And Bobo/Friend is why UGA players are on there. Sherman is on there b/c of Derek Mason. It's a stupid poster.
this is perfection https://247sports.com/college/aubur...th-of-college-football-is-at-stake-165014553/
No matter where anyone stands on the value of star rankings in football recruiting, it’s unfortunate the way college football has come to be viewed in the Internet age. For a long time, interest in recruiting has been widespread and growing. Nothing wrong with that. But nowadays, it has become a staple belief that recruiting ranking and the number of 5-stars signed mean everything. Any protest to that mantra is met with “Look at the teams that are in the playoff every year.” There’s some truth to that, but Clemson won its first national championship without highly rated classes. Auburn did the same in 2010 and almost did it in 2013. My feeling is this: If we are going to ignore the hundreds of players in the NFL who never sniffed at being 5-stars, if we are going ignore the walk-ons and the lower rated recruits who made it big, if we are going to say that Auburn should not have offered cornerback Roger McCreary because his best other offer was from South Alabama, if we are going to ignore people like Lionel James and Reggie Slack, Randy Campbell and Nick Marshall, Dee Ford and three-time All-SEC center Shannon Roubique, former walk-ons Kevin Greene and Rod Hood and many others, if we are going to let the NFL Draft to determine how we view college football, then we are throwing away what has made the game special for all these years. Camps are valuable to recruiters and to athletes who can show off their skills. What those camps can’t do is show what is in the hearts of those athletes, how much their bodies will change between the time they are 17 or 18 and the time they are 22 or 23. Yes, Alabama had six players chosen in the first round of the NFL Draft, and that is remarkable. Alabama has more talent than anybody in the college game. That is very difficult to dispute. I don’t as readily say the same about Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma, etc. The unfortunate thing is that ESPN, by any measure the national voice of college football, so froths over the handful of schools that everyone else becomes an afterthought. Put the SEC Network right there beside ESPN. It has become so prevalent that, when one of those teams loses, it is immediately written off as an aberration. Nick Saban was 1-3 at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Gus Malzahn’s time at Auburn. In 10 trips to Jordan-Hard as head coach at LSU and Alabama, Saban’s record is 3-7. If, even during Iron Bowl week, that has ever been a subject of discussion on one of the aforementioned networks, I haven’t heard it. People like to say “I’d like to have a whole team full of 5-stars.” And they are right about that. Anybody would. Nobody does. Nevertheless, I don’t buy the lists of “most talented” teams being based on star ratings. Just like picking all-star teams or teams for the College Football Playoff, the only consideration should be results. Results are earned. The “eye test” is not. I’m not saying here that recruiting rankings or star rankings are meaningless. They’re not meaningless. I am saying that the health of college football is at stake. The game must be about competition and not about subjective rankings or about TV ratings. My time writing about the game that, more than any other, has defined my professional life is growing short. Maybe I’m a dinosaur, but for as long as I’m doing it and even once I’m watching from my easy chair, in my mind it will be about competition, about the stories of young men who refuse to accept those who would write them off, who succeed because they work harder and longer. Otherwise, I’d just watch the NFL.
These 2 sentences are written in the same paragraph, he both uses the NFL as an example of measuring success and condemned those who use the NFL as a measure of success, amazing.
Can we please make Phillip Marshall and Jay G Tate smilies? Which mod do I have to fuck to make this happen?
Some thoughts on Burgess/Greene Thread starterJay G. Tate Start dateToday at 2:24 PM Dearest Bunker: So there has been some talk about Gen. Ron Burgess, the university's Chief Operating Officer, moving into some role (currently undefined) within the athletic department. We had a long thread about this recently, which was started by the usually always excellent @Knox Harrington:videoartist. (Here is the thread.) My friend Phillip Marshall also mentioned this in his latest dispatch. I'll have more to say about this situation in the near future. I'm still trying to understand what's happening, why it's happening and who is behind this ... beyond University President Jay Gogue. Stories like this seem straightforward from the outside — WHY IS THIS DUDE ALL UP ON ADAG? — but I've learned through the years to take a little more time and think about things in an AUBURN CONTEXT and try to figure out for myself what's actually happening as opposed to what people say is happening. WHAT WE KNOW • Burgess is focusing on the athletic department for the time being • This IS NOT something Allen Greene requested • This IS something Gogue requested • Greene is unpopular, possibly very unpopular, among a majority of Auburn coaches • Greene's lack of popularity among coaches largely is rooted in his views on budgetary concerns • Burgess has told at least a handful of coaches that they shouldn't (and won't) be affected by budgetary concerns WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? It's certainly unusual, but remember that THIS IS AUBURN® and Auburn operates in some weird unique ways. My educated guess is that Burgess is looking to gain a better understanding of these coaches' concerns and what Greene has done about those concerns. I sense a recent pivot within department administration toward an internal focus as opposed to the external focus we've seen. To be fair, the department (and Greene specifically) has done a very good job of raising money for the football complex at a time when money was unusually difficult to raise. So the external focus yielded some important dividends. Did those dividends come at a cost in terms of some internal issues being neglected? Possibly. That's what Burgess would like to understand a bit better. Look, Auburn didn't have a good 2020-21 season from a competitive standpoint. The high-profile teams were unilaterally disappointing while many of the Olympic sports languished as well. Many coaches point to the department's spending cuts and financial constraints as a primary factor. That's on Greene. My thing is this: Greene is here to make Auburn a winner in every sport. He also must be responsible when it comes to spending. I get it. We all get it. I run a business and many of y'all do as well. Many more of you understand how business works. At the same time, it's possible to be so concerned about finances that you lose sight of the ultimate goal. I'm just saying it's possible. It comes down to what happened RELATIVE TO THE SEC in terms of money spent. Has Auburn gotten too frugal? I haven't see all the data, but my gut tells me Auburn pulled back more than all but one non-Vandy program. Is that where Auburn is these days? One spot ahead of Vandy? I don't think so. Auburn is still a rich, big, important program. I also think Greene is a good, smart person trying to do a good, smart job. So it's a bit confusing, honestly. Is this simply a continuation of the melodrama that has been going on since the late 80s or early 90s? To be sure, some of the themes remain the same. The Harsin hire was unpopular, at least in some corners of the Auburn world, and we always knew the people who felt burned by that hire would have their say eventually. Is that what we're seeing here? I don't know just yet.
This season Thread starterMattAU05 Start date40 minutes ago This season had so much potential. A conference championship is a wonderful achievement. But, I can’t lie and say that this season was a consist. It was not. With this group of players in this talent, anything short of a sweet 16 is a failure. And, some miracle, it appears that we will come up short of the Sweet 16. I will be honest, I’m completely heartbroken. This team was so much fun. So great to watch. We had such great players and fun personalities. My heart hurts for them. My heart hurts for Auburn fans. I don’t really know how to process this right now. After the loss in the SEC tournament I did think it was possible we would go out in the second round. I said as much after that game. But after our first round win I thought that we had a great shot to go a lot further than we are right now. But it didn’t happen. i’m not sure how history will remember this season. I will remember it as one of missed opportunities. That banner. That conference championship banner will always be up there. And that’s wonderful. But, it is still extremely bittersweet. I hope in time that I can look back on this season and feel great about it. But I fear that every time I look at that championship banner, I would just feel disappointment. I truly hope that isn’t the case because this team and the staff deserve to be remembered better by us fans. It is just so hard though. And to fans who want to gloat because they KNEW we were missing something or would go out early, please take a look in the mirror. If you don’t love Auburn, if you enjoy gloating over guess right because Auburn lost, just quit being an Auburn fan. We don’t need you.