We saw a team quit. We saw the very definition of ambivalence. A game plan shredded on both sides of the ball. Execution extinct. Pride nonexistent. Effort questionable at best. The most defunct Auburn football team in the history of Auburn football sunk to a new low Saturday night which is sure to usher in sweeping changes throughout the athletics department. And it should have already happened. In fact every day that passes without major change is another day of Auburn wallowing around in our own apathy. It's complete insanity, by definition. Same plans...expecting different results. What we saw against a middle of the pack Texas A&M squad Saturday was unacceptable by all involved, it was a complete embarrassment to all who care. Noncompetitive? Again? At home? Get real!
The worst part of this whole process is leaving the players in the dark with what's going on behind the scenes. They have coaches with one foot out the door in many instances. Coaches they're close to and in numerous cases, coaches that were the predominate factor in them choosing to become an Auburn Tiger. They have boosters and board members trying to come to a consensus without any true knowledge of football in general, let alone how it affects the young men we watch on Saturdays. They know change is in order, but the specifics are never shared and left to speculation. They should be the very first people to know the plan. They live with the decision in a way the decision makers and observers can't even grasp, so letting them know by means of SportsCenter is unacceptable. They deserve better than that and I hope they'll be treated with the proper level of respect and immediately informed when decisions transpire. They should hear it from the horses mouth rather than their classmates.
With regard to our coaches, we can argue about minutia all day long, but the reality is this staff apparently needs more than top 10 talent to win at Auburn. They need All-Pro talent to do so and that's an impossibility. They need guys that come already prepared for the next level because we certainly haven't shown an ability to do the necessary developing ourselves.
I've truly run out of things to say here. It's the same song, different verse repeatedly and it's a chore to try and fill space discussing the same problems every week. I'm weary from writing. I can't even fathom how weary this team is and how much they dread playing out the remainder of this season. What a sad state of affairs.
The only positives I came away with after watching the near complete implosion of Auburn Football were Jonathan Wallace and C.J. Uzomah.
ReplyDeleteAnother positive is that the Texam A&M coach had enough class to not run the score up to 100. They could have done that easily enough. The 63 they did score looked like a walk in the park. Could you imagine us against Oregon this year?!
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ReplyDeleteOK. I admit that I have been visiting here looking for a silver lining. [from last weeks' post]. It has now all come tumbling down. We are always there at our company's canopy on the green. We are always there in JHS to cheer our team. We have had nothing to cheer about this year. War Damn.
ReplyDeleteThat was a great post! You described the team this year exactly. I am so sad and this year has been the most depressing football season I have ever experienced. I have been following Auburn football for 30+ years, and never have I seen a team just not even try like this one has. I have been against firing CGC from the start, but now I have come to realize that it must happen. That is the only way to get out of this abyss and get back to anything similar to Auburn football. War Damn Forever!!!!
ReplyDeleteI might put it differently. To quit, they would have to have been there to start and I just didn't see anything that made me think they even showed up to play. I started out thinking that the coaches had earned the right to come back next year but at some point (and I think it was in the first quarter but it could have been at Vandy) I realized they just needed to go. I suppose we will never really know what went so terribly wrong with this staff and the players, but something certainly did. I was in school in the mid 70s for Shug's last years and Doug Barfield's first years, so I have seen some bad Auburn football, but never a team that just didn't even show up. Until now.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Rob. I have never left an Auburn game early at JHS until Saturday night. I simply could no longer stomach watching this team wallow in ineptitude.
ReplyDeleteThank you for telling it like it is, Rob. A don't comment here much, but I read often. I have seen this team compared to the 2008 and the 1998 teams. Those teams to not deserve to be compared with this year's team. No, 2008 and 1998 weren't great years, but I saw much more fight then than I do in this 2011 team. I have never seen anything like this. These players deserve better. They work to hard to come out looking so unprepared. When problems are so widespread, you don't point fingers at players. Everything points to the coaches.
ReplyDeleteI hope this season is a lesson to those that get so excited about recruiting rankings. They don't mean a lot unless players are well coached and work their butts off. I am sure these guys put in the work, but to continuously do so in such a futile effort would challenge anyone. These guys deserve better.