Auburn and Tennessee fans

Meh and more meh

Cautiously optimistic.

I’ve said all along, Harsin is a high risk/high reward hire. Despite what the usual suspects here say, there weren’t any obvious choices available out there. I think we went hard for Cristobal and got turned down, and Napier wanted more than we were willing to spend to give up a shot at his dream job in Red Stick. Harsin gives us the best bang for the buck. At the very least, he breaks the long-standing “good ol boy” types we’ve hired pretty much since before I was born.

That said, I don’t expect much from us this fall. 6-6 is a distinct possibility, although I like to think that’s our floor. 8-4 is probably our ceiling.

I think 2022 will begin to show whether or not Harsin was a good hire.

What offense will Auburn be running this year? Obviously things will change from Malzahn in terms of more detailed scheming, but in terms of general offensive identity, will Auburn be sticking with the run-based spread or will they be switching to a more traditional pro-style offense with some more under center formations?

Also, is Bobo running the offense totally, or will it be Harsin's offense with Bobo just calling plays? To be honest, I don't know if I have ever watched Boise State while Harsin was there, so I'm not sure how their offense worked?

Believe Heupel will be very bad but maybe he will field some exciting/explosive offenses during his disastrous reign.

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will field historically bad defenses for the next 6-7 years.

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I hate to break it to you, but weve been doing that already

2020: 70th in NCAA
2018: 77th
2017: 83rd
2016: 70th
2013: 79th
2012: 109th

It'll be far worse than those numbers.

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Edit after: Was never sold on Butch, Proot, or Dooley; I have a different feeling about Heupel.

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I didn't have any expectations on Dooley. I thought the name might make him a decent recruiter and he's obviously a bright guy, just not an effective HC. I thought Jones would be a good, hard-nosed and scrappy HC. He had moments but was mostly smoke and mirrors. Pruitt was way over his head as HC. Good DC when he was handed lots of talent. Heupel is obviously a bright offensive mind and proven HC in the arena he's been in. Remains to be seen if he's SEC material or not. He's gonna have some tough sledding for the next couple of season, at least. Vols D is gonna give up a lot of points but he's creative on O.

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Auburn isn't UGA or Bama and I don't think being a second rate version of the Saban/Kirby shows will work particularly well. I do think Harsin's goal is a process-centered program akin to Saban in his early days, but Bama was a self-fulfilling hype machine and we won't have that. So it'll have to resemble a more grassroots "process", if you will, that will likely involve more modest initial gains than we saw with Gus. I'm hopeful it'll also involve taking 3/4 star players and really elevating some of those guys, although we won't be able to compete long term without pushing UGA/UA for elite talent.

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There is a lot of truth in this. It is pretty clear early on that Harsin is pushing the process narrative. His mottos are 1-0 every day, win the day, and get better every day. He is working hard to make the weight room and workouts seem like an important, exciting part of the overall process by pimping out Auburn social media with daily workout videos and awarding an iron man of the week every week to the top performers in the weight room. These are small steps that could lead to an overall culture change and creating a blue collar program that plans to out work everybody and compete with anybody.

The good news for Auburn currently is they are still within the blue chip ratio. The team primarily consists of 4 star players and technically has the talent to compete for a championship. The problem for Auburn is that there are 9 teams in front of them on the blue chip ratio rankings in 2020 and we play 3 of them every year. In order to take that next step towards the CFP and start to recruit with the elite teams you are going to have to beat some of these teams with more talent. Clemson was able to overcome this hurdle because the ACC is a historically much weaker conference. They just had to take down an FSU team on the downfall and coast to a conference championship every year. Once they proved themselves to be an elite contender the recruiting fell in place with it.

Auburn is going to need a year when all the pieces fall into place, and then build momentum off of that. I'm personally optimistic about the coming years. We've got an experienced former 5 star QB with 2 good QB coaches on staff now, a stud RB, and a lot of pieces returning on defense. I know it's not easy to bring in a whole new staff, implement new systems on both side of the ball, and turn things around quickly, but I do feel like we need some big wins to start to build the momentum in the right direction. I think that talent is there though, and that maybe the team just needed a reset, a new offense that wasn't completely stale, and a kick in the butt in terms of workouts and motivation and the pieces could come together quicker than expected. I like the mentality that Harsin is installing in Auburn, but there is no doubt he is fighting an uphill battle.

I don't know if Harsin is still going to be the coach in 6, 8, or 10 years but at least he's doing things that real coaches do like recruiting offensive linemen. Gus would whiff on two guys and then shrug his shoulders and head for the JUCO circuit or grad transfer market. You just can't do that after year three or four let alone six or seven years into your tenure.