Finebaum knows 🥶🚀

[RunInRed 16,438]

“Auburn’s program has advanced and I know what they’re doing in recruiting, and I also know people on the on the other side of the state that are concerned because Auburn really has things rolling right now under Hugh Freeze. … The road back is going to be a lot faster than maybe some of the skeptics predicted a year ago.”

[AuCivilEng1 11,012]

Rat poison!! I’d rather we just flew under the radar! A dangerous Auburn starts getting hit pieces and bad publicity.

[aubiefifty 16,824]

53 minutes ago, RunInRed said:

“Auburn’s program has advanced and I know what they’re doing in recruiting, and I also know people on the on the other side of the state that are concerned because Auburn really has things rolling right now under Hugh Freeze. … The road back is going to be a lot faster than maybe some of the skeptics predicted a year ago.”

red the paul haters are going to come after you with pitchforks. they did me  and poked me in the buttocks and i could not sit down for a week.

Edited November 28, 2023 by aubiefifty

[Win4AU 4,054]

I don’t disagree but don’t be surprised if that quicker than you think is still 2-3years and another 7-5 season away.  It’s going to take another full transfer portal/recruiting class to get Auburn to an Ole Miss type talent level.  Maybe by year 3 Auburn can start to sniff Tennessee, LSU, Texas A&M type rosters.  

[WillMunny 1,380]

Sans the NMSU game, I'd agree with Finebaum on this.  I mostly still do...

[aucom96 1,625]

I think NIL and the portal are going to substantially slow down rebuilds rather than help them along, so it might not be a quickly as we want. Regardless, Finebaum is quick to praise Auburn when we're down. That's nothing new. He'll be just a quick to tear them apart when we do get back on our feet. 

[JBiGGiE 2,488]

If Paul Finebaum's ringing endorsement means anything, then I guess we can look forward to 6 more years of overpaying for 4 or more losses per year.

[AU9377 4,979]

12 minutes ago, JBiGGiE said:

If Paul Finebaum's ringing endorsement means anything, then I guess we can look forward to 6 more years of overpaying for 4 or more losses per year.

It wasn't a bad hire when made.  That doesn't mean that it worked out.  The question will be whether it was worth letting him go this year.  Will they be better next year with a totally new staff or would Petrino, with another year as OC, been able to produce better results?  We don't know sitting here today.

If we are judging in the rear view mirror, Auburn would have been in a much better position had Gus coached 2 more seasons and then Hugh Freeze been hired.... not to mention $40 million richer.

Edited November 28, 2023 by AU9377

[KillenTime 127]

50 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

It wasn't a bad hire when made.  That doesn't mean that it worked out.  The question will be whether it was worth letting him go this year.  Will they be better next year with a totally new staff or would Petrino, with another year as OC, been able to produce better results?  We don't know sitting here today.

If we are judging in the rear view mirror, Auburn would have been in a much better position had Gus coached 2 more seasons and then Hugh Freeze been hired.... not to mention $40 million richer.

We would have no OL if we had another two years of Gus.  We already had no OTs or center, one QB and one RB.  Offensive recruiting was absolutely horrible under Gus.  Anybody thinking more Gus was better don't understand recruiting.  Thank god for Garner and McGriff recruiting on the defensive side of the ball.  

[ScotsAU 1,340]

I’m a little disappointed with the on the field product we had this year, accounting for the talent gap. But I don’t disagree that he’s reignited excitement. Still, it’s Pawl. I can’t take anything he says seriously. He just says things that he think will benefit him and his show. 

[ScotsAU 1,340]

13 minutes ago, KillenTime said:

We would have no OL if we had another two years of Gus.  We already had no OTs or center, one QB and one RB.  Offensive recruiting was absolutely horrible under Gus.  Anybody thinking more Gus was better don't understand recruiting.  Thank god for Garner and McGriff recruiting on the defensive side of the ball.  

I get what you’re saying. But you’re over exaggerating. Gus’s recruiting was only bad in a few positions. He signed high rated QBs in 2018 and 2019. He pulled in great running backs and a good number of offensive weapons. His issues on offense in his last few years were a) poor OL recruiting, which really doesn’t work if you want to be a run-play action offense. b) Bad use of skill position players. He increasingly telegraphed a lot of plays by the players on the field and the formations we lined up in. For example, certain running backs would only come on the field in pass plays. 
 

