Auburn loses momentum vultures circle mullins

[aubiefifty 18,237]

Auburn loss dampers momentum; vultures circling Mullen

By John Talty | jtalty@al.com

10-12 minutes

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The worst collapse in Auburn football history.

That’s really the only way to describe what happened inside Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Auburn played very good, disciplined football in the first half to build a 28-3 lead at one point. In the second half it was as if Auburn suddenly forgot how to play defense allowing Mississippi State quarterback Will Rogers to do whatever he wanted guiding the hard-to-believe 43-34 comeback win.

There wasn’t a single play that seemed to sway the game. More so it was a lack of energy, a lack of adjustments and some poor strategic coaching decisions like a bad fake punt that seemed to doom the Tigers against the Bulldogs. The loss drops Auburn out of the SEC West division race and almost certainly out of the next College Football Playoff rankings. The winner-takes-all Iron Bowl is no more.

What might be most frustrating for Auburn fans is how this deflating, almost incomprehensible loss sucked out a lot of the good feelings they had about this season. These are the games that can be make-or-break for a head coach, and the end result felt like an early referendum on first-year head coach Bryan Harsin. You can call it unfair that one game can be the difference between being excited about the season and being disappointed, but that’s life in the Southeastern Conference.

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A win against Mississippi State, one that looked awfully likely when the Tigers raced out to that 28-3 lead, would have made Harsin 7-3 with a very winnable game against South Carolina next week and then the Iron Bowl left on the schedule. A 9-3 record with a win over Alabama would have fans ecstatic about the future while an 8-4 in his first year would still be a big building block for the first-year coach. Instead, Auburn sits at 6-4 and maybe Jordan-Hare has some voodoo magic left for the Iron Bowl, but 7-5 is the most likely scenario now.

It isn’t a bad first season for Harsin but it’ll be easy to look back and wonder what could have been this year. A better play call late against Penn State could have been the difference. Even a barely competent offensive performance against Texas A&M might have gotten the Tigers a win instead of a 20-3 loss. There are no excuses for blowing a 28-3 lead to Mississippi State at home, there is too much talent on this Auburn roster to do that. Remember that boosters were concerned Gus Malzahn had enough talent coming back to fare well this season and buy himself another year, part of the impetus behind firing him at the end of last season. Harsin didn’t walk into an empty cupboard, no matter how much he wants to pretend like this is a rebuild.

Harsin needs to get some momentum going on the recruiting trail where Auburn currently ranks 13th out of 14 SEC schools, according to 247Sports rankings. The expectation has long been that Auburn will finish strong down the stretch, and the Tigers will certainly add more to their current class of 13 commitments. But it is a lot easier to sell an ascendant program with a 9-3 record than a 7-5 one, especially in a conference that features schools ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in the most recent College Football Playoff rankings. LSU doesn’t even have a coach beyond this season and still has two five-star recruits committed compared to Auburn’s zero. Auburn has one top 10 in-state recruit committed, the same number as Texas and Oregon and four less than the Crimson Tide. Recruiting in the SEC is never easy, and it can be even harder when you come in as an outsider like Harsin did. Auburn needs to get it going in these next few weeks before the early signing period begins Dec. 15, and a bad loss to Mississippi State gives the coaching staff just a little bit less ammo to work with on the trail.

Barring an upset over Alabama, Auburn fans will enter this offseason with a bit of a sour taste in their mouths about this season and what it portends for the future. It might be silly to think a single win over Mississippi State would have swayed those feelings, but in the SEC more so than any other conference, public opinions can vary greatly from week to week. For Harsin, this was a bad week that could linger.

The vultures are circling Mullen

Last week after losing to South Carolina, I wrote this about Florida head coach Dan Mullen:

“If you believe that the head coach at Florida should annually have the Gators competing for a national championship, Mullen’s not the guy. He’s not that guy today, he’s not going to be that guy next year and he’s not going to be that guy in five years. And if you buy into former Florida AD Jeremy Foley’s oft-referenced quote of “what should be done eventually must be done immediately,” there is no point in delaying the inevitable with Mullen except money.”

What was my reaction to seeing Florida give up 52 points to Samford and barely manage to win against a mediocre FCS opponent?

It was obvious watching Florida struggle that this is a broken team. The short-term fix of firing defensive coordinator Todd Grantham and offensive line coach John Hevesy didn’t improve anything. Florida looked like a team that barely cared enough to even play against Samford making those desperate assistant firings look more and more like simply rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Florida AD Scott Stricklin is a smart, pragmatic leader who by all accounts isn’t in a rush to fire Mullen one year removed from an SEC East division title. But Mullen hasn’t made it easy for his boss, turning in bad performance after bad performance that has made it more and more likely Stricklin has to make a head coaching change sooner than later. Just when you think Florida has hit rockbottom, it then gives up 42 first half points to Samford.

The national pressure on Mullen is cranking up, with more and more calling out the program’s precipitous fall. Mullen, for his part, seemed to be in denial Saturday dancing after the “win” over Samford and called it a “big win.”

Mullen might have won Saturday but the vultures are circling and there might not be anything he can do at this point to stop them from swooping in.

Most pumped fanbase: Ole Miss

Something special seems to happen when College GameDay comes into town. Ole Miss knocked off a hot Texas A&M team to give Lane Kiffin a signature win and set the Rebels up for a New Year’s Six bowl if they can beat Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl. Ole Miss is a program on the rise, and if Kiffin can capitalize on that momentum in recruiting, he might really have something going in Oxford. Ole Miss has a legitimate argument now as the second-best SEC West team which speaks to the job Kiffin has done in his second season with the Rebels.

