2023 Discussion Thread

[Sizzle 3,913]

34 minutes ago, TigerPAC said:

Sounds awesome but remind him to bring some big uglies with him 

If you get the big time QB in first then usually OL follow. Look at Texas. They got arch Manning then got like 5, 4 star OL right after that 

[Zeek 16,650]

1 hour ago, Sizzle said:

If you get the big time QB in first then usually OL follow. Look at Texas. They got arch Manning then got like 5, 4 star OL right after that 

This is why I have been so annoyed with the inability to get a dude for 2023 locked down. Classes are a lot easier once a QB is on board. Defense you just need a vocal highly rated guy regardless of position to help recruit. 

 

To Terrance Love's credit he is non-stop on his teammates and others to commit. Same with Joiner.

[Zeek 16,650]

4* LB Lewis Carter to Oklahoma 

[keywest 138]

2 hours ago, Zeek said:

4* LB Lewis Carter to Oklahoma 

Is the current staff this poor of recruiters or is everybody using "dead man walking" against AU?

[abw0004 10,113]

20 minutes ago, keywest said:

Is the current staff this poor of recruiters or is everybody using "dead man walking" against AU?

The only two good recruiters we have are Etheridge and Cadillac.  Mason and Eason were also very good but are no longer with us.

[au302 2,669]

4 minutes ago, abw0004 said:

The only two good recruiters we have are Etheridge and Cadillac.  Mason and Eason were also very good but are no longer with us.

Don't forget CRob. He used to absolutely murder us at UF. Struggling here but a lot of coaches are

[Rednilla 5,391]

15 minutes ago, abw0004 said:

The only two good recruiters we have are Etheridge and Cadillac.  Mason and Eason were also very good but are no longer with us.

Hilliard has at least started his time at the college level pretty well. He may or may not be around in college long, but I think his time in the NFL is easy to sell.

[Mikey 16,603]

52 minutes ago, keywest said:

Is the current staff this poor of recruiters or is everybody using "dead man walking" against AU?

The Dead Man Walking was used against AU and Gus for years. Obviously, it can be overcome by the right people.

[CR 2,442]

32 minutes ago, abw0004 said:

The only two good recruiters we have are Etheridge and Cadillac.  Mason and Eason were also very good but are no longer with us.

Ill say the same thing I said about Gus. In recruiting at this level, at some point the HC matters. Assistants cant out-recruit Smart, Saban etc. Does anyone really believe at this point Harsin is going to start landing top level players consistently(if at all)? I havnt seen Auburn recruiting this bad since Terry Bowden was here.

[Mikey 16,603]

22 minutes ago, CR said:

Ill say the same thing I said about Gus. In recruiting at this level, at some point the HC matters. Assistants cant out-recruit Smart, Saban etc. Does anyone really believe at this point Harsin is going to start landing top level players consistently(if at all)? I havnt seen Auburn recruiting this bad since Terry Bowden was here.

Even Bowden had his big wins. Willie Anderson, D. Craig, Fred Beasley, T. Spikes, M. Houston and a few others. I hope Harsin can land some like these but it's not looking good.

[Rednilla 5,391]

22 minutes ago, CR said:

Ill say the same thing I said about Gus. In recruiting at this level, at some point the HC matters. Assistants cant out-recruit Smart, Saban etc. Does anyone really believe at this point Harsin is going to start landing top level players consistently(if at all)? I havnt seen Auburn recruiting this bad since Terry Bowden was here.

If he can do well enough this season to give people confidence in him, yeah, I think so. But because of what went down in February, it's understandable that recruits might not have so much faith in his chances to stick around long.

[Rednilla 5,391]

8 minutes ago, Mikey said:

Even Bowden had his big wins. Willie Anderson, D. Craig, Fred Beasley, T. Spikes, M. Houston and a few others. I hope Harsin can land some like these but it's not looking good.

Pretty sure that Dameyune Craig and Fred Beasley were both redshirts on the 93 team, and I know Willie Anderson was a freshman on that team, which would mean each of them were more likely recruited by Dye's staff and simply retained by Bowden after Dye stepped down.

Bowden gets full credit for Takeo, though, I suppose.

[Zeek 16,650]

1 hour ago, keywest said:

Is the current staff this poor of recruiters or is everybody using "dead man walking" against AU?

I think we have good dudes at a lot of positions but they're working against the attempted coup and absolutely abysmal NIL efforts by the boosters and university. 

[CR 2,442]

28 minutes ago, Rednilla said:

Pretty sure that Dameyune Craig and Fred Beasley were both redshirts on the 93 team, and I know Willie Anderson was a freshman on that team, which would mean each of them were more likely recruited by Dye's staff and simply retained by Bowden after Dye stepped down.

Bowden gets full credit for Takeo, though, I suppose.

Not to get this thread off base, but Garner was doing the heavy lifting recruiting for Bowden and he landed Spikes, Martavious Houston and several others. Bowden sealed his own fate here when he tried kicking Garner to an admin role and Garner told him to pound sand( in not so nice language) and went to Tennessee. Recruiting cratered from that point.

[Tigerpro2a 5,650]

1 hour ago, abw0004 said:

The only two good recruiters we have are Etheridge and Cadillac.  Mason and Eason were also very good but are no longer with us.

