What really caused the drop off?

[DAG 34,938]

3 minutes ago, W.E.D said:

Wasn't saying you were wrong, just didn't understand where you were going.  I agree he's been able to build.  Ole Miss did fall apart really badly on him, before the cheating accusations.  He'll build us up, but yeah...can he sustain.  If he can't and Auburn goes through our typical high peak and Deeeeeep low valley cycle....we're right back in the same spot.  

 

I will fully say if he turns out to be Mark Richt 2.0 many auburn fans will be content. Not this one, but a good many will be. 

[W.E.D 11,071]

12 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Frasier 

Moseley 

Johnson

Wallace 

Queen 

JF3 

Devin Adams 

Gatewood 

Sandberg 

Lyndsey 

Garnett  

Literally never recruited a single good HS QB from the time he was OC until Bo...but then forced him into action too early combined with mostly horrendous supporting talent outside 1 or 2 guys

[W.E.D 11,071]

Just now, DAG said:

I will fully say if he turns out to be Mark Richt 2.0 many auburn fans will be content. Not this one, but a good many will be. 

I mean, if he did that he'd be the greatest coach Auburn ever had

[DAG 34,938]

1 minute ago, W.E.D said:

I mean, if he did that he'd be the greatest coach Auburn ever had

Exactly, but that is definitely not where I want to be as an Auburn fan. 

[W.E.D 11,071]

Just now, DAG said:

Exactly, but that is definitely not where I want to be as an Auburn fan. 

If he coached for 15 years, won 7 SECW titles, Won 2 SECCG Titles....we'd be in the playoffs 50% of the time (if not more).  Most likely 2 #1 seeds.  

Only Mike Donahue would have a higher SEC Winning % and that was before the forward pass existed.

I'd be 100% fine with this outcome.  It would literally be the greatest decade and a half of our history

[DAG 34,938]

Just now, W.E.D said:

If he coached for 15 years, won 7 SECW titles, Won 2 SECCG Titles....we'd be in the playoffs 50% of the time (if not more).  Most likely 2 #1 seeds.  

Only Mike Donahue would have a higher SEC Winning % and that was before the forward pass existed.

I'd be 100% fine with this outcome.  It would literally be the greatest decade and a half of our history

Right but this is with the expansion of the playoffs. If he did that and didn’t win a single national championship including as a #1 seed, I have a hard time believing you of all people would be content. Maybe you would , but I wouldn’t . My question would be , why haven’t we won one single championship? 

[W.E.D 11,071]

Just now, DAG said:

Right but this is with the expansion of the playoffs. If he did that and didn’t win a single national championship including as a #1 seed, I have a hard time believing you of all people would be content. Maybe you would , but I wouldn’t . My question would be , why haven’t we won one single championship? 

I think the chances of him winning a Natty would be high.

Yeah, I want to win the whole thing....but we've literally never had consistency.  Like ever.  maybe 1 time we had two back to back good seasons?  88 and 89?  outside those years, we average 7.5 wins after a 10 win season.  That's just sad.

[auburnatl1 6,206]

Richt benefitted from the fading of GT and uf. He went to Miami (a rebuild with facilities issues - but in the middle of recruiting Mecca) and imploded in literally 2 seasons.

[gr82b4au 5,583]

Agree with everything that is said in this thread. 
In the end it is all about talent. It is that simple. The most talented teams win the conference (SEC) and the national title. Alabama and Uga have more talent on their 2nd and 3rd teams alone than the entire roster on most other college teams. 
It all starts with recruiting and developing good HS QBs and a solid HS OL on offense. This was abysmal under Gus and an epic disaster under Harsin. As someone said earlier- kids want to get the NFL and the word was out about the AU gimmicky offense under Gus. Harsin was just terrible at everything. 

Add to that - teams like Clemson took our spot and our recruits the last several years - like the phoenix city pipeline. 

At this point, Georgia and Alabama are power houses, partly because of us. We just watched them build their empires. They are going to get who they want most of the time (with a few exceptions) until someone can knock them off the top.
It is going to take time and patience. Auburn will have to build relationships with HS coaches and start winning recruiting battles against teams like Clemson, Florida State, Florida, Miami,  the MS schools, TN, etc. It is going to take a lot of money. Then we have to win. Then we can start recruiting with the big boys. 
It took 6+ years to get to where we are. It’s going to take years to get out of it. 

[DAG 34,938]

16 minutes ago, W.E.D said:

I think the chances of him winning a Natty would be high.

Yeah, I want to win the whole thing....but we've literally never had consistency.  Like ever.  maybe 1 time we had two back to back good seasons?  88 and 89?  outside those years, we average 7.5 wins after a 10 win season.  That's just sad.

I agree. It is a very sad state to be in , particularly when we have seen our two biggest rivals seemingly get to that point.

[W.E.D 11,071]

10 minutes ago, DAG said:

I agree. It is a very sad state to be in , particularly when we have seen our two biggest rivals seemingly get to that point.

You can hold it to me, but I'll be happy if Hugh wins 70% of his SEC games and the SECW 50% of the seasons he coaches if we don't win a Natty...and he doesn't leave us with crippling probation. 

[icanthearyou 4,468]

53 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Frasier 

Moseley 

Johnson

Wallace 

Queen 

JF3 

Devin Adams 

Gatewood 

Sandberg 

Lyndsey 

Garnett  

 

But he nailed it on Zeke Pike and, the fact that Lamar Jackson was/is/will always be a DB. 

[woodford 3,751]

1 hour ago, bigbird said:

Gus' poor recruiting and even worse roster management is where it began, especially with the QB position and was exacerbated by the OL recruiting. 

