The Harsin Question

[cole256 17,066]

5 hours ago, NWALA Tiger said:

I would have been ok with hiring Kirby. BUT, no way he would have the same recruiting success at Auburn that he is having at Georgia... At Georgia, he has the advantage of being the main state school.  I think he could have recruited well at AU  but not at the level he is doing now. Which would in turn trickle down to his won loss record if he were at AU

It's not about having the same exact type of success but like it or not Alabama always out recruits us in state. We pretty much kept up by going into Georgia and getting a bunch of their best athletes, and getting a few Florida guys here and there. Now Kirby has put a stop to that and now we are struggling. 

It's already been proven you can be a top notch recruiting machine here. There's no reason to think he wouldn't be able to recruit here. We would be in a much better place with him. 

[meh130 1,043]

3 hours ago, gravejd said:

Grimes is my guy personally. He could def get OL to sign here. Not sure what other credentials people need to see lol

I think Grimes would come. He wants to be a head coach, and to be able to start at a Power 5 school is a big deal.

Could a Grimes be our Pittman?

[meh130 1,043]

12 minutes ago, cole256 said:

We are just so behind at being an attractive destination to land right now and nothing is more important than recruiting. It just does not look good and that has to change

We have the potential to become an attractive destination to potential players if we do the following:

1. Win and get stability (if not Harsin, then we need to get the right coach).

2. Get NIL working well (Never to Yield is hopefully working on this).

3. Finish the Football Only Facility (effectively done).

[AUwent 3,748]

26 minutes ago, meh130 said:

I think Grimes would come. He wants to be a head coach, and to be able to start at a Power 5 school is a big deal.

Could a Grimes be our Pittman?

Depends on who you believe with what happened in our last coaching search. Golf and Bird claim that we rejected Napier and Venables, but literally everywhere else claims the opposite. 🤷‍♂️ 

Right now I’m in the camp of give Harsin a third year if we still don’t have a permanent AD by December. If those here are correct (and we truly did turn them down) OR if the issue truly was AD/president/boosters not being on the same page then maybe we have a shot.

I have very little confidence that Grimes would want to come here, though (yes the guy who fired him is gone but he was fired from here nonetheless).

You all know who I think would be our Sam Pittman—I’d like to think he would come.

22 minutes ago, meh130 said:

We have the potential to become an attractive destination to potential players if we do the following:

1. Win and get stability (if not Harsin, then we need to get the right coach).

2. Get NIL working well (Never to Yield is hopefully working on this).

3. Finish the Football Only Facility (effectively done).

Our rivals/schedule are still going to be somewhat of a deterrent for at least the next 10 years, even if all of this gets settled.

Edited September 16, 2022 by AUwent

[Gowebb11 9,321]

22 minutes ago, meh130 said:

Could a Grimes be our Pittman?

The question is, would Grimes get the kind of unconditional and unified support from our administration, BOT, and boosters that Pittman is getting from Arky. 

[cole256 17,066]

24 minutes ago, meh130 said:

We have the potential to become an attractive destination to potential players if we do the following:

1. Win and get stability (if not Harsin, then we need to get the right coach).

2. Get NIL working well (Never to Yield is hopefully working on this).

3. Finish the Football Only Facility (effectively done).

Oh I agree with you completely. It wouldn't even necessarily have to be winning, if we have coaches that proves they can consistently get guys to the NFL, but that sort of just goes hand in hand with winning of course, but yeah then a place where the coaches seem like they listen and care, NIL (and it doesn't have to be bigger and better than everybody else but competitive, and the program is just keeping up.

That's the crazy thing to me, it's not as if we have to be the best at stuff but just pay attention and in range. 

Like we wouldn't always have to have the latest edition I phone but we need to be in range and have cell phones, we can't still be using a rotary when everybody else have iPhones. 

