re: Bryan Harsin to Auburn?

This is the thing that will make or break the hire. He's never recruited in the South. Who his assistants are will be key. I almost bet that Rodney Garner will be retained. He knows how to play the game.

From what I’ve read, Harsin is fairly well regarded in coaching circles, but this hire seems like a stretch. Peterson did better at Boise St and he hasn’t really set the world on fire at Washington. And the PAC 12 is a much, much weaker conference.

Under different circumstances, it’d be a low risk, high reward hire. But one or two bad seasons and the groans over firing Gus for him will ratchet up.

To me this is just a stop gap for both coach and school. Harsin is out of the MWC and at a near top tier job and if he wins big, great Auburn can throw a billion dollars to keep him while he flirts with Pac-12 schools. If he does so, so or bombs he gets his pick of any top G-5 jobs available and Auburn can now do a legitimate search. And if by then Boise is out of the MWC and needs a coach he is always welcome back there with open arms. This is a 3-5 year marriage in 95% of the scenarios.

Ya'll realized he replaced Gus twice?

They both run same offense. Harsin is way better than Gus. I wouldn't be shocked if he get the team to 10 wins next year.

Aren't you guys sort of sugar coating this crap hire?

Do you honestly think Alburn would have paid 30 million and lost Malzhan for this guy?

Nope. Something went terribly wrong. It honestly seems like they panicked over Gus's recruiting. They also thought they were schematically disadvantaged passing game wise.

But they made it worse.

If the truth be known, this guy is a bit of a disapointment for Boise and has not maintained Peterson's level of play

This was a referendum on the Auburn job. Not too highly thought of these days.

Auburn has done pretty decent job remaining relevant during the Saban era. Much more so than I imagined they could.

But the wheels have just come off. Auburn is about to become the cellar dweller in the west.

quote:

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Aren't you guys sort of sugar coating this crap hire?

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I don't think so. I think hiring Will Muschamp or Kevin Steele could have thrown them in the cellar.

I think Harsin could be solid or could be middling. I don't think he'll tank the program.

I meant in term of philosophy. He does lot of shifting and motions. Reminds me of Matt Canada of LSU from few years ago.

The Boise St. shifts are broken up into categories:
1. Single shifts involving one player.
2. Combo and Show shifts involving two players
3. Scatter shifts involving three or more (usually more) players.

Many defenses line up based up on the strength of the offense and the use of shifts and motions causes defenses to have to adjust quickly and align correctly to not be out-leveraged. Harsin will be able to run the same plays from different looks, making it tough for opponents, but easy for his guys on offense (similar to Manny Diaz's Fire Zone philosophy).

Yea - their line situation on both sides is a problem. You can't go 2-3 years without any impact players on either line in this league, and that's where they are unless they have a miracle between now and signing day.

No way they wanted to end up paying $30 million to hire this guy.

Plans A, B and likely C all got torpedoed obviously.