| FTBL Yellateeth Marshall is at it again. Yada yada yada, Bama. Yada, yada, yada, Bama.

Max

Member
“Auburn fans have it better than most in college football. If things go well, their team can contend for a championship or win a championship in any given season. Rare is the game that they know in advance their team simply cannot win. That is a far better place than most college football programs or even most SEC programs. So, what is the problem for so many who really love Auburn football?

But they want more. They have always wanted more, but since Nick Saban moved to Tuscaloosa and built the nation’s strongest program, they have wanted it more than ever.

Winning one national championship is extremely hard. Winning a conference championship is hard. Even winning a division championship is hard. But the biggest challenge is continuing to do it year after year. Few manage to do that.

Though I am not among them, lots of people believe Ole Miss can be a serious contender this season in the SEC West. Maybe I am wrong, but even if I am, that means everything came together this season. It does not mean that an annual contender has suddenly blossomed in Oxford. Auburn won a national championship 11 years ago and won an SEC championship and played for a national championship eight years ago. It won a division championship four years ago. The biggest challenge is not building a championship team. It is building a sustainable championship program. Auburn has not been able to do that since Pat Dye's last SEC championship in 1989.

So, what does it take for Auburn or any other program? One man’s opinion.

THE RIGHT HEAD COACH

Is the head coach a fit for the university and its supporters? The right fit at one place might not be the right fit at another. Can he motivate players to perform better than even they thought they could? Can he attract top-flight assistant coaches and recruiters to come to work for him? After all, it is the assistants who teach the players how to play the game. Can he identify and recruit the kinds of players it takes to win championships? Can he build a program that attracts donors who want to be a part of it, and can he make them feel wanted?

It is good if the head coach is a football magician on Saturday, but the things above are more important.

PATIENCE

Shuffling through coaches is the worst possible way to go about it. LSU had six consecutive losing seasons from 1989-1994 while coach-shuffling. Alabama, in a 20-year period, had more losing seasons than championships while coach-shuffling. Tennessee, a shadow of what it once was, is the best current example of coach-shuffling.

Having parted ways with Gus Malzahn after eight seasons, Auburn hired Bryan Harsin last December. He is in his first season and is surely learning about the noise that comes from losing a big game. But nothing that happens this season will significantly impact Harsin’s standing at Auburn, nor should it.

If he has a big season, it will not mean he is going to have lots of them. If he has a losing season, it will not mean he is going to have lots of them. Once the decision is made to hire a coach, giving him time and support to show what he can or cannot do is the only rational option. When floods of criticism and anger come with every disappointment, his job is only made harder.

COMMITMENT

When Rich Rodriguez backed out after agreeing to be Alabama’s head coach in December of 2006, late athletics director Mal Moore went to Miami to see Saban. He went with strict instructions from the power players at Alabama: “Whatever it takes, don’t come back without him.” I know that because Moore told me. Moore did not come back without him, and the rest is history.

Alabama and a handful of others are different than most. Football success is such of a part of their DNA and their self-esteem that money is no factor. Bad seasons only increase the determination of many very wealthy people to do something about it.

That is really not true at Auburn, or has not been. Pat Dye, who coached at both places, once famously said “Alabama people love Alabama football. Auburn people love Auburn.” There is a lot of truth to that.

Will Auburn ever be in a place to tell an athletics director to do whatever it takes financially to get the best coach out there? Will that coach be told he can do what it takes to hire the best assistants out there? Will it ever be dictated to Auburn’s athletics director that first-class in all ways is the only way?

SUCCESSFUL RECRUITING

Without successful recruiting, there will be no sustained success. With all due respect to 247Sports, I am not talking about recruiting rankings. I am talking about finding impact players, signing them and developing them.

Auburn is geographically in a terrific place to recruit. Prospects from Alabama, Georgia and Florida are in easy driving distance. But in the modern era, recruiting is not as geographic as it once was. The key is impact players who can win against the kinds of players they will face in the SEC. You cannot consistently compete and win against Alabama and Georgia without those kinds of players.

Whether they are 5-star recruits or lower ranked recruits who become 5-star players, you must have them. If you do not, nothing else matters.

ABOUT HARSIN

Six of Auburn's last seven coaches have either won championships or had an undefeated season or both. There is no reason to believe Harsin, if he stays for multiple years, will not do the same.

