I was there at the stadium on Saturday so I wanted to watch the CBS broadcast to see if it was as ugly on television as it was in person.
Surprisingly, and I say this somewhat cautiously, it wasn't as ugly as I had expected, at least in some ways.
Make no mistake, this team, as a whole, isn't very good. Besides the obvious lack of talent at numerous key positions, the staff has also demonstrated grave incompetence on multiple occasions and don't do much to put the players in a position where they can be successful. More on this later.
However, I was impressed with both TJ and Robby at times. Both guys made some tremendous plays under a considerable amount of pressure. The receivers also had some really good catches. What hurts the offense the most is the offensive line. I'm not trying to be overdramatic when I say it might very well be the worst offensive line in the modern era of Auburn Football. They defy simple adjectives such as "bad" or "terrible". Not only do they lack talent, they lack good coaching and development. Add it all up and you have a dumpster fire up front that handicaps the entire offense. It is utterly impossible to hide the offensive line at this level of football. Even Alabama, with its extremely average offensive line, almost lost to Texas (a vastly inferior team) due to this same issue. And folks, let me tell you, our line isn't even close to average. It's not just the worst unit on the team. It's the worst unit in the conference and it isn't close.
The talent situation on the defensive side of the ball is a little less apocalyptic but they were embarrassed anyway. I thought the effort from the defense in the first half was alright, holding State to 14 points. Then, as we all witnessed in gory detail, they began to quit. The effort slid, tackles were missed, and time after time, the defensive line was blown to pieces. There was little, if any, rotation of the DL's on Saturday. This struck me, as well a great number of you, as odd because that's the one position where we have decent depth. It is a cardinal sin of big time college football to not rotate your DL's. Which leads me to my final point and my personal thesis on why this team sucks so much.
The talent level is down, it's true. The offensive line sucks, so they can't run the ball. The quarterbacks, despite their good moments, often devolve into total liabilities at crucial junctures in the game. The defensive backs get owned on a regular basis by any receiver with a modicum of size and athleticism. But more than any of that, the one thing that appears most prominently to me is a staff that is so obsessed with miniscule details that they often don't see the forest for the trees. I have never, and I mean ever, seen a staff so detail-oriented and yet fail so miserably to see the big picture. This is what separates an SEC staff from a G5 staff. The "meta" of big time college football is very, very different than what this staff is used to.
Do you know what happens at Boise when the head coach doesn't allow the quarter clock to run out before they run their next play, essentially forfeiting a free timeout? Nothing happens, that's what. I'm sure it's a fine program and they've got some great fans but no one on earth could convince me that their fans know as much about football as our fans do. Harsin and co. are used to the fans being ignorant of their incompetence. They're used to competing in an environment where they have the most talent and thus, more often than not, their lack of understanding of the meta game doesn't result in disasters like we saw on Saturday. As soon as this staff had to face off against another staff worth a damn, their incompetence was clear for everyone to see. Our fans know football and we know garbage when we see it.
Another thing that separates the current staff from a real, bona fide SEC staff is a total lack of concern with roster continuity. Do you know what Jimbo, Lane, Kirby, Pittman, Stoops, or any other SEC coach worth a damn would've done when Kobe Hudson threw his little fit on social media? I'll tell you. They would've invited Kobe into their office and said "Hey big man! Everything going alright? I just talked to your mom on the telephone and she was talking about how happy you were here. She was talking about how proud she was of you. What can we do to fix this? How can we help you be happy here?"
Is that cringe? You bet it is. But you just kept your best receiver on the team and you reached out to the kid on a personal level and he's now aware that you actually care about him. Sometimes, that's a big part of coaching. Harsin probably never talked to Kobe's mother and probably did fvck all to keep him here when he started pouting. These are kids. Some need hugging, some need loving, some need pushing, some need yelling at. The great coaches (and Dye had an outstanding understanding of this) know that their players are individuals and must often be coached differently so that they may reach their full potential.
TLDR: Harsin and his staff sucks but it has less to do with X's and O's than it does a total lack of understanding of the meta game of big time college football.
