re: If I had told you at the beginning of the year...

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Harbaugh, Richt, Les Miles, Chris Petersen, Jimbo Fischer, Dabo swinney and Stoops. Saban and Urban Meyer are in a super elite category.

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You really consider Harbaugh, Richt, Miles and Dabo 'elite'?

Based on what, exactly?

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Expertise in defense and special teams: -average to below average
Recruiting (especially QB): average to below average
Development of skill players especially QB: significantly below average
In game offensive adjustments: average
Team morale: average

On positive side:

Ability to attract quality asst coaches: excellent
Development of offensive schemes: excellent.

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you literally just blew my mind with how backwards you perceive everything about Malzahn.

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Expertise in defense and special teams: -average to below average

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Our special teams are pretty damn amazing top to bottom minus punting and it is still well above the average.

In terms of defense, we have improved the last two years and look to be on the right path for down the road.

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Recruiting (especially QB): average to below average

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seriously fricking amazingly stupid call on this. top 10 to 15 isn't average to below average. There are like 140 teams, being in the top 10% is WAY the frick above average.

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Development of skill players especially QB: significantly below average
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quarterback leaves a lot to be desired but running backs have been amazingly developed and receivers aren't awful, they either can catch or they can't. My argument here isn't lack of development it is lack of playing the right people and putting them in good situations to succeed.

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In game offensive adjustments: average

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I would go with below average in this one all day for malzahn. If there is one thing he does poorly it is adjust at half.

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Team morale: average

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I have never once seen a team quit on him and this is a big reason I refuse to get anywhere near a fire gus bandwagon. He has had troubled players that were turds and those were weeded out as they went but the team always plays hard to the end.

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Ability to attract quality asst coaches: excellent

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Again, I disagree with this. He attracts the people he trusts around him. Some are good and some aren't. Those that aren't, are young guys.

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Development of offensive schemes: excellent.

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again, I disagree. He needs to evolve his offense to stay current and he has refused to do that the past two or three years. A lot of that hangs on having issues at the quarterback spot but that still falls on him.

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In summary, Gus is either a very average SEC head coach or an excellent O coordinator (on par with Lane Kiffin without moral shortcomings).

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As of now, I will agree with you on this except I think Kiffin does a better job of getting guys to fit his style and then he tweaks to get more out of them. I will be interested to see how he fairs once he doesn't have top skill players at every spot and just runs screens and shovel passes for 200 yards.


All in all, Gus is a young coach with a lot to learn and some ego to swallow but he is so damn close to being a really good coach that is maddening. He rarely makes clock mismanagements or any other mental errors.

He has a .677 winning percentage at Auburn. To put that into perspective, Tubs had a .680 winning record at Auburn and that was with the SEC being down for the majority of his years and no Saban to deal with taking every recruit that he wants from the state.