The fallacy of time

Grading a coach is pretty easy. Its simply four legs of a stool:

- X’s an O’s – most head coaches check this box, with a guy like Orgeron or Blake at OU slipping through the cracks.

- Do players play hard for him and his staff? – Yes. Chizik’s 2012 team would have lost the game against San Jose State. That was a 9-10 win team that won 3 because of the coaching staff. A lot of shitty human beings.

- Is the program organized and well managed? – It seems so to me. Gus couldn’t manage a roster and was lax on off-season training. Pittman’s methods are old school and can cause injuries, but Auburn won’t suffer pussies while this staff is here.

- Recruiting – TBD, but historically below average so far. I’m sure Harsin and staff will evaluate better than the last rodeo, but recruiting takes a village. Not enough people have warmed up to Harsin.


So, 3 of 4 with one TBD. Auburn people that influence recruits need to either get on the bus or pay him to leave. If Harsin has players he wins 80% of his games. There’s 10 years of data. Shug, Dye, Bowden, Tubs, Malzahn all hovered around 65%-70%. That's about 70 years of data.

Good points Freep, but I don't think that is the situation we will be in at the end of the year.

You are correct, that was year 1 for Gus. Though he was 8-4 year two, no one was calling for his head at that time based on what happened the prior year.

quote:

---

Year 3: Tank gone, OL gone, Hall, Leota, Wooden gone. What's the upside here?

---

Tailback, alpine, and the rest of the delusionals should be required to answer this.

quote:

---

Year 3: Tank gone, OL gone, Hall, Leota, Wooden gone. What's the upside here?

---

We have other RBs.


He complains about no changes to the OL and in the next breath complains that said OL will be gone next year.

We lose DL and LB every year. No different than any other school.

quote:

---

you're not getting anyone of significance if he's fired this year.

---

Logically it would seem so but enough money might convince an otherwise reluctant coach.

quote:

---

We have other RBs.

---

We are a team that can't do anything offensively other than run the football, and you are losing an NFL back. Yes, we have other backs, but where are the improvements on offensive talent going to be?

quote:

---

He complains about no changes to the OL and in the next breath complains that said OL will be gone next year.

---

I literally explained and prefaced that. Try reading. This OL is not good, but his complete lack of recruiting the position has set us up in a position where he will need to hit on literally ~4 starters from the Portal or JUCO. Good luck with that one. Even if he finds talent, breaking in that many new starters at once will result in growing pains.

quote:

---

We lose DL and LB every year. No different than any other school.

---

And who are they replacing them with? That's the point. Other schools are recruiting at an SEC level. This year will see a lot of the remaining talent that he inherited depart. We barely play any backups, so it's not like we have a lot of guys waiting in the wings who are proven products. His recruitment in the transfer portal this past offseason does not give confidence that he will land sure-fire replacements.

Gloss it over all you like, this year's team looks like it will need to be carried by the defense again. And most of his best defenders are leaving and will need to be replaced. Has he been recruiting elite talent that I have missed LOL?

quote:

---

Bryan Harsin already proved that he doesn't get it when he rolled into year #2 with no set answer at QB (leading to his job riding on TJ Finley) and zero improvements/changes made at OL. He has effectively set himself up to waste this season in which he actually has some talent, because next year is even worse with most of his best players leaving and virtually the entire OL leaving (not that they're good, but replacing an entire unit in one offseason is a tall feat).

Year 1: 6-7, not good
Year 2: Let's pretend he goes 7-5 and keeps his job - that's a fairly favorable estimation given what we've seen so far (especially offensively).
Year 3: Tank gone, OL gone, Hall, Leota, Wooden gone. What's the upside here? 7 wins? Downside is that it's another ~6 win season.

No one is getting that much time to produce ~6-7 win seasons while also recruiting at a below-average clip.

---

I personally gave you a chance, but you're just embarrassing. I didn't hate Malzahn and I don't love Harsin. Your takes are religious in their fervor. You have made a conclusion, and you post to make it so.

quote:

---

I personally gave you a chance, but you're just embarrassing. I didn't hate Malzahn and I don't love Harsin. Your takes are religious in their fervor. You have made a conclusion, and you post to make it so.

---

You seem unstable.

Nothing I said in that post is extreme or unreasonable. After two games against bad opponents, this team looks eerily similar to last year's in terms of what the issues are - except last year's team had a superior QB (Nix) to win some SEC games. TJ Finley has not looked improved enough to suggest that the offense will improve much if at all over what was shown last year. What you don't realize is that we haven't even faced a defense yet that will just stack the box and challenge him. Bringing in Ashford to run for 30 yards because the defense he's going up against sucks will stop working against real opponents as well.

In 2023 the real losses at key positions start to accumulate. I don't see what is arguable about that. Are you expecting a big year in 2023 wherein virtually the entire OL needs to be replaced, you lose your most "talented" player on offense (Tank), and most of your best players on defense - the only unit that actually looks good - are gone?

Do me a favor and tell me who replaces Hall and Leota in 2023. They play virtually all the snaps even against the shite-tier opponents we play, with the remaining handful of snaps going to Marcus Bragg who himself is gone after this season. That's your issue: there are going to be so many KEY players that need to be replaced, with not much currently on the roster that has proven anything. The fact that the Brooks kid can't even get on the field is not promising.

Harsin has set himself up to be in a position where he will need to SELL OUT and DOMINATE the transfer portal after this season (again, permitting he survives). But the issue here is that his "approach" does not translate to that. Transfer Portal guys want to hear promises that they're going to start and have smoke blown up their asses. Bryan Harsin is very much a "come here and you'll have a chance to earn playing time" type coach. That's valiant and all, but there are other coaches out there who are much more willing to sell kids on what they want to hear. You literally saw that prove to be the case this past offseason through the Portal.

So again, unless a monumental shift occurs, this might take until 2024 to field a team that wins 8+ games under the current HC. Who the hell is going to commit to a HC for that long in this conference to start showing anything? By then his contract would need to be extended to show "buy in" LMAO.

You just wrote an essay for a retort but I'm unstable. Gotcha. I'll read what you wrote but I'm eating a late lunch. Give me an hour.