Is Auburn football facing a talent issue?

[autiger88 3,892]

1 hour ago, bigbird said:

Hilarious movie.

Yes it was lol 

[gr82b4au 5,583]

3 hours ago, Newbomb said:

Perhaps this is a discussion for the recruiting board but with the recent decline of the Florida Schools... Miami, FSU and UF why haven't we been able to make more inroads into these fertile recruiting areas?

I can answer this pretty quickly. Because our reputation of developing players for the NFL under Gus was terrible, the truly elite talent has not looked our way in quite some time. Now we have a new staff, many of whom are from the West Coast. It will take a while to build relationships and repair our image. Unfortunately time is not on our side as we need players, especially offensive lineman, today. So we either need to up the ante of the NIL deals so we can flat out start paying players or hire some really good recruiters like Georgia has…. If we don’t it may be a few years.

[AuburnEagle79 2,212]

Simple answer, yes.

We are severely lacking on the OL due to the last regime. It's my biggest complaint on Gus. If he had recruited and developed the OL, he'd still be here.

A good OL can make an average offense good and a great OL can make a good offense great.

If we fix the OL, we are a 10 win team easily. Regardless of the talent gap elsewhere, fixing the OL fixes it all.

Better OL = more wins = better recruiting = more wins. 

[aubaseball 2,876]

8 hours ago, CoffeeTiger said:

History shows that you have to be elite in recruiting to win national championships.

In the last 20 years the following schools have won national titles:

Alabama- X6

Clemson X2

LSU X2

Florida X2

Ohio State X2

Auburn X1

Florida St X1

Miami X1

USC X1 (vacated)

Oklahoma X1

Texas X1

That's 11 different teams in 20 years. How many of those national champions weren't elite recruiters constantly taking in top 10 classes at the time they won? 

I agree, you can make the argument that Auburn is probably the only member of this group that wasn't a top recruiter and actually DID win by doing more with less, but at the same time we all know that Cam Newton was the #1 reason we didn't have 2-3 losses that season, and he kind of fell into our lap out of Jr College cause nobody really knew what kind of talent he really was. 

Reality is that yes, you can have 'good' seasons with mediocre recruiting because most teams in the nation are mediocre recruiters, but to win Championships you have be near the top of the recruiting rankings consistently.  

Averagely coached amazing talent will beat amazingly coached average talent in most cases. 

 

 

Gonna have to somewhat disagree.   Of course it goes without saying that really really good players with good coaching will win every time.   But, put a really good QB on average recruiting teams and I would bet that those teams are just as hard to beat with good coaching.  

[AUwent 3,845]

4 hours ago, AuburnEagle79 said:

Simple answer, yes.

We are severely lacking on the OL due to the last regime. It's my biggest complaint on Gus. If he had recruited and developed the OL, he'd still be here.

A good OL can make an average offense good and a great OL can make a good offense great.

If we fix the OL, we are a 10 win team easily. Regardless of the talent gap elsewhere, fixing the OL fixes it all.

Better OL = more wins = better recruiting = more wins. 

And if our OL recruiting DOESN'T pick up under Harsin, will any coach capable of recruiting O-linemen want to come here if our roster is that depleted? We could get caught in a death spiral. Landing Agbo would change everything. For anyone going Saturday, PLEASE be as loud as you can! Gotta really impress the guy.

I will say, I like that the staff is trying to cultivate relationships with the Auburn area. 

Edited November 10, 2021 by AUwent

[AuburnEagle79 2,212]

7 minutes ago, AUwent said:

And if our OL recruiting DOESN'T pick up under Harsin, will any coach capable of recruiting O-linemen want to come here if our roster is that depleted? We could get caught in a death spiral. Landing Agbo would change everything. For anyone going Saturday, PLEASE be as loud as you can! Gotta really impress the guy.

I will say, I like that the staff is trying to cultivate relationships with the Auburn area. 

One thing I'd add to this is the stars on the OL may not be what we should be solely focused on. Development will be key, and I trust this staff to do that.

 

 

[cbo 8,898]

4 minutes ago, AUwent said:

And if our OL recruiting DOESN'T pick up under Harsin, will any coach capable of recruiting O-linemen want to come here if our roster is that depleted? We could get caught in a death spiral.