[cole256 17,066]

5 hours ago, Mikey said:

Compared to Deon Sanders, Harsin's resume looks like Belichick's. Sanders has done nothing to recommend him as head coach to a P5 program. He wouldn't even be in the serious discussion if AU or any other major program were looking for a head coach. I suppose mentioning him is interesting message board fodder but he's not a realistic candidate. I'd rather hire Dell McGee. At least he has the background.

But Gus is coaching royalty to you. Hilarious

[meh130 1,043]

4 minutes ago, AUwent said:

Depends on who you believe with what happened in our last coaching search. Golf and Bird claim that we rejected Napier and Venables, but literally everywhere else claims the opposite. 🤷‍♂️ 

Clearly AU and Napier were not aligned. That comes from our insiders and people who know Napier. I do not think we wanted Napier. Maybe that was because of Napier's requests/demands.

I do not think we wanted Venables because of his skeletons. Those came up every time there was any discussion of Venables, and AU seems to have this desire to be squeaky clean. This makes sense given the hiring of Bruce Pearl followed by the Chuck Persons' fiasco. I could see a desire to have zero controversy.

That said, we supposedly were very serious about Cristobal, but we were very disorganized because we originally were not planning for a coaching search. We basically fumbled Cristobal, and Harsin had apparently reached out to Allen Greene. So Harsin became our Plan B.

Regardless of when the next coaching search happens, it cannot be anything like the last one. Prior to any search, President Roberts needs to have discussions with the major boosters and the members of the BOT. Everyone needs to be on the same sheet of music. We need to have a short list (and a longer one), and need to work fast and in parallels to get that list narrowed down to candidates who will take the job. Then we need to laser focus on making it happen.

In my opinion, if we have a respectable season or even a modestly winning season, we should keep Harsin. If we have fewer than 6 wins at the end of the regular season, someone will need to make a decision. If the wheels come off in the next few weeks, we need to start making moves immediately.

One thing to realize. Terry Bowden was a head-scratcher of a hire in December of 1992. By December of 1993 he looked like a genius hire. Gene Chizik looked like an awful hire in December of 2008. At the end of the 2009 season, he looked promising. By December of 2010, he looked like a genius hire. Gus Malzahn looked like a repeat of the Chizik hire in December of 2012. By December of 2013 he looked like a genius hire.

We need a program builder. Maybe Harsin is the guy to do it. Maybe he has been irreparably harmed by the PTB. It is probably fair to say that some of our recruiting problems go to negative recruiting by other schools pointing to the February "attempted coup". In other words, the PTB may have caused a large part of our recruiting problems.

[NWALA Tiger 3,535]

47 minutes ago, cole256 said:

It's not about having the same exact type of success but like it or not Alabama always out recruits us in state. We pretty much kept up by going into Georgia and getting a bunch of their best athletes, and getting a few Florida guys here and there. Now Kirby has put a stop to that and now we are struggling. 

It's already been proven you can be a top notch recruiting machine here. There's no reason to think he wouldn't be able to recruit here. We would be in a much better place with him. 

Prob so, cause there would have been no inquiry etc.. but that ship has sailed and gotta play the hand we dealt... Need a win Saturday in the worst kind of way

[AuCivilEng1 11,008]

2 hours ago, NWALA Tiger said:

Has Grimes ever been a head coach

Had Pittman or Kirby or Dabbo?

[NWALA Tiger 3,535]

16 minutes ago, AuCivilEng1 said:

Had Pittman or Kirby or Dabbo?

Dude, I wasn't being smart. I was just asking a simple question. I didn't know thought someone on the board might. I have yet to see an AU Coaching search where being a head coach somewhere else wasn't a requirement or at least heavily weighted

Edited September 16, 2022 by NWALA Tiger

[abw0004 10,113]

For what it is worth, Auburn’s NIL is running a lot more smoothly the last few months.  At first I was not impressed compared to other SEC schools but now we have a few pretty good deals in the works.  We have a lot of people on board who really care about the University.  So much so, I plan to contribute myself if my lady friend doesn’t get too upset (Tennessee graduate).

[AUinMS9528 1,086]

Random thoughts:

Chizik and his guys proved that you can recruit at an elite level at AU!   So I believe it can happen again!

