wreck. 

2015 should've been a pretty good year. It was even more of a train wreck. 

2014 was the last time we actually went into the season with an identity on offense.

5 full seasons of figuring it out- or not- on the fly. 

Typically Coaches are given 3-4 years so that they can load up and build toward their direction and scheme. And typically, one can see the development and changes progressing through the years. With Gus, I can't seem to see any progression or identity and that's after 7 years. Next year will be a completely different team, a completely different identity, and a completely different direction.

The only time you see that is in HS sports when players/students move through the program and you have to build around what you have. In college sports you should be recruiting towards your system and identity. In college you don't and shouldn't have to change identities each year.  He is who we know he is.

[McLoofus 35,182]

3 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Typically Coaches are given 3-4 years so that they can load up and build toward their direction and scheme. And typically, one can see the development and changes progressing through the years. With Gus, I can't seem to see any progression or identity and that's after 7 years. Next year will be a completely different team, a completely different identity, and a completely different direction.

The only time you see that is in HS sports when players/students move through the program and you have to build around what you have. In college sports you should be recruiting towards your system and identity. In college you don't and shouldn't have to change identities each year.  He is who we know he is.

Yup. Still, by far, the most successful season was the first one. That's okay if, like you said, we're only in year 3. 

[copper4eva 106]

34 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

2015 should've been a pretty good year. It was even more of a train wreck.

2015 was easily Gus's least talented team, on both offense and defense. You're basing this off of pre season hype, the 15 year was never going to be a great year, anybody who paid attention could see that. We lost a crap ton of players on both offense and defense.

[AUsince72 11,084]

15 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

Yup. Still, by far, the most successful season was the first one. That's okay if, like you said, we're only in year 3. 

C'mon!

You mean his 4 losses in 2017 don't count toward greatness?  I mean he followed it up by equalling that super result with a miniscule 4 losses this year. 

Obviously he HAS settled on an identity.  Cut him some slack!

[copper4eva 106]

22 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Typically Coaches are given 3-4 years so that they can load up and build toward their direction and scheme. And typically, one can see the development and changes progressing through the years. With Gus, I can't seem to see any progression or identity and that's after 7 years. Next year will be a completely different team, a completely different identity, and a completely different direction.

The only time you see that is in HS sports when players/students move through the program and you have to build around what you have. In college sports you should be recruiting towards your system and identity. In college you don't and shouldn't have to change identities each year.  He is who we know he is.

I think if the 13-15 season happened in reverse, things would be different. Gus got way to ahead of himself, and did not value recruiting enough early on. If he had taken defense and recruiting more seriously with his first two staffs, then things would've turn out different. He has slowly changed this of course, but it is annoying how long it took him to figure some things out.

[bigbird 60,580]

4 minutes ago, copper4eva said:

I think if the 13-15 season happened in reverse, things would be different. Gus got way to ahead of himself, and did not value recruiting enough early on. If he had taken defense and recruiting more seriously with his first two staffs, then things would've turn out different. He has slowly changed this of course, but it is annoying how long it took him to figure some things out.

But when is he gonna figure the offense out?

[McLoofus 35,182]

5 minutes ago, copper4eva said:

I think if the 13-15 season happened in reverse, things would be different. Gus got way to ahead of himself, and did not value recruiting enough early on. If he had taken defense and recruiting more seriously with his first two staffs, then things would've turn out different. He has slowly changed this of course, but it is annoying how long it took him to figure some things out.

And even more annoying how long it's taking him to figure out one big thing, if he is indeed figuring it out at all. The Morris hire will likely mean one of two things. I'm hoping for one but fearing the other.

Btw, welcome and post often. 

[aucom96 1,632]

We're a power run offense who just had to load up on JUCO patches to limit the damage from terrible line recruiting. We have recruited lackluster in the backfield and are perilously thin at quarterback. The defense has decent depth at most positions but a lot of question marks when it comes to talent relative to what we've lost. I suspect we're a long way from being capable of "re-loading". 

