re: Zac Etheridge out. Hired by Houston.

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You are responsible for who you put on your staff

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Ok sure the buck stops with Freeze and it's a bad look. What is it you're suggesting with all of this? What's your next move if you're AD?

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in Hugh's opening presser he said something along the lines of "MY first recruiting job was to retain Caddy and we got him!"

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I agree it’s not a good look to have two coaches leave with a scandalous cloud over their heads and that the HC is responsible for his staff, but I also can see that both of these appear to be guys doing stuff that you expect a professional to avoid doing. Also in no way do I believe Caddy was Freeze’s highest priority or that any “recruiting” actually went into retaining him.

Seems like his role was to be a bridge and help the ship from sinking. He’s done that and it’s time to get someone more capable in the job. Wish it could have been under better circumstances but at least Freeze doesn’t have to worry about the creed monsters rioting because he fired Caddy.

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My next move as AD would be to stay tf away from Freeze for the next 24 months and let him have full autonomy over the football program.

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Amen

Coaching staff turnover after the first year is normal, especially when glaring faults are revealed. This level of turnover is high but at the very least it shows Freeze has autonomy over the football program and isn't going to hesitate to make changes when part of the program isn't working. As Auburn fans, that's something we aren't used to

I’m gonna repeat this again in this thread. 3 years of losing seasons. Zach and Caddy have been on staff for all 3 seasons.

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Maybe but I'm also being told he was forced to both hire AND ask CW and ZE to move on.

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Okay, if you're going to look at it that way, then Freeze only let go of a couple coaches, which would be a normal amount of turnover. Roberts by all accounts was an a-hole that other coaches felt demeaned by. And Montgomery's offensive philosophy didn't mesh with Freeze's.

Building a coaching staff is like these all-star football games. Each player has a great resume or potential, but when they're assembled into a team, sometimes that team is shite. Freeze is just removing the parts of the team that aren't working instead of hoping they'll start working better in year 2.

Were they not AU alums, the pitchforks would have come out for everyone on the staff. Particularly ones who were holdovers from the Potato Famine

That's fair and let's hope it's a quick year 1 fix. It definitely seemed all season that HF was incredibly unimpressed with Montgomery's game planning and philosophy. Just would have thought they could have figured that out on the front end. Kinda just hate this is happening now with a couple recruiting battles going on and the NS retirement.

Would just be nice to kind of have our ducks in a row but I don't think this is auto-doom for the HF era.

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So who do we depend on for recruiting now? And how do we keep from losing players who were close to both Caddy and Zac? This seems like a 4 alarm dumpster fire.

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Kelly is a better recruiter than Etheridge. It sounds like McGriff was the more 'liked' coach in the secondary as well, so there shouldn't be any player turmoil considering that McGriff is back/staying.

On the RB front; who did Cadillac even recruit lmao? Big time upgrade with Derrick Nix (if that's the move) from a recruiting perspective and Cadillac isn't some raw-raw big energy coach either. I understand that he waved a towel around after Harsin was canned, but I think you'd be pretty off if you think that players are on the edge of their seat over the news of Cadillac being out. You seem to have forgotten that most of the guys who were even on the team during Cadillac's "interim HC" run are gone anyway. This is a very young roster, most of whom are Freeze's guys.