No coach is perfect.   We need to ask ourselves what are the top priorities….Recruiting?  Leader/Program Builder?   Brilliant game planner/schemer? Great developer of talent?  Image/PR?   Motivator?  etc.   That will determine who you want as your next HC.   
 

Coach Prime is an amazing recruiter!!!   He could come to AU and out-recruit saban and kirby.  He’s also a motivator and great PR/image guy.   Not enough evidence to know how well he can do those other things.  
Grimes is a good recruiter too.   And he is a proven developer of talent.    We don’t know what he could do as a HC yet.  
Several others we’ve talked about hundreds of times.   But they all have some question marks.  

The biggest question to answer is what are our top priorities in a HC?

[DAG 33,982]

1 hour ago, cole256 said:

It's not about having the same exact type of success but like it or not Alabama always out recruits us in state. We pretty much kept up by going into Georgia and getting a bunch of their best athletes, and getting a few Florida guys here and there. Now Kirby has put a stop to that and now we are struggling. 

It's already been proven you can be a top notch recruiting machine here. There's no reason to think he wouldn't be able to recruit here. We would be in a much better place with him. 

So sick of that excuse . He wouldn’t have had success here or he would’ve bolted the first time UGA called. Who the heck cares. He should’ve been hired here. That was a huge mishap on Auburn’s part.

[DAG 33,982]

People want coach sanders here but do people not get , coach sanders is his own man. He is not going to play the little game that y’all think the coaches here at Auburn has to do. 

[cole256 17,066]

1 hour ago, DAG said:

So sick of that excuse . He wouldn’t have had success here or he would’ve bolted the first time UGA called. Who the heck cares. He should’ve been hired here. That was a huge mishap on Auburn’s part.

After watching with my own eyes how muschamp helped this program's defense for 4-5 years just being here one year? I don't care if he hadn't of stayed, give me what I can get. I agree though as far the he wouldn't have stayed stuff. This is business make him an offer where he will. That simple

[cole256 17,066]

1 hour ago, DAG said:

People want coach sanders here but do people not get , coach sanders is his own man. He is not going to play the little game that y’all think the coaches here at Auburn has to do. 

That on top of recruiting,  discipline, the staff he'd hire and the buzz we'd have. We had him we getting returns on his salary and stuff the first year off of merch and PR alone. But I'm not going to disrespect the current coach and he hasn't even lost a game this year yet. I just know what I know and sitting between saban and Kirby right now.....There's only one guy who could walk in and go head to head with them. He's the only guy that would legit have them nervous

 

[DAG 33,982]

9 minutes ago, cole256 said:

That on top of recruiting,  discipline, the staff he'd hire and the buzz we'd have. We had him we getting returns on his salary and stuff the first year off of merch and PR alone. But I'm not going to disrespect the current coach and he hasn't even lost a game this year yet. I just know what I know and sitting between saban and Kirby right now.....There's only one guy who could walk in and go head to head with them. He's the only guy that would legit have them nervous

 

Coach Sanders is solidified. He knows the game, he got his money, he is well respected. My concern is can the people behind the scenes Ego handle that?

[autiger88 3,777]

I believe if we put up the money we could get almost anybody. LSU proved that last year that money talks. Just IMO

[AUwent 3,748]

2 hours ago, DAG said:

Coach Sanders is solidified. He knows the game, he got his money, he is well respected. My concern is can the people behind the scenes Ego handle that?

We will need someone who can tickle the PTB’s fancy, like it or not.

[AU-24 3,090]

12 hours ago, bigbird said:

Not that he was told he was being replaced, huh?

 

Btw, have you seen your certain DC?

Ok State beat Central Michigan last week, 58-44. CenMich QB was 36 of 49 for 424 yards, 4 TD’s, and one pick. That’s a 73% completion rate.

 

That type of stat line sounded very familiar to me. 

