Optimism from the Pessimists

[cbo 8,832]

52 minutes ago, Didba said:

Y'all I've been thinking about putting $20 on Auburn to with the west. Like 13000 odds. I'm feeling pretty excited about the potential of this team.

I know I started this thread, but if you will ever miss $20 in any way, please don’t do this. 

[Didba 5,511]

22 minutes ago, cbo said:

I know I started this thread, but if you will ever miss $20 in any way, please don’t do this. 

Norm would say the same thing, that man loved to gamble

[Tiger Refuge 6,802]

@cbo I wanna thank you for posting this.

Too often we feel like warring factions on opposite sides. The reality is we all want the same damn thing, it’s just that the other side is too stupid to see the right answer.

[Tiger 8,855]

2 hours ago, Didba said:

Y'all I've been thinking about putting $20 on Auburn to with the west. Like 13000 odds. I'm feeling pretty excited about the potential of this team.

Were we picked to finish last in the West in 2013? It wouldn't surprise me after the 2012 disaster. I wonder how many times/when the last time a last place prediction ended up winning a division.

[AUx 3,213]

[cbo 8,832]

1 hour ago, Tiger Refuge said:

@cbo I wanna thank you for posting this.

Too often we feel like warring factions on opposite sides. The reality is we all want the same damn thing, it’s just that the other side is too stupid to see the right answer.

You're a great person and a steady force year round. I show a semblance of decency once a year or so. 

[Tiger Refuge 6,802]

9 hours ago, cbo said:

You're a great person and a steady force year round. I show a semblance of decency once a year or so. 

You are up there in my book, bud. Glad you are still hanging out.

I need to hit up the music thread a bit more…

[oracle79 3,569]

On 7/25/2022 at 10:21 PM, Barnacle said:

In addition to discontinuity among the players, it became clear over the winter that our staff had not congealed, either. Whether our newly added or newly promoted staff are up to the task is yet to be seen, but unlike their predecessors, they seem to be well aligned to Harsin and his vision.

It's hard to emphasize the importance of this, unless you've experienced it. When you're winning and rolling along, everybody gets along and things are great. Once you hit some adversity, things can deteriorate quickly. Almost becomes every man for himself, finger pointing, blaming, screw this I'm gonna' do it my way. And we saw that last year during the 0-5 finish. Supposedly every is aligned, on the same page, and has circled the wagons. That can make a difference.

And since you asked for positive, I'm not going to talk about the QB positon or the LG position, but whoever starts there will definitely shape my optimism for this upcoming season.

[Carnell 600]

While people can point to some positives for being optimistic, the deciding factors that will determine success is the gameplanning and strategies implemented by the coaching staff.  I hope Kiesau is an upgrade from Bobo.  He has demonstrated both competence and incompetence as an OC.  At Washington his offense improved from about 90 in offense to around 15 from his 1st to 2nd year as OC.  The question is how much was it due to him of due to Sark.  He was sought of abysmal as OC at Colorado and Fresno State.  Might have been due to those teams just being sorry however.  So Bobo vs Kiesau.  Right now I hope Kiesau is an upgrade.  

 

On defense we lost a guy with several years experience in the NFL and DC at power 5 institution vs someone with DC experience at D1 playoff subdivion and 2 years at BSU.  That is the reason for my pessimism.  That is huge downgrade in DCs.

[oracle79 3,569]

I'm not sure how Kiesau will do here, but I'm guessing it will be more Harsin than Keys, and they work well together. And, IMO Bobo was a joke of an OC, but Harsin knew him from his time at CSU and respected him to some degree and knew he need SEC experience on the staff, so gave him a chance. Probably his worst hire with the exception of Mason IMO. 

This is just my take on Mason - he built a reputation as a DC guru for slowing down Chip Kelly's offense at Oregon while he was at Stanford. I think his football acumen was vastly overrated, although I'm sure he was a player's coach, good man, and related well to the players at Vanderbilt. Just wasn't a good fit here, and I will be closely watching how OSU's defense does this upcoming year. I could be dead wrong, but I'll bet they fall off a cliff from the previous year. Bad fit hire by Harsin at the least (I base most of that on how Mason left and then resurrected with OSU).

Eason was a big loss and I'm not sure why. Daymeune Craig badmouthed us the same way after leaving to FSU and he was a great recruiter. Eason was a great recruiter, and went home to Clemson. Not sure if he just didn't like it here with Harsin or if he wanted to go back home to Clemson. Well see in the year's to come though.

Addendum

James Franklin as Vanderbilt HC  

3 Yrs	Vanderbilt	39	24	15	0	.615	8.32	2.71				2-1

Derek Mason as Vanderbilt HC

Vanderbilt:

27–55

10–46

*Fired after 8 games.

Edited July 27, 2022 by oracle79

[WFE12 9,351]

There SHOULD be a reduction in goaline fades this year with Bobo gone

[Carnell 600]

23 hours ago, oracle79 said:

I'm not sure how Kiesau will do here, but I'm guessing it will be more Harsin than Keys, and they work well together. And, IMO Bobo was a joke of an OC, but Harsin knew him from his time at CSU and respected him to some degree and knew he need SEC experience on the staff, so gave him a chance. Probably his worst hire with the exception of Mason IMO. 

This is just my take on Mason - he built a reputation as a DC guru for slowing down Chip Kelly's offense at Oregon while he was at Stanford. I think his football acumen was vastly overrated, although I'm sure he was a player's coach, good man, and related well to the players at Vanderbilt. Just wasn't a good fit here, and I will be closely watching how OSU's defense does this upcoming year. I could be dead wrong, but I'll bet they fall off a cliff from the previous year. Bad fit hire by Harsin at the least (I base most of that on how Mason left and then resurrected with OSU).