Compare that to the two years with Harsin… Gus’s last class did not address our OL problem. But it was still ranked pretty high (7th best in the country according to on3 and 247). Harsin’s classes were awful. If we’d had two more years of Gus, we would’ve probably won 2-3 more games this year, just because of skill position talent. And also, we almost certainly wouldn’t have lost Bo Nix to Oregon. Nix might not have developed as well as he has if he’d stayed on the Gus coaches team. But he would’ve been better than Thorne or Ashford.
 

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by ScotsAU

[icanthearyou 4,463]

7 minutes ago, ScotsAU said:

I’m a little disappointed with the on the field product we had this year

My only disappointment was not seeing Freeze's offense, not having him calling plays.  Maybe when recruiting has become a little easier?

[W.E.D 11,070]

Love year 1 coaching hype.

It's totally different now

[ScotsAU 1,340]

3 minutes ago, icanthearyou said:

My only disappointment was not seeing Freeze's offense, not having him calling plays.  Maybe when recruiting has become a little easier?

Not going to beat a dead horse. There’s plenty of post NMSU and iron bowl critiques of Hugh’s on the field product. But I think it’s more than just offensive play calling. I’ve said enough on that on this forum this week though.

Edited November 28, 2023 by ScotsAU

[VAtiger12 112]

7 minutes ago, ScotsAU said:

I get what you’re saying. But you’re over exaggerating. Gus’s recruiting was only bad in a few positions. He signed high rated QBs in 2018 and 2019. He pulled in great running backs and a good number of offensive weapons. His issues on offense in his last few years were a) poor OL recruiting, which really doesn’t work if you want to be a run-play action offense. b) Bad use of skill position players. He increasingly telegraphed a lot of plays by the players on the field and the formations we lined up in. For example, certain running backs would only come on the field in pass plays. 
 

Compare that to the two years with Harsin… Gus’s last class did not address our OL problem. But it was still ranked pretty high. Harsin’s classes were awful. If we’d had two more years of Gus, we would’ve probably won 2-3 more games this year, just because of skill position talent. And also, we almost certainly wouldn’t have lost Bo Nix to Oregon. Nix might not have developed as well as he has if he’d stayed on the Gus coaches team. But he would’ve been better than Thorne or Ashford.
 

 

The issue really is just how mind boggling it was that we hired a coach in Harsin who did not believe in NIL and was pretty 'meh' with the portal (probably also due to NIL) at a critical juncture in the college football landscape shift. Auburn has resources and a Coach that prioritized and supported those things would have still had us with B/B+ tier talent at a bare minimum in the SEC. 

[auburnatl1 4,981]

I never felt Gus didn’t prioritize or suddenly forgot the OL - he had a run heavy system which required a great line. His problem was that he could not compete with uga, uat, and Clemson in recruiting them. Those programs ran/run nfl style systems which prepared lineman better for the league than Gus’s simpler tempo, pure rpo centric scheme. We got OL starved to death.

[LPTiger 5,167]

18 minutes ago, auburnatl1 said:

I never felt Gus didn’t prioritize or suddenly forgot the OL - he had a run heavy system which required a great line. His problem was that he could not compete with uga, uat, and Clemson in recruiting them. Those programs ran/run nfl style systems which prepared lineman better for the league than Gus’s simpler tempo, pure rpo centric scheme. We got OL starved to death.

And, Gus was a good person who recruited the right way and demanded his staff do the same.   Coaches don't have much control over boosters in recruiting, and our boosters, by and large, stuck by the rules.   Other schools' boosters -- not so much.  Now, that the field is level, we suddenly have 2 5 stars for the first time ever and may well end up with a hand-full of them.  

[tbone4jc 2,241]

44 minutes ago, ScotsAU said:

I get what you’re saying. But you’re over exaggerating. Gus’s recruiting was only bad in a few positions. He signed high rated QBs in 2018 and 2019. He pulled in great running backs and a good number of offensive weapons. His issues on offense in his last few years were a) poor OL recruiting, which really doesn’t work if you want to be a run-play action offense. b) Bad use of skill position players. He increasingly telegraphed a lot of plays by the players on the field and the formations we lined up in. For example, certain running backs would only come on the field in pass plays. 
 

Compare that to the two years with Harsin… Gus’s last class did not address our OL problem. But it was still ranked pretty high (7th best in the country according to on3 and 247). Harsin’s classes were awful. If we’d had two more years of Gus, we would’ve probably won 2-3 more games this year, just because of skill position talent. And also, we almost certainly wouldn’t have lost Bo Nix to Oregon. Nix might not have developed as well as he has if he’d stayed on the Gus coaches team. But he would’ve been better than Thorne or Ashford.
 

