Where is the Line in the Sand for Gus Malzahn?

By and large, the transition between week one and week two of college football is the week of the most reaction. There is a common saying that the biggest jump in a team’s performance comes between these first two weeks. In addition, the perspective of fans and, most importantly, the voting media tends to see the largest difference. It’s reactionary, in both cases

Take the reaction from this week, for example. Tennessee beats Appalachian State in overtime. The Volunteers’ fan base was up in arms over the on-field performance. The media hammered Tennessee for a lackluster showing. The voters booted Tennessee out of the Top 10. 

In Austin the Texas Longhorns are now on the cusp of being a Top 10 team with a win over No. 10 team Notre Dame. Texas wasn’t ranked in the preseason. 

Everywhere else across the entire college football footprint, most pundits are ready to crown the Alabama Crimson Tide the national champs after a gruesome and complete dismantling of USC. 

Why does this happen? It happens because football fans, media, and voters are so reactionary that they tend to forget what happened just last week, much less about longer trends. All of these teams are the same as they have been the last five years, regardless of what happened this weekend. 

In Auburn, Alabama fans are completely baffled by what they saw on the big stage Saturday night against No. 2 Clemson. Gus Malzahn, offensive guru, looked anything but in what many analysts are calling one of the worst called offenses they have ever seen. So, naturally, the over reaction by the Auburn fan base began. Yet as the days have waned, the outrage has died down as it always does in an over reaction. Auburn fans have historically been rational and largely immune to making sudden changes. In a sport of complete over reaction, when should Auburn draw the line with Gus Malzahn?

September 24th, 2016. This isn’t an arbitrary date. Losing this particular game isn’t a reason to fire a coach, but it is a point where the data trends clearly indicate a line of demarcation. 

Since Malzahn became the head coach at Auburn, offensive production has worsened each year. From a 50,000-foot view, Auburn won with a crushing run game, terrific play calling and a few miracles in 2013. The 2014 season saw another potent offense have some very bad breaks (see the two fumbles against Texas A&M). 2015 saw dreadful execution and some questionable play calling. Now 2016 has begun with a combination of everything. 

Auburn’s wins have decreased each year under Malzahn. Normally, it might not be fair to hold that against a fourth-year head coach who went to the BCS championship in his first year. But, despite Auburn’s unability since Pat Dye to win ten games in consecutive years, Malzahn’s teams have looked less and less competent. In fact, Auburn has won just six SEC games since beating Alabama with the infamous Kick Six. The Tigers haven’t won a home SEC game since beating an absolutely dreadful South Carolina team on October 25th of 2014, and it should be mentioned that the Gamecocks were one of the worst teams in the SEC in two decades. The trend here looks more like Gene Chizik’s downfall than that of Tommy Tuberville. 

Typically, recruiting and youth are blamed for struggles of young coaches. Malzahn himself continually mentions “youth” in his press conferences each. Yet the data from recruiting services shows that Auburn has recruited in the top ten every single year, and his staff’s hauls get better and better. Despite that, there has been absolutely zero relationship between recruiting and productivity. The wide receiver position is an easy target. There are more five- and four-star busts than productive players. 

Then there’s the quarterback position. I wrote a post called Why Auburn Needs/Wants Jeremy Johnson to Succeed on my personal blog in January 2015 in . Before Nick Marshall had packed his bags and left for the NFL combine, the development of Jeremy Johnson seemed a clear indicator of the direction of Auburn’s program under Malzahn. Why? Because up until the 2015 season, Malzahn was 42–14 with JUCO quarterbacks and 15–18 with quarterbacks whom he recruited and developed. By the end of 2015 and into 2016, that JUCO mark remains unchanged, but the record with his own recruits is 22–25. For all of his ability to mold an offense around someone else’s product, Malzahn cannot develop quarterbacks. That is a fact. 

This isn’t a novel idea, which is precisely why the arrival of John Franklin, III was so heralded. From the beginning, Franklin never looked like Nick Marshall, much less Cam Newton, as our scouting report showed. Then Last Chance U gave everyone a deeper look into JFIII and his recruitment to Auburn. Auburn fans were left with less optimism and with more questions on what Malzahn and offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee saw or if they were seeing anything beyond their own egos. 

In his time at Auburn, Gus Malzahn had never lost an opening game until last Saturday night. After averaging 518 yards and 41 points for his first five years at Auburn, the Malzahn offense has put up 327 and 262 yards to go along with 31 and 17 points in the last two openers. Both of those are all-time lows. The marks against Clemson, in particular, are striking not only because they are nearly half the trend average but because of just how much worse this year’s stats are compared to last year’s, even though Clemson’s defense isn’t that much better than Louisville’s.  

Sure, one single game, even if it is the first game of the season, doesn’t define a year or the future of a football program. Nor does a cupcake game this weekend against Arkansas State. Even the outcome against Texas A&M a week later won’t be a quality indicator because of the Aggies’ continued volatility.

September 24th is the date that all Auburn fans need to have circled on their calendars because it is truly the “point of no return.” If Auburn manages to win that game, it will do nothing to skew the trends. Auburn lost to LSU in 2013 and went to the BCS title game while drumming LSU the next year before finishing 8–5. Last year’s loss to LSU in Baton Rouge was one of the worst losses in modern Auburn history, being a gruesome and one-sided affair . Leonard Fournette’s punishing runs are still playing on ESPN highlights, but it was the dreadful showing by Jeremy Johnson, the Heisman candidate, the future of the program, the hand-picked Malzahn man … that caused half of the fan base to turn away.

So, the game in late September becomes the line in the sand all Auburn fans must acknowledge. To return to prominence, Auburn must be competitive with LSU. Losses to LSU virtually destroy any chance at making it to Atlanta A win means very little in terms of overall trends. It will end a long, winless SEC streak in Jordan-Hare and likely means that Auburn finishes mid-pack in the SEC West. But, Auburn fans should not chase this carrot on a string, especially if it’s Jay Jacobs and/or Gus Malzahn dangling it. 

An Auburn loss, especially if the offensive trends continue, will provide undeniable proof that Gus is not the man for Auburn, even if Jay Jacobs says so. Jacobs, who guaranteed Malzahn another year to the chagrin of many Auburn fans, is no fool. The higher the buyout for Malzahn, the longer the leash is for both of them, considering the overall shape of  men’s athletics since Jacobs took over.  Make no mistake, if Auburn loses to LSU on the 24th, the season is over and Auburn fans need to move on from Malzahn—no matter how many crumbs they are fed along the way. 

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