Surprisingly, and I say this somewhat cautiously, it wasn't as ugly as I had expected, at least in some ways.
Make no mistake, this team, as a whole, isn't very good. Besides the obvious lack of talent at numerous key positions, the staff has also demonstrated grave incompetence on multiple occasions and don't do much to put the players in a position where they can be successful. More on this later.
However, I was impressed with both TJ and Robby at times. Both guys made some tremendous plays under a considerable amount of pressure. The receivers also had some really good catches. What hurts the offense the most is the offensive line. I'm not trying to be overdramatic when I say it might very well be the worst offensive line in the modern era of Auburn Football. They defy simple adjectives such as "bad" or "terrible". Not only do they lack talent, they lack good coaching and development. Add it all up and you have a dumpster fire up front that handicaps the entire offense. It is utterly impossible to hide the offensive line at this level of football. Even Alabama, with its extremely average offensive line, almost lost to Texas (a vastly inferior team) due to this same issue. And folks, let me tell you, our line isn't even close to average. It's not just the worst unit on the team. It's the worst unit in the conference and it isn't close.
The talent situation on the defensive side of the ball is a little less apocalyptic but they were embarrassed anyway. I thought the effort from the defense in the first half was alright, holding State to 14 points. Then, as we all witnessed in gory detail, they began to quit. The effort slid, tackles were missed, and time after time, the defensive line was blown to pieces. There was little, if any, rotation of the DL's on Saturday. This struck me, as well a great number of you, as odd because that's the one position where we have decent depth. It is a cardinal sin of big time college football to not rotate your DL's. Which leads me to my final point and my personal thesis on why this team sucks so much.
The talent level is down, it's true. The offensive line sucks, so they can't run the ball. The quarterbacks, despite their good moments, often devolve into total liabilities at crucial junctures in the game. The defensive backs get owned on a regular basis by any receiver with a modicum of size and athleticism. But more than any of that, the one thing that appears most prominently to me is a staff that is so obsessed with miniscule details that they often don't see the forest for the trees. I have never, and I mean ever, seen a staff so detail-oriented and yet fail so miserably to see the big picture. This is what separates an SEC staff from a G5 staff. The "meta" of big time college football is very, very different than what this staff is used to.
Do you know what happens at Boise when the head coach doesn't allow the quarter clock to run out before they run their next play, essentially forfeiting a free timeout? Nothing happens, that's what. I'm sure it's a fine program and they've got some great fans but no one on earth could convince me that their fans know as much about football as our fans do. Harsin and co. are used to the fans being ignorant of their incompetence. They're used to competing in an environment where they have the most talent and thus, more often than not, their lack of understanding of the meta game doesn't result in disasters like we saw on Saturday. As soon as this staff had to face off against another staff worth a damn, their incompetence was clear for everyone to see. Our fans know football and we know garbage when we see it.
Another thing that separates the current staff from a real, bona fide SEC staff is a total lack of concern with roster continuity. Do you know what Jimbo, Lane, Kirby, Pittman, Stoops, or any other SEC coach worth a damn would've done when Kobe Hudson threw his little fit on social media? I'll tell you. They would've invited Kobe into their office and said "Hey big man! Everything going alright? I just talked to your mom on the telephone and she was talking about how happy you were here. She was talking about how proud she was of you. What can we do to fix this? How can we help you be happy here?"
Is that cringe? You bet it is. But you just kept your best receiver on the team and you reached out to the kid on a personal level and he's now aware that you actually care about him. Sometimes, that's a big part of coaching. Harsin probably never talked to Kobe's mother and probably did fvck all to keep him here when he started pouting. These are kids. Some need hugging, some need loving, some need pushing, some need yelling at. The great coaches (and Dye had an outstanding understanding of this) know that their players are individuals and must often be coached differently so that they may reach their full potential.
TLDR: Harsin and his staff sucks but it has less to do with X's and O's than it does a total lack of understanding of the meta game of big time college football.
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