Most fickle fanbase award goes...Auburn
"I think we're good enough to make it to a top tier bowl this season."
"Auburn lands a top tier bowl...Fire everyone."
"These coaches need to get the QB situation straightened out."
"Auburn lands a hell of a QB...I feel bad for the other QBs on the roster because the offensive staff is happy."
Can I tell you how wrong you are? Nobody is being "fickle." This is a valid and justified frustration with a coaching staff that has consistently bumbled the most important position on the field and directed some of the most inept performances in the history of Auburn football.
We had reasonably decent expectations for this season. Most of us expected improvements on offense given that Gus said prior to the year that he was going back to what he does best and coordinating. We expected the defense to be a little better.
But wait!
There was a two game freak show where the defense was exponentially better but the offensive gameplan and personnel decisions were so dramatically bad as to be considered apocalyptic. I've been watching football for 40+ years and have never, ever at any level of the game seen anything near that disorganized or embarrassing.
There came a time where many of us came to believe that a winning record might be out of reach.
But wait!
Gus decided to go back to doing what he does best and CEO-ing, relinquishing the playcalling duties he had allegedly taken back in order to improve the offense.
"Well which is it young feller? You want you should coach or you want you should boss? I mean to say iff'in I coach, I can't rightly boss, and iff'in I boss I'm gonna be coachin..."
So out of the blue and completely unexpectedly the same team that looked like a bucket of turds escaped LSU despite a still-strugling offense and then found a rhythm and demolished MSU and Arky.
Those wins did NOT excuse or explain what transpired before. The bumbling, stumbling crap we witnessed early in the season is not something that should happen when you're paying a coach $4 mil a year.
Still as the rest of the SEC turned into a vast wasteland of flatulence, Auburn played itself into position to be in the discussion to win the West and maybe more.
But wait!
A fat stinking egg against a flaccid Georgia team derailed every bit of that. Oh injuries...
Again, I've watched a lot of football. I've never seen any team EVER go so flat and listless with the subtraction of two players -- particularly when neither were clear starters at the beginning of the season.
THAT'S on the coaching staff.
Yeah, the Sugar Bowl is a nice perk. And maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but I don't feel as if it's something we got because we were surging or were clearly the best team. I feel like the Sugar held its nose and said ... "Ugh, we're obligated to take one of these dead fish, which reeks the least?" In any other normal season where every other team isn't four losses deep? We're looking at the Nutcracker Terminex VIPoop Bowl.
There are plenty of reasons to be concerned over this coaching staff's ability to perform at the highest level. That's not fickle.
Yes, we expected the staff to get the QB situation figured out. But honestly? Is running the streets hunting the next big thing every off season "figuring it out?"
Is there anything that this staff has done to give you confidence that THIS guy will be 'the one.' Yeah, they've had hits with Marshall and Newton. But they've had a steady string of misses with guys who aren't what you'd call 'not talented.'
I feel bad for Sean, Jeremy, Barrett and others who weren't (I don't think) as bad as they appeared to be because they were put in difficult situations.
Sean and Barrett in particular put heart and soul into what they were given and I think both could be much more successful than they were allowed to be.
Is it not a concern what happens when the Stidham leaves and there's no 5* transfer sitting out there?
I'm glad he chose Auburn. I hope he's as good as he's made out to be. I hope he wins the next three Heisman Trophies and I have to clear space on my wall for three more championship paintings. But that doesn't mean that I don't have serious concerns/reservations about how we got to this point.
Everything isn't black or white, Prowler. It's all shades of gray.
It's logical and reasonable to be happy over the Sugar Bowl invitation while also still harboring worries over the coaching staff. It's natural to be excited at the prospect of Stidham giving the offense a spark while also being disturbed at the fact that it NEEDS a spark given the talent we've allegedly recruited.
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