 

Add in, we would not have lost as many players to the transfer portal either. 

[KillenTime 127]

1 hour ago, ScotsAU said:

I get what you’re saying. But you’re over exaggerating. Gus’s recruiting was only bad in a few positions. He signed high rated QBs in 2018 and 2019. He pulled in great running backs and a good number of offensive weapons. His issues on offense in his last few years were a) poor OL recruiting, which really doesn’t work if you want to be a run-play action offense. b) Bad use of skill position players. He increasingly telegraphed a lot of plays by the players on the field and the formations we lined up in. For example, certain running backs would only come on the field in pass plays. 
 

Compare that to the two years with Harsin… Gus’s last class did not address our OL problem. But it was still ranked pretty high (7th best in the country according to on3 and 247). Harsin’s classes were awful. If we’d had two more years of Gus, we would’ve probably won 2-3 more games this year, just because of skill position talent. And also, we almost certainly wouldn’t have lost Bo Nix to Oregon. Nix might not have developed as well as he has if he’d stayed on the Gus coaches team. But he would’ve been better than Thorne or Ashford.
 

 

Nix would be out of football due to injury. We had no OL thanks to Gus.  

[KillenTime 127]

51 minutes ago, VAtiger12 said:

The issue really is just how mind boggling it was that we hired a coach in Harsin who did not believe in NIL and was pretty 'meh' with the portal (probably also due to NIL) at a critical juncture in the college football landscape shift. Auburn has resources and a Coach that prioritized and supported those things would have still had us with B/B+ tier talent at a bare minimum in the SEC. 

Do you really believe the guy didn’t believe in NIL. Really?  Or is it more likely he had mo NIL support?  Think about it.  Auburn was not prepared for NIL.  The big dogs didn’t like a northerner. He had no chance. 

[KillenTime 127]

51 minutes ago, auburnatl1 said:

I never felt Gus didn’t prioritize or suddenly forgot the OL - he had a run heavy system which required a great line. His problem was that he could not compete with uga, uat, and Clemson in recruiting them. Those programs ran/run nfl style systems which prepared lineman better for the league than Gus’s simpler tempo, pure rpo centric scheme. We got OL starved to death.

Herb Hand was the death nail. Horrible hire - killed the program. 

[KillenTime 127]

20 minutes ago, tbone4jc said:

Add in, we would not have lost as many players to the transfer portal either. 

We lost a few decent defensive players - thats it. 

[EastAl_Tiger 228]

56 minutes ago, auburnatl1 said:

I never felt Gus didn’t prioritize or suddenly forgot the OL - he had a run heavy system which required a great line. His problem was that he could not compete with uga, uat, and Clemson in recruiting them. Those programs ran/run nfl style systems which prepared lineman better for the league than Gus’s simpler tempo, pure rpo centric scheme. We got OL starved to death.

I always felt that Gus could not have cared less if his players were prepared for the NFL. He was only concerned about preparing them to run HIS offense.  

[LPTiger 5,167]

2 minutes ago, KillenTime said:

 is it more likely he had mo NIL support?  

Killen, he had less NIL support than he needed, but he brought that on himself.   He absolutely alienated one of our biggest boosters who gave zero to football NIL during his tenure here.   Thankfully, said booster 100% believes in CHF.    

[aucom96 1,625]

1 hour ago, ScotsAU said:

I get what you’re saying. But you’re over exaggerating. Gus’s recruiting was only bad in a few positions. He signed high rated QBs in 2018 and 2019. He pulled in great running backs and a good number of offensive weapons. His issues on offense in his last few years were a) poor OL recruiting, which really doesn’t work if you want to be a run-play action offense. b) Bad use of skill position players. He increasingly telegraphed a lot of plays by the players on the field and the formations we lined up in. For example, certain running backs would only come on the field in pass plays. 

 

Gus also padded his numbers with a lot of undersized projects that didn't really fit at any position, tight ends that never played and the QBs in the timeframe you mentioned were Gatewood (a bust) and Nix, who spent most of his time at Auburn running for his life due to lack of OL. 

Gus' best recruiting was for the side of the ball he didn't run and was pretty much FORCED to acknowledge when Muschamp was shoved into the picture. The talent gap we are dealing with is more due to Gus than anyone else. He thought his scheme had an answer for everything and it very much didn't. Harsin was the worst possible follow-up, because he thought his on the field coaching could make up for not recruiting at all.