Can he become the first coach since Dye to do it more than once? Will he get what it takes to do it more than once? It is far too early to know.
 
I think you can to add Tubby to this conversation as well, the "thumb" had alot to do with "get him whatever it takes as well", Tubby recruited some very good players and fielded competitive teams during his span, I loathed him when he was there coach but he kept the barn on the map during his tenure competitive wise
 
Tubby recruited some very good players and fielded competitive teams during his span,
I firmly believe the only reason he did this was because of our "down" years. How many years of negative recruiting was there around Alabama during the Dubose Debacle? 4? There was the notice of NCAA snooping around, followed by them snooping around, followed by sanctions. Between the Mike3 (cubed) era: Dubose, Price, Shula. Tubby didn't have to do hardly anything to land all the top talent in the state. Then he could recruit out of state talent without having to work too hard. If memory serves me correct, Carnell Williams grew up a huge Bama fan. If we would have been out of the NCAA Penalty lime light.........no way Tubby makes it 10 years at AU.
 
I firmly believe the only reason he did this was because of our "down" years. How many years of negative recruiting was there around Alabama during the Dubose Debacle? 4? There was the notice of NCAA snooping around, followed by them snooping around, followed by sanctions. Between the Mike3 (cubed) era: Dubose, Price, Shula. Tubby didn't have to do hardly anything to land all the top talent in the state. Then he could recruit out of state talent without having to work too hard. If memory serves me correct, Carnell Williams grew up a huge Bama fan. If we would have been out of the NCAA Penalty lime light.........no way Tubby makes it 10 years at AU.
Tuberville is/was a moron and to make it worse he turned to politics and the people of our State elected this clown.
 
Tuberville is/was a moron and to make it worse he turned to politics and the people of our State elected this clown.

I do not disagree with this statement, but in our beloved state, when was the last election where it wasn't a choice of syphilis or gonorrhea? He was truly the lessor of two evils. Much like the guvnah, and all other useless windbags, known as politicians.
 
I cant say that I disagree with the article. The whole issue in a nutshell is can a run be sustained? It has been at Al A BAM A, Clemson and Ohio St. for sure. I'll even throw Oklahoma in the mix but what about the 100+ other Division 1 programs. The short answer is NO! Even Bama has gone through some dry spells over the course of my 60 years. Just look at Nebraska, USCw and Texas as a few of those examples. What CNS and company have done since he arrived has been nothing but magical. Carry on!
 
The allbarn hack they revere as their Cecil Hurt but in actuality he would not have written for our HS paper. The English teachers would have made him cry. When I hear his name I think of the host of The Hollywood Squares with the baaad overbite.
Still here we are talking about that team!
 
I cant say that I disagree with the article. The whole issue in a nutshell is can a run be sustained? It has been at Al A BAM A, Clemson and Ohio St. for sure. I'll even throw Oklahoma in the mix but what about the 100+ other Division 1 programs. The short answer is NO! Even Bama has gone through some dry spells over the course of my 60 years. Just look at Nebraska, USCw and Texas as a few of those examples. What CNS and company have done since he arrived has been nothing but magical. Carry on!
There are teams with fewer “dry spells” ie losing seasons than the Tide but there’s only one team (Bama) that has won NC’s in 9 of the last 11 decades (none in the 50’s or 80’s). No team comes anywhere close to that consistency. Our alumni and fans’ demand excellence and will not settle for even 11-2 or 10-3 very long. However, it takes a special coach to meet and even a more special coach to exceed our expectations. Unfortunately, they don’t grow on trees.
 
Football success is such of a part of their DNA and their self-esteem that money is no factor. Bad seasons only increase the determination of many very wealthy people to do something about it.

That is really not true at Auburn, or has not been. Pat Dye, who coached at both places, once famously said “Alabama people love Alabama football. Auburn people love Auburn.” There is a lot of truth to that.

Another way of saying this is, Alabama has money and we are broke, which is why we make our players ride buses home from away games. And while we would love to be a winner and earn an ounce of respect that Alabama has, our DNA is unfortunately composed of department-wide cheating, obsessing over THE state school, and using what little money we do have to buyout coaches every few years (even though they LOVE auburn and we LOVE them).
 
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