CRob is absolutely a good recruiter. He has beaten Twill out of recruits many times and somehow managed to pull all those studs to 3rd and Grantham's defense?

We have a lot of negative forces against us right now. We have the off-season debacle which has led to the biggest piece of negative recruiting against us since 2012. We are getting murdered at NIL. Those 2 together equals what we are seeing.  C-Rob didn't just decide to quit recruiting or become a lousy recruiter when he came to AU.

[abw0004 10,113]

42 minutes ago, Tigerpro2a said:

CRob is absolutely a good recruiter. He has beaten Twill out of recruits many times and somehow managed to pull all those studs to 3rd and Grantham's defense?

We have a lot of negative forces against us right now. We have the off-season debacle which has led to the biggest piece of negative recruiting against us since 2012. We are getting murdered at NIL. Those 2 together equals what we are seeing.  C-Rob didn't just decide to quit recruiting or become a lousy recruiter when he came to AU.

I will concede to CRob.  The only rebuttal I will have is NSD 2022 happened before the debacle, so that is our staff's fault.

Edited July 15, 2022 by abw0004

[Sizzle 3,913]

2 hours ago, au302 said:

Don't forget CRob. He used to absolutely murder us at UF. Struggling here but a lot of coaches are

A lot of Florida fans were happy to see him go when we announced we hired him so that’s usually never a good sign. Maybe he was losing steam towards the end of his tenure at Florida and it’s carried over to his tenure at Auburn

[AUwent 3,749]

What would it take for the boosters to start investing? Somehow I find it difficult to believe that our booster base just don’t care about football—we’re not Vandy or even GT, and I don’t just mean that from an athletic standpoint. is key to watch—if we start struggling in recruiting there, Bruce needs to let Rich hear it.

But I believe that the biggest factor is a staff that has neither the regional nor national chops of recruiting. Square peg, meet round hole.

Edited July 15, 2022 by AUwent

[Zeek 16,650]

18 minutes ago, AUwent said:

What would it take for the boosters to start investing? Somehow I find it difficult to believe that our booster base just don’t care about football—we’re not Vandy or even GT, and I don’t just mean that from an athletic standpoint. is key to watch—if we start struggling in recruiting there, Bruce needs to let Rich hear it.

But I believe that the biggest factor is a staff that has neither the regional nor national chops of recruiting. Square peg, meet round hole.

There isn't enough leadership or clarity regarding NIL at Auburn. Some of them literally don't know where to go or how to handle it. Admin has to step up. 

 

[Zeek 16,650]

3* DT Naquil Betrand is announcing his commitment on the 30th. It will not be to Auburn.

[au302 2,669]

2 hours ago, CR said:

Ill say the same thing I said about Gus. In recruiting at this level, at some point the HC matters. Assistants cant out-recruit Smart, Saban etc. Does anyone really believe at this point Harsin is going to start landing top level players consistently(if at all)? I havnt seen Auburn recruiting this bad since Terry Bowden was here.

There's a lot of traction with the '24 class right now. There's speculation a couple of highly ranked '24 guys could commit soon, including a top ranked QB. What does this tell me? That the staff can at least somewhat respectably recruit, but are working against extremely strong forces. It's way less risky for '24 guys than '23 right now.

'24 guys can just de-commit in December if Harsin gets canned and go through the entire process next year like nothing ever happened. But '23 guys are running out of time and don't want to lose their spots at other schools if they hitch their wagon to us and we implode as expected. It's not an excuse, rather, it just is what it is. 

Good recruiters can overcome negative recruiting. That said, there's a big difference between "man Gus's offense won't' develop you" and "Hars ain't gonna be there after that"..... the first one comes across as sour grapes that anyone could say about just about anybody. The second one is legit since, well, there literally is a good chance he's not here, lol

[Hank2020 3,199]

16 hours ago, Sizzle said:

If you get the big time QB in first then usually OL follow. Look at Texas. They got arch Manning then got like 5, 4 star OL right after that 

I’m betting they all were shown great NIL deals also. 

[Tigerpro2a 5,650]

1 hour ago, abw0004 said:

I will concede to CRob.  The only rebuttal I will have is NSD 2022 happened before the debacle, so that is our staff's fault.

Correct, but we were already behind on the 22 class. 1 year to build relationships with players who other coaches had been recruiting for 2-3 full years. It was always an uphill climb on that one. 

 

BTW- I am not absolving the staff of any responsibility in this, but there are definitely other factors at play as well.

[keywest 138]

3 hours ago, Zeek said:

I think we have good dudes at a lot of positions but they're working against the attempted coup and absolutely abysmal NIL efforts by the boosters and university. 

I would speculate the lack of NIL from boosters is another way of not supporting Harsin, pouting from not originally getting "their man", thus hurting AU in the long run! 

[FASTCOMPANY 394]

4 hours ago, CR said:

Not to get this thread off base, but Garner was doing the heavy lifting recruiting for Bowden and he landed Spikes, Martavious Houston and several others. Bowden sealed his own fate here when he tried kicking Garner to an admin role and Garner told him to pound sand( in not so nice language) and went to Tennessee. Recruiting cratered from that point.

Plus the fact that he tried to recruit Poppa Bowden's rejects! Markeith Cooper and others come to mind.