A lot of your posts remind me of this. 

 

[AUwent 3,845]

2 minutes ago, AuburnEagle79 said:

One thing I'd add to this is the stars on the OL may not be what we should be solely focused on. Development will be key, and I trust this staff to do that.

 

 

Development is important, no doubt! But so are stars.

Edited November 10, 2021 by AUwent

[cole256 17,085]

We haven't brought in more players yet and the young guys haven't had an off season yet......so yes. Why would it be changed in the middle of the season

[autiger88 3,892]

1 hour ago, cole256 said:

We haven't brought in more players yet and the young guys haven't had an off season yet......so yes. Why would it be changed in the middle of the season

 

[SumterAubie 3,110]

12 hours ago, SRBautigerfan said:

I don't think we're that far off in certain spots.  It's just that there's a lack of quality depth and a lack of play makers on the team.  If we had just one playmaker at WR this offense would be a lot more effective just by adding one guy.  

The playmakers are already on the team. It takes a solid oline  to enable them to make plays

[AU-24 3,130]

14 hours ago, CoffeeTiger said:

History shows that you have to be elite in recruiting to win national championships.

In the last 20 years the following schools have won national titles:

Alabama- X6

Clemson X2

LSU X2

Florida X2

Ohio State X2

Auburn X1

Florida St X1

Miami X1

USC X1 (vacated)

Oklahoma X1

Texas X1

That's 11 different teams in 20 years. How many of those national champions weren't elite recruiters constantly taking in top 10 classes at the time they won? 

I agree, you can make the argument that Auburn is probably the only member of this group that wasn't a top recruiter and actually DID win by doing more with less, but at the same time we all know that Cam Newton was the #1 reason we didn't have 2-3 losses that season, and he kind of fell into our lap out of Jr College cause nobody really knew what kind of talent he really was. 

Reality is that yes, you can have 'good' seasons with mediocre recruiting because most teams in the nation are mediocre recruiters, but to win Championships you have be near the top of the recruiting rankings consistently.  

Averagely coached amazing talent will beat amazingly coached average talent in most cases. 

 

 

We won the national championship in 2004 but the NCAA was just not going to  give it to us, even after they took it from USC. Also played for one in 2014 and lost on a FSU kick off return for a touchdown. Add those to the one Cam and Gus won in 2010, (prior to the “O” rule change) shows we have certainly recruited well enough to win a national championship the past couple decades.

The way we closed the recruiting class last year, and the way we are recruiting this year, not so much!

[Dual-Threat Rigby 9,156]

3 hours ago, SumterAubie said:

The playmakers are already on the team. It takes a solid oline  to enable them to make plays

There’s definitely not a WR1 on this team. At least the staff doesn’t believe so. There’s been games where the OL wasn’t horrid (in pb) where no one did anything besides Hudson from the WRs. 
 

I still won’t shut the coffin on the dudes on the bench. Because Idk where JJ went, Canion is chained to the bench, Malcolm Johnson gets 2 targets per 4 games, and Tarvarish Dawson. Even Landon King, who actually performed, was ghosted last week 

So you’re not technically wrong, but out of the guys the coaching staff will actually play, there’s not a playmaker

[Dual-Threat Rigby 9,156]

I don’t think we’re currently in some horrid recruiting trend but we definitely project to be in one 

2020 was just poor coaching vs not having quality talent IMO. The talent was there to beat everyone except Alabama. Got killed by the worst UGA team since Kirb has been there, and it’s a massive gap b/t them and the closest one. 

[AU-24 3,130]

1 hour ago, Dual-Threat Rigby said:

I don’t think we’re currently in some horrid recruiting trend but we definitely project to be in one 

2020 was just poor coaching vs not having quality talent IMO. The talent was there to beat everyone except Alabama. Got killed by the worst UGA team since Kirb has been there, and it’s a massive gap b/t them and the closest one. 

As recent as 2019 Auburn beat Oregon, Alabama, Texas A&M etc. I think we lost to Thuga by 7 that season?

Then Covid hit. Definitely lacking in recruits and development along the O line. Other than that, recruiting has been top 10 to top 15 quality, with the exception of last season and this season.