 

+ mediocre president hiring a mediocre AD who then hired a mediocre HC

 

This was all self-inflicted. I love Gus the person, but he did the program zero favors in what you mentioned. I don't want to be THAT guy but 2014 he had some head scratchers and I wanted him gone after 2016. Specifically, after that TAMU game.

It's funny, after the 2015 Iron Bowl I had a long conversation with this Bammer who was hammered drunk. He was saying Gus is not the guy for Auburn long term. I thought he was crazy. Turns out he was right.

[Win4AU 4,201]

1 hour ago, DAG said:

Who cares? I never understood this argument and I don’t till this day. 

Probably the same argument people would make about Coach Caddy if he went off and had success somewhere and the Auburn job came open.  You don't think Caddy would come a running?

[AuCivilEng1 12,293]

1 hour ago, bigbird said:

Sandberg 

 

[DAG 34,938]

12 minutes ago, Win4AU said:

Probably the same argument people would make about Coach Caddy if he went off and had success somewhere and the Auburn job came open.  You don't think Caddy would come a running?

I don’t know. It depends on the situation. People choose things for more than just their love of their alma mater. I for sure wouldn’t assume he would come back. 

[JerryAU 1,891]

1 hour ago, DAG said:

Oh gosh please don’t start that lol. There are people who really do believe he is ready right now. 

Caddy has said he's not ready.  He's seen firsthand the inner workings of AU athletics; he knows how the politics work too. 

It's probably best to wait and see which programs come gunning for Caddy after this season.   Lets see if he's a hot commodity anywhere else other than as an Auburn position coach. 

[JerryAU 1,891]

1 hour ago, W.E.D said:

You can hold it to me, but I'll be happy if Hugh wins 70% of his SEC games and the SECW 50% of the seasons he coaches if we don't win a Natty...and he doesn't leave us with crippling probation. 

Well, he's got 1 season to win the West and that's this year. 

[DAG 34,938]

51 minutes ago, JerryAU said:

Caddy has said he's not ready.  He's seen firsthand the inner workings of AU athletics; he knows how the politics work too. 

It's probably best to wait and see which programs come gunning for Caddy after this season.   Lets see if he's a hot commodity anywhere else other than as an Auburn position coach. 

I agree and I am glad he got enough wisdom to see that.

[weagl1 1,812]

Auburn played hell when we didn’t listen to Pat Dye in 2012 and didn’t hire Kirby Smart when he was available.  Instead we ended up with Gus.  Looked like genius for one year (2013) but its been pretty much downhill from there.  People think Kirby might have left us for Georgia when Richt was fired but I doubt it.  Dye didn’t leave is when Dooley retired.  A coach spends several years building relationships and getting a program headed in the right direction they get reluctant to leave just when they start reaping the benefits.  Starting over in this league is tough and it seems like we have been in a constant state of starting over since Dye resigned over the Ramsey mess.  Tubby had a good run for a while for a few years but I think a lot of that was from Bammer being down while they were dealing with their own coaching fiascos prior to hiring Saban.  

[CoffeeTiger 5,914]

Harsin may have been a horrifically bad hire, but that aside finding a good long-term solution at the headcoach position is very hard. Go look at a list of all the P5 head coaches and how long they've been at their schools. Only a handful have been at their schools 10+ years and a lot haven't even been at their current school for 5 years. 

Only a couple schools are fortunate enough to actually have long term head coaches this day and age. 

[auburnatl1 6,206]

35 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

Only a couple schools are fortunate enough to actually have long term head coaches this day and age. 

The obvious challenge is dealing with the disappointing years. Half of any fan base goes into “we’re settling, demand more, fire ‘em” mode (expensive, disruptive, and you may hire an even bigger idiot) , and the other half screams patience (potential slow slide into irrelevance).  But fire ‘em can also get you uga and patience, Michigan.  

Somehow we managed to get the worst of both approaches.

[Gowebb11 9,944]

Gus had a lot to do with it but we have greatly underperformed in the AD office and University President's office as well. Our current trio of Pres, AD, and HC is finally competent and aligned.

[AUwent 3,841]

3 hours ago, weagl1 said:

Auburn played hell when we didn’t listen to Pat Dye in 2012 and didn’t hire Kirby Smart when he was available.  Instead we ended up with Gus.  Looked like genius for one year (2013) but its been pretty much downhill from there.  People think Kirby might have left us for Georgia when Richt was fired but I doubt it.  Dye didn’t leave is when Dooley retired.  A coach spends several years building relationships and getting a program headed in the right direction they get reluctant to leave just when they start reaping the benefits.  Starting over in this league is tough and it seems like we have been in a constant state of starting over since Dye resigned over the Ramsey mess.  Tubby had a good run for a while for a few years but I think a lot of that was from Bammer being down while they were dealing with their own coaching fiascos prior to hiring Saban.  

Yeah CPD was ultimately right. At the time though there was def a lot of resentment towards him as backlash for Chizik (seen as CPD/GoB's puppet) collapsing. Admittedly, I was against hiring CKS at the time as a few people in the fandom who called the 2012 season beforehand (and therefore had credibility in my eyes) were adamant that he was a bad idea.

Edited June 29, 2023 by AUwent

[cbo 8,832]

I'm kind of over blaming Gus. Of course he should have been gone a couple seasons before he was. But he did give us one of the most fun AU seasons ever. 

Our current problems are on Harsin. If we had hired the right guy, he's be going into his third season and we could be a true contender. Instead he decimated the roster like I've never seen before and we were stuck hiring a new coach in an offseason that didn't have a lot of great options and with huge buyouts over our heads.