The Bodda Getta

Just call it having lived in the state of AL for most of my life and living here now. Auburn has been caught drunk at the wheel and/or asleep at the wheel way too often in our past and we don't have the grace of the flagship status to bounce back as quickly. Yes, we won a national title 2 years after Tubs - but without arguably the greatest college player to play the game, that would not have happened. Auburn has got to hit on all cylinders to become a truly recognized elite team. With a good DC, we could have followed up a national title with a 9 win season and Auburn would be getting some continued props in the national and local media. Instead we are getting recruits flipped that have been committed for 6 months, having coordinators taking pay cuts to go to Arky State, and flipping recruits from Southern Miss with no viable offers from anybody else. That doesn't sound good when you put it all together. Does that mean I think the program is falling apart? No. It would just have been smarter to save that committment until later even if it meant possibly losing somebody that was going to Southern Miss - not a guy that you'll face every year and probably never. We have got to be smarter and start hitting on all cylinders if we want to be a truly elite program.

I understand you don't hear or feel the perception problem in Texas. But you better believe kids in our primary recruiting zone can feel it and hear it. These kids may not read message boards every day but they do follow recruiting intently. Parading in all these national prospects that don't get subjected to the perception game is great but if you don't get committments and signees - does it really matter?

Recruits make decisions based on the public image of a program. And it's more intensely watched in the Southeast more than any other place. Elite athletes want to play with elite athletes. That's a fact.

I have no problem taking as many quality OL and DL as possible. Perception is not that important IMO. We view things through the eyes of uber fans. The overwhelming majority of fans don't even follow recruiting, so perception among the board folks and perception among the fanbase are two totally different things. I also think that RB is the easiest position to replace, so losing TJY is not a huge deal IMO.

Recruits make their decisions based on a myriad of criteria. Certainly public image may be one of them but its not the main reason. It's usually more about when thay will be a starter, will they have to play another position, proximity to family, relationship with coaches, and how much $$$ the REC has promised.

I was just reading back through this....

Read that portion I noted above.

Do you have any idea how crazy a statement like that sounds coming from someone on a message board? I don't think we're all stupid just because we're here on this board. But come on, you are really going to start saying things like "we have got to be smarter"?

When it comes to making decisions about the football program...say, like hiring a coordinator, or taking a commitment from a recruit...how much of the total information needed to make such a decision do you assume you have?

Do you think you have 90% of all there is to know about the situation?

Do you think it's 75%

Maybe half, 50%?

My guess is, when Chizik goes through the process of making hires and signing players, we here on the board probably have anywhere from 2% to 10% (that's generous) of all of the information that goes into such a decision.

Armed with essentially zero insight into what is actually going on, how on earth do you manage the arrogance to say "we have got to be smarter" when it comes to running Auburn football?

This is a real question.

Thanks for your positive post. I'm sure this will help out our perception greatly.