[W.E.D 11,071]

8 hours ago, SumterAubie said:

The playmakers are already on the team. It takes a solid oline  to enable them to make plays

What true playmaker are on offense besides Tank??

[JuscAUse! 1,706]

The transfer portal and NIL has changed everything concerning roster management in college football. Mel Tucker upgraded his roster in one off season by treating the portal as equal to recruiting HS players. Almost like the NFL uses the draft. McElroy and Herbstreit also believe that you can actually have too many "stars" and not enough hard working 3 stars on a team, and use  LSU and the Florida Gators as evidence of good players who just checked out on the season. Even Saban appears to be walking on eggs with his players these days. I agree totally with the jimmies and joes arguments, but I think things are changing with how you get them and just as importantly, how you keep them and motivate them. We will see where it goes from here.

Interesting times for sure.

 

 

[EastAl_Tiger 229]

26 minutes ago, JuscAUse! said:

The transfer portal and NIL has changed everything concerning roster management in college football. Mel Tucker upgraded his roster in one off season by treating the portal as equal to recruiting HS players. Almost like the NFL uses the draft. McElroy and Herbstreit also believe that you can actually have too many "stars" and not enough hard working 3 stars on a team, and use  LSU and the Florida Gators as evidence of good players who just checked out on the season. Even Saban appears to be walking on eggs with his players these days. I agree totally with the jimmies and joes arguments, but I think things are changing with how you get them and just as importantly, how you keep them and motivate them. We will see where it goes from here.

Interesting times for sure.

 

 

a lot of this is spot on, but I don't think Orgeron's and Mullen's epitaphs will read "He Had Too Many 5 Stars"

[Gowebb11 10,008]

Our talent has been good enough to beat Bama 2 of the last 4 years but development has been bad enough to lose to Minnesota and Northwestern. AU can annually contend with top 12 level talent if the development is there. We now have the development piece in place and need to align it with the recruiting. 

[Gowebb11 10,008]

If you want some interesting insight, go back and look at recruiting classes for Auburn the past few years, or any other team for that matter. The majority of every class end up with minor contributions if any at all. It’s the sum of the 3 or 4 classes that have to mesh for sustained success. 

[johnnyAU 3,745]

Past poor player development and utilization to go along with poor targeted recruiting in areas got us where we are at the moment. 

Harsin still gives me hope for the future.

[LPTiger 5,530]

Recruiting rankings can be deceptive because they do not account for "needs based" recruiting.   If "needs met" were a factor in rankings, we would not have been top 30 the last 3 to 4 years.   

[JuscAUse! 1,706]

31 minutes ago, EastAl_Tiger said:

a lot of this is spot on, but I don't think Orgeron's and Mullen's epitaphs will read "He Had Too Many 5 Stars"

I would argue that talent wise LSU had better players than AU, at least before they all got hurt. Mullen has never been known as a recruiter, but I do think he's got a 5 star or two. Though you wouldn't know it by the record this year. 

[Hank2020 3,408]

1 hour ago, JuscAUse! said:

The transfer portal and NIL has changed everything concerning roster management in college football. Mel Tucker upgraded his roster in one off season by treating the portal as equal to recruiting HS players. Almost like the NFL uses the draft. McElroy and Herbstreit also believe that you can actually have too many "stars" and not enough hard working 3 stars on a team, and use  LSU and the Florida Gators as evidence of good players who just checked out on the season. Even Saban appears to be walking on eggs with his players these days. I agree totally with the jimmies and joes arguments, but I think things are changing with how you get them and just as importantly, how you keep them and motivate them. We will see where it goes from here.

Interesting times for sure.

 

 

Not sure why players didn’t walk out on Tucker. For every person he brought in through portal ( more than half his team) he had to run off the same amount.

[gr82b4au 5,583]

The only time I remember us recruiting at a ridiculously high level was in the 80s and early 90s under Pat Dye. Since then we have had some pretty good to great classes and talent, especially on that 2004 team. However if we are going to make the playoffs, it takes:

a top Qb

top 5 recruiting classes (multiple)

coaching

I think we have the third one in place. But without the first two, it won’t matter.

I put this on the recruiting board, but there is an article talking about the top players eligible for the NFL draft. Out of the top 170 players by position rankings, Auburn has one player (RM) on the list. That is where we are at the moment.