Eason was a big loss and I'm not sure why. Daymeune Craig badmouthed us the same way after leaving to FSU and he was a great recruiter. Eason was a great recruiter, and went home to Clemson. Not sure if he just didn't like it here with Harsin or if he wanted to go back home to Clemson. Well see in the year's to come though.

Addendum

James Franklin as Vanderbilt HC  

3 Yrs	Vanderbilt	39	24	15	0	.615	8.32	2.71				2-1

Derek Mason as Vanderbilt HC

Vanderbilt:

27–55

10–46

*Fired after 8 games.

I think Mason is a good DC.   Our offense was pathetic and never helped our thin defense out.  Against the likesxof Georgia, Texas A&M and Bama our pathetic offense did not help our defense out at all and Georgia scored 10, Texas a&m scored 14 and Alabama scored 10 in the 4th quarters of those games.  My only complaint with Mason is he started the games using a soft zone defense too many times.

[Rednilla 5,449]

As anyone who has been paying attention knows, I'm not exactly pessimistic about Harsin and company most of the time, so allow me to start here by using this thread for kind of the opposite purpose. You see, as much sunshine as I pump about the current staff, I still have my own doubts about this whole deal. It's not so much doubting Harsin as it is doubting that he's going to be able to overcome the crap that went down early this year, because he has a tough hill to climb, and he doesn't have a whole lot of real estate to work with. I've heard some very worrisome things about Harsin's acclimation to coaching down here, and I wonder how he's going to adapt to being a CEO. And I know that he's skating on very thin ice, not through no fault of his own, but still unfairly so (IMHO).

But more than anything, I *want* to believe. I want to believe that him having a legitimate QB room is going to lead to each of them driving the others to be better. I want to believe he's going to elevate our receivers to the same kind of level as Dallas Cowboy and former Boise Bronco Cedrick Wilson (whose college position coach is now our OC), and we're going to start seeing the ball get thrown all over the field, loosening the defense and creating more holes for Tank and Hunter to burst through. I want to believe that the offensive line can be better than they've looked the last few years, that maybe inserting a couple of different pieces will solidify the whole.

And I want to believe that Harsin's defensive right hand can manage to keep Auburn's defense among the best. We've certainly got the talent on that line, which is probably the strongest positive, considering the guys who could probably have been drafted if they'd wanted to leave. That they believe in Harsin enough to come back for one more year should speak volumes to the haters.

[Rednilla 5,449]

On 7/27/2022 at 11:38 AM, Carnell said:

While people can point to some positives for being optimistic, the deciding factors that will determine success is the gameplanning and strategies implemented by the coaching staff.  I hope Kiesau is an upgrade from Bobo.  He has demonstrated both competence and incompetence as an OC.  At Washington his offense improved from about 90 in offense to around 15 from his 1st to 2nd year as OC.  The question is how much was it due to him of due to Sark.  He was sought of abysmal as OC at Colorado and Fresno State.  Might have been due to those teams just being sorry however.  So Bobo vs Kiesau.  Right now I hope Kiesau is an upgrade.  

 

On defense we lost a guy with several years experience in the NFL and DC at power 5 institution vs someone with DC experience at D1 playoff subdivion and 2 years at BSU.  That is the reason for my pessimism.  That is huge downgrade in DCs.

I can just about guarantee you Kiesau is an upgrade from Bobo, because I'm pretty sure Oracle is right in that it's going to be more Harsin than Kiesau. 

[AUx 3,213]

3 hours ago, Rednilla said:

But more than anything, I *want* to believe.

And I want to believe …

Auburn fan base:

Consensus Amen. The bar set by the (majority of the) fan base couldn’t be much lower wrt AU football. Maybe that’s a dubious positive. 
With a negligible track record in this conference, vanilla coach speak, and without tangible support from the admin writ large, all one can do is hope that any maneuver will be a positive step and that one day our very own T-1000 terminator will chill for a moment, give us an awkward high five, and then defeat skynet. 

[AUwent 3,841]

On 7/26/2022 at 10:41 PM, Tiger said:

Were we picked to finish last in the West in 2013? It wouldn't surprise me after the 2012 disaster. I wonder how many times/when the last time a last place prediction ended up winning a division.

5th

Pretty sure we were picked last in 2000 (UAT was picked first lawl).

In the 14 team era:

2012–Ole Miss finished 5th (7-6, 3-5) BUT was vacated

2013–Arkansas finished 7th (3-9, 0-8)

2014–Arkansas finished 7th (7-6, 2-6)

2015–MSU finished 6th (9-4, 4-4)

2016–MSU finished 6th (6-7, 3-5) (was only bowl eligible because of APR)

2017–Ole Miss finished 6th (6-6, 3-5) (ineligible for bowl due to probation)

2018–Arkansas finished 7th (2-10, 0-8)

2019–Arkansas finished 7th (2-10, 0-8)

2020–Arkansas finished 6th (3-7)

2021–MSU finished 4th (7-6, 4-4)

Edited July 29, 2022 by AUwent

[Carnell 600]

15 hours ago, Rednilla said:

I can just about guarantee you Kiesau is an upgrade from Bobo, because I'm pretty sure Oracle is right in that it's going to be more Harsin than Kiesau. 

I have significant reservations on Harsin.  Such as last year when Harsin saw the train wreck with Bobo did he get more involved on the Offensive side of the ball.  If he didn't why not.  If he did, I did not see any improvement on that side of the ball.  I would think that he called the plays in the bowl game.