Most panicked fanbase: Texas

The first five-game losing streak since 1956. The first Big 12 road win for Kansas since 2008. Everything about Texas’ 57-56 overtime loss to Kansas is bad from a short and long-term perspective. Texas AD Chris Del Conte dropped more than $20 million to fire Tom Herman and his coaching staff last season, deciding 7-3 wasn’t good enough at Texas. He decided the program would be in better hands with Steve Sarkisian, fresh off a Broyles Award as the nation’s best assistant after learning program-building under Nick Saban. It is still too early to declare that hire a complete failure but a 4-6 first season that has included embarrassments like the “Pole Assassin” debacle will be hard for Sark to dig himself out of moving forward. Texas has a legitimate argument as the best job in America with all the advantages you’d want like a fertile recruiting base, rich boosters and passionate fanbase. Eventually Texas will be back, but it’s getting harder and harder to believe Sark will be the one to do it at this rate.

Ranking the Week 12 SEC games:

1) Florida at Missouri, 3 p.m. CT: Mullen might be done regardless now, but a loss to Missouri could all but guarantee it. Florida needs to come out looking very different than it did against Samford or the Gators will lose.

2) Arkansas at Alabama, 2:30 p.m. CT: A win against Arkansas will clinch the SEC West for Alabama and book an SEC Championship against Georgia. Arkansas has looked tough this season and won’t make it easy for Alabama.

3) Auburn at South Carolina, 6 p.m. CT: Two teams coming off tough losses that could really use a win here. A loss to South Carolina would amplify the concerns Auburn fans have about the future.

4) Vanderbilt at Ole Miss, 6:30 p.m. CT: Coming off a big win against Texas A&M, Ole Miss needs to avoid the emotional letdown and just take care of business against the Commodores. A win here sets up a huge Egg Bowl.

5) South Alabama at Tennessee, 6:30 p.m. CT: Josh Heupel has done a very good job getting the most out of the players he has but it’ll be critical to recruit strong to replenish the depleted depth chart.

6) Louisiana Monroe at LSU, 8 p.m. CT: The swan song is approach for Ed Orgeron, and this is his best shot at one last win as LSU head coach.

7) Prairie View A&M at Texas A&M, 11 a.m. CT: Poor Prairie View is going to get an angry Texas A&M team in this one.

😎 Charleston Southern at Georgia, 11 a.m. CT: Kirby Smart won’t like reading this but this is really only valuable for getting the young players more playing time than usual.

9) New Mexico State at Kentucky, 11 a.m. CT: New Mexico State will fare better than it did against Alabama, but it still won’t be particularly close.

10) Tennessee State at Mississippi State, 11 a.m. CT: The only reason to watch this game is to see how many points and yards Will Rogers can rack up.

John Talty is the sports editor and SEC Insider for Alabama Media Group. You can follow him on Twitter @JTalty. Want more SEC football insights? Sign up for our new college football newsletter here that will arrive right in your inbox each Thursday morning.

[Hopsing 627]

Who would Florida replace him with? I not sure what available upgrades they would consider.

[DAG 34,760]

Good lord Texas is a joke. As bad as our last loss was, I think we dodged a bullet with Steve Sarkisian. 

[AUght2win 7,015]

1 hour ago, DAG said:

Good lord Texas is a joke. As bad as our last loss was, I think we dodged a bullet with Steve Sarkisian. 

I agree. That's why it's so funny to see people still want to give Kiffin the keys to a major job. It's like a person thinking they can change their significant other.

Orgeron, Chizik, Sark, Muschamp, etc. All bad coaches that people believed had changed and were suddenly good coaches. Never works. 

[Tiger1992 1,062]

8 hours ago, Hopsing said:

Who would Florida replace him with? I not sure what available upgrades they would consider.

True, but you know that sometimes a new voice is needed. If the team has lost faith in Mullen, keeping him around can only be counterproductive.

[Chaotic_zx 1,070]

To think that some Auburn fans wanted Mullen to coach Auburn. I was neutral on that topic but I am really glad that Auburn didn't make that mistake. 

[AU_Canoe 240]

On 11/15/2021 at 10:14 PM, DAG said:

Good lord Texas is a joke. As bad as our last loss was, I think we dodged a bullet with Steve Sarkisian. 

With Bama level of talent it's much easier for an Assistant to look like a super star. I find it fascinating when you take these same coaches and put them in a different talent-level scenario. Did they have mad coaching skills or was it a distorted view due to Bama's depth?

[DAG 34,760]

1 minute ago, AU_Canoe said:

With Bama level of talent it's much easier for an Assistant to look like a super star. I find it fascinating when you take these same coaches and put them in a different talent-level scenario. Did they have mad coaching skills or was it a distorted view due to Bama's depth?

It really is interesting . Like I know Texas needs a culture change but to not be able to beat Kansas ?! And we had quite a few people who had him on their short list . 

[Hank2020 3,356]

16 minutes ago, DAG said:

It really is interesting . Like I know Texas needs a culture change but to not be able to beat Kansas ?! And we had quite a few people who had him on their short list . 

I think if they give him time he will turn it around. Not sure they will though. They don’t accept getting embarrassed any better than we do.

[DAG 34,760]

49 minutes ago, Hank2020 said:

I think if they give him time he will turn it around. Not sure they will though. They don’t accept getting embarrassed any better than we do.

Right and they are moving to the SEC sooner than later imo