[McLoofus 35,182]

6 minutes ago, AUsince72 said:

C'mon!

You mean his 4 losses in 2017 don't count toward greatness?  I mean he followed it up by equalling that super result with a miniscule 4 losses this year. 

Obviously he HAS settled on an identity.  Cut him some slack!

2017 is Gus in a nutshell. Took a team capable of beating bama and going to the SECCG and then scored 7 points in said SECCG. Also hung a whopping 6 on Clemson- not sure he deserved all 6 of those points- and then singlehandedly blew a huge lead to a mediocre LSU team. 

This season wasn't so much different. 

[copper4eva 106]

1 minute ago, bigbird said:

But when is he gonna figure the offense out?

A better question is when will he figure out recruiting better. Gus is obviously in the most talented division in football. The defenses we play are stacked with future NFL talent. You know which teams I'm talking about.

The few years that Gus has actually had talent on his offense that compares to these defenses, he's dominated. The real issues with this year, and last year, is we got manhandled. And even our most talented guys, such as Seth Williams, would get beat a lot in one on one situations. Notably, when Nix got picked against LSU, Williams should at least be able to prevent that, even if he doesn't catch the jump ball. And against Minnesota he failed to score the TD on the fade in our first drive. And this is one of the more talented guys on our offensive roster, who can definitely play in the NFL. We've got guys on our offensive starting lineup that won't even get a look in the NFL.

Basically, we are out talented by a lot of the teams we play. And our more talented guys fail to dominate like they should. Seth Williams should have the kind of impact that Sammie Coates had. But he just doesn't.

Gus has to recruit better. The good news is that these past two classes look very promising. But, they could turn out to be overrated. We'll see I suppose.

[bigbird 60,580]

2 minutes ago, copper4eva said:

Gus has to recruit better. The good news is that these past two classes look very promising. But, they could turn out to be overrated. We'll see I suppose.

The recruiting is only as good as the development and none of our offensive coaches have proven they are up to that.

[McLoofus 35,182]

The disparity in performance between our offense and defense is so vast that I can't help but assume we have deficiencies in both recruiting and development. 

But I do think the disparity in development is more acute. Because guys like Seth, and Schwartz, and Joey, and Worm, and Jay Jay Wilson, and Sal... they all have moments. They all show they can make plays. Yet, there is never any consistency or identity. 

[copper4eva 106]

1 minute ago, bigbird said:

The recruiting is only as good as the development and none of our offensive coaches have proven they are up to that.

Given that we live in an age where transferring is no big deal, I personally think it's more recruiting than development. Almost none of the offensive players that have transferred from Auburn have amounted to anything. Roc Thomas is one exception. To me, when I see these 4 stars go and suck at other schools, that means they shouldn't have been recruited in the first place.

[sevenlee36 1,654]

Gus has got us on the Highway to the Danger Zone

[AuburnNTexas 7,175]

To reload each year you have a mixture of sophomores, juniors, seniors starting with a freshman starter every now and then. Then you have backups who have gotten enough significant PT that they will just be stepping on in.  You don't have 4 starting O-Line graduating plus the backup Center graduating. On D we have done a pretty good job of getting new players significant PT  as either starters or backups. D-line we  are loosing two superstars but we do have capable backups who have had significant PT. LB we are good. DB we would have been pretty good if Iggy had returned with him leaving for NFL it is a bit of a rebuild but we do have backups with significant PT.  WR we are ok and QB we are reloading assuming no injury.

I am a little worried about D this year because we have 2 out of 2 areas where we will be loosing 1/2 or more of our starters.  I am always worried about O-line as it has been our Achilles heal for many years now. This will definitely be a rebuilding year not a reloading year. On the O-line that may actually turn out to be a positive 

[AdamsHouseCat 43]

3 hours ago, McLoofus said:

The Morris hire will likely mean one of two things. I'm hoping for one but fearing the other.

Me too.

[AdamsHouseCat 43]

We have recruited consistently well as represented by star ratings.  Are we misleading ourselves?