To address the QB situation. Show of hands. How many here were pissed off we signed the USA Today Player of the Year? Thought so.
How many teams around the country would love to have signed Frazier? I saw him play twice in HS and the kid was a stud. Plain and simple. But, as can often be the case, Mr. Athletic HS QB did not translate well when jumping to the best division in the nation. But Malzahn didn't "develop" him. How exactly do you develop an incredibly raw true freshman when there's no way he's going to be your starter? Trotter was back with 2 years to go and some game experience under his belt....and 2 years in Malzahn's system. Decent QB when he had his head on straight.
How do you develop a kid when your O-line goes from the most to least experienced in the country in one year? When your 240 pound fullback is gone. When your 2 leading receivers are gone. When your head coach says you're not going to run the offense the way you want to.
Oh..and Scott Leftlerzes was the OC but was brought in as much for his work with elite QB's as anything else. Remember how we talked about that....showed practice footage of him working with the QB's? How did Frazier's development work out there? The kid was apparently overrated by everyone.
Zeke Pike? Kid was running his pie hole and getting in trouble before he got to AU. You can call it an excuse all you want but I blame Gene Chizik. I have no problem taking a chance on a kid. Had no problem taking a chance on Pike. Still don't think it was a bad decision. But they brought a kid in with known prior problems and released him into a culture (Thug culture? Not so off base now, is it) that produced the likes of the Felony 4, Synthetic Mike, DeAngelo "I'ma pop a cap off in yo ass" Benton, Reese Sidewalk Dismukes and on and on. So bad that it got to the point that Geno had to hire security. Ole Zekey was in heaven, free to do what he wanted with no Yox to stick a foot up his ass.
The "Culture" and discipline are all on Chizik. If a counselor says your starting QB ain't going to class, don't call him/her a liar. It's not up to the OC to set up a system of monitoring and disciplining the players. Chizik simply was in over his head and it's become more apparent every single day that he did not know how to run a program. Not at Iowa State. Not here. It may have been posted already, but someone who twats on the tweeters, see if you can find Lee Ziemba's comments on the CGM hire. I was told today you might feel a little better about things changing at Auburn.
You're right. It does fall at the feet of the man in charge. I agree 100% with you on that. We are still talking about a bunch of kids, b/c that is what they are, seeing a coach that was on staff when it was a free for all. It will either make them not respect him or it will make then resent him when he becomes a hardass. I hope I am wrong, but I don't see the culture changing. I don't have warm fuzzies at all.
Let him hire JWJr and Rock and the warm fuzzies might come back, but until he hires some mean ass assistants I will continue to doubt we will all of a sudden become hard and play with heart.
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