Jay Tate weighs in and I'm sorry for the difficulty to read, he is who he is.
Jay G. Tate ā¢ AuburnSports
Publisher
@JayGTate
Hello again, friends.
It's been a difficult season of tackle football on the Plains, what with the Tigers going winless against ranked teams, getting throttled in the Iron Bowl and now attempting to rally for a winning record ... at Mississippi State.
Yes, things have been better.
This Is Auburn. Its supporters are used to the ups and downs ā the Final Four followed by postseason ban, an Iron Bowl victory valued at $49 million immediately followed by consecutive losses to Georgia and Central Florida, a Women's College World Series loss featuring an error from the most sure-handed second baseman you've ever seen.
To be an Auburn supporter is to subconsciously crave pain because, well, that's where things lead.
Which is an interesting juxtaposition considering the way many (or perhaps most) Auburn people feel about the football program right now. They're weary. They want to be hopeful, they want to see the Tigers scoring touchdowns and slobber-knocking some poor fellow who thought an away game inside Jordan-Hare Stadium would be a good opportunity.
Still, they haven't seen much of that. Not nearly enough, anyway.
If you've kept up with this saga for the past two years ā see below for links to this series' previous nine installments ā you know that coach Gus Malzahn has his fair share of detractors. These influential people have been concentrated into a small bloc that co-exists among a larger group of similarly influential people who, until just recently, were mostly neutral when it came to the issue of critically assessing Malzahn's future.
Before we get too far down this road, understand that most of the People Who Are Done With Gus (the DWGs) generally like Malzahn as a person. Auburn's head coach is a good man, a principled person who has put effort into becoming a better leader and a more relatable human being. You'd be hard-pressed to find many people who take umbrage with the person Malzahn is.
The coach that Malzahn is? Much umbrage exists.
The DWGs have been down on Malzahn The Coach for at least two years now and pushed very hard for a change as the 2018 season reached its conclusion. Malzahn was spared then because his buyout clause was massive (>$32 million) and university president Steven Leath, who approved the deal in December 2017 that bore Malzahn's massive buyout clause, essentially blocked any chance at a change. He did this mostly out of self-preservation since he was (figuratively) on the hook for that buyout money Malzahn had Malzahn been ousted.
Pat Dye and his Auburn teams of the 1980s didn't wrassle with them angels to settle for mediocrity.
The DWGs remained at least somewhat salty as the 2019 season reached its conclusion, but Auburn ended the regular season with a thrilling win against Alabama and a 9-3 record overall. The neutral parties were fine with the football program's performance at that stage.
That brings us to 2020. Auburn was hammered by Georgia, lost on the road to a terrible South Carolina team. Things looked bad. Then the Tigers demoralized LSU. Things looked fine. They beat Tennessee. Things looked pretty good.
The Iron Bowl was a dumpster fire and ended with Alabama 29 points to the good. The DWGs were as impassioned as ever. They were fully convinced that Malzahn no longer was fit to lead Auburn. They wanted to curry some favor, but neutrals weren't really listening.
The game against Texas A&M last weekend was far more competitive, but a fourth-quarter surge allowed the Aggies to take command late and win by 11 points. That represented Auburn's fourth loss of the season.
Now the DWGs were incensed.
I'm still not sure if the A&M loss itself had a huge effect on neutrals, but something else did. After the game, Malzahn was asked about how his team's goals had been impacted by this latest loss.
Prior to the game, he said the goal was 7-3.
Now he'd been forced to adjust his aim down another rung.
"Itāll be the next best, the 6-4," Malzahn said. "Thatās what itāll be, 6-4, and if you had a normal non-conference schedule, itād be a solid year."
A solid year? A 6-4 season, a disappointment by even the most wide-eyed Pollyanna, was being normalized by the head coach. Pat Dye and his Auburn teams of the 1980s didn't wrassle with them angels to settle for mediocrity. Dye won four SEC championships. He pushed the expectations ahead, gave Auburn fans a belief that they deserved to be perennial challengers.
One day later, Malzahn worked to control the message by saying that his goal always has been to compete for championships. Still, the damage had been done.
A group of neutrals had a moment of clarity at some point Sunday or perhaps Monday morning. The DWBs' protestations suddenly made sense to them. They weren't necessarily radicalized by this realization, but they suddenly found themselves amenable to the idea that change is needed.
One word did most of that. Solid. A solid season.
Is he serious?
Forecasting how these situations play out is exceedingly difficult. I was convinced in 2018 that Malzahn's goose was cooked. I later likened Malzahn's escape to something from Harry Houdini, a comparison that drew a chuckle from Malzahn when we discussed the situation months later. I'm still shocked that Leath was able to quell the uprising.
Leath isn't here anymore.
I look around for someone willing to quell the uprising this time and I don't see him or her. The only people even potentially in position are current president Jay Gogue, who generally prefers to avoid drama, and athletic director Allen Greene, who also prefers to avoid drama. Considering the growing number of Malzahn doubters and the lack of any apparent force capable (or willing) to create a scene to calm things down, this week has the look of Malzahn's last stand.
It goes even a bit deeper. Toss aside all the political overtones and the blocs and the protestations, this program simply looks like it's headed toward a standstill.
ā¢ The team's performance is off
ā¢ The organization lacks unity of purpose
ā¢ Recruiting has taken a sharp turn downward
When those three trends occur concurrently ā something we saw in 1998, 2008, 2012 and again right now ā you know the situation is dire. It's a solvable problem, but does Malzahn have the ability to engineer a fix? Can he inspire better from his players and his staff and himself?
There is risk involved with spending $30+ million to replace this staff and fill the ensuing vacancy, but there also is risk associated with keeping this staff. Alabama is Alabama. Arkansas is playing better football. Same for Ole Miss. Texas A&M is in the playoff hunt. Mike Leach is going to create at least some measure of havoc in Starkville.
It really comes down to the D.U.F.F. principle; every clique has a designated ugly, fat friend.
If you don't know who the DUFF is, it's you