And at the time of his hire, I said I would’ve never hired him in the first place. “YOU” thought he was a good hire. So who hired him in the first place? And then, according to you, less than a full season later who told him he was leaving? Who hired the wide receivers coach, who four weeks into the season was fired? Who hired the offensive coordinator, who was also fired at seasons end. And then who couldn’t fill the offensive and defensive coordinator positions, so he promoted his Boise Idaho gang to those positions?

 

[AU-24 3,090]

5 hours ago, meh130 said:

Clearly AU and Napier were not aligned. That comes from our insiders and people who know Napier. I do not think we wanted Napier. Maybe that was because of Napier's requests/demands.

I do not think we wanted Venables because of his skeletons. Those came up every time there was any discussion of Venables, and AU seems to have this desire to be squeaky clean. This makes sense given the hiring of Bruce Pearl followed by the Chuck Persons' fiasco. I could see a desire to have zero controversy.

That said, we supposedly were very serious about Cristobal, but we were very disorganized because we originally were not planning for a coaching search. We basically fumbled Cristobal, and Harsin had apparently reached out to Allen Greene. So Harsin became our Plan B.

Regardless of when the next coaching search happens, it cannot be anything like the last one. Prior to any search, President Roberts needs to have discussions with the major boosters and the members of the BOT. Everyone needs to be on the same sheet of music. We need to have a short list (and a longer one), and need to work fast and in parallels to get that list narrowed down to candidates who will take the job. Then we need to laser focus on making it happen.

In my opinion, if we have a respectable season or even a modestly winning season, we should keep Harsin. If we have fewer than 6 wins at the end of the regular season, someone will need to make a decision. If the wheels come off in the next few weeks, we need to start making moves immediately.

One thing to realize. Terry Bowden was a head-scratcher of a hire in December of 1992. By December of 1993 he looked like a genius hire. Gene Chizik looked like an awful hire in December of 2008. At the end of the 2009 season, he looked promising. By December of 2010, he looked like a genius hire. Gus Malzahn looked like a repeat of the Chizik hire in December of 2012. By December of 2013 he looked like a genius hire.

We need a program builder. Maybe Harsin is the guy to do it. Maybe he has been irreparably harmed by the PTB. It is probably fair to say that some of our recruiting problems go to negative recruiting by other schools pointing to the February "attempted coup". In other words, the PTB may have caused a large part of our recruiting problems.

This isn’t meant to you personally, but I wish all the Harsin apologist would simply believe what there eyes are seeing and ears are hearing. Harsin screwed up close to everything and I mean everything from day one long before the rumor swirled about his off the field transgressions.
 

This is his third recruiting class, his third time to look at the transfer portal, not to mention possible junior college transfers, and he has been highly unsuccessful at all three! All this happened long before the off the field rumors started.

[bigbird 60,525]

11 minutes ago, AU-24 said:

And at the time of his hire, I said I would’ve never hired him in the first place. “YOU” thought he was a good hire. So who hired him in the first place? And then, according to you, less than a full season later who told him he was leaving? Who hired the wide receivers coach, who four weeks into the season was fired? Who hired the offensive coordinator, who was also fired at seasons end. And then who couldn’t fill the offensive and defensive coordinator positions, so he promoted his Boise Idaho gang to those positions?

 

Yes, I thought it was a good hire. Mason proved me wrong. I was happy his boss told him he was replacing him with Schmed. What's hard to follow?

[AU-24 3,090]

4 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Yes, I thought it was a good hire. Mason proved me wrong. I was happy his boss told him he was replacing him with Schmed. What's hard to follow?

Proud of you!!  Second time now you’ve admitted you were wrong. First was Greene second was Mason. See, it’s not that Difficult.

Edited September 17, 2022 by AU-24

[bigbird 60,525]

39 minutes ago, AU-24 said:

Proud of you!!  Second time now you’ve admitted you were wrong. First was Greene second was Mason. See, it’s not that Difficult.

The difference is, I gave both the opportunity to prove me right. They didn't and I changed my mind.

You and others have never given CBH the opportunity to prove himself one way or the other and would refuse to change your opinions if he did prove you wrong