2009 - 8-5
2010 - 14-0
2011 - 8-5
2013 - 12-2
2014 - 8-5
2015 - 7-6
2016 - 8-5
Unless he has a Heisman Finalist, he's a 8 win coach.
I think my mindset here might be a bit bammerish or maybe just realistic but we'll see:
He's not an 8 win coach. For one, 2009-2011 was Gene Chizik's team, so I'm not counting those years.
He struck gold in 2013 but we were pretty fucking close to being at best a 10 win team. But I'll give him props for that year. We were badass and probably should have won the national championship.
2014 was a true 8 win year that should have been much better than it was. That offense was LOADED and inept coaching and preparation ruined that year. But that kind of season is what I think of when I think of 8 win teams.
2015? Sorry. 6-6 is the true reality of that team. We beat Memphis in a semi-home game in the Birmingham Bowl to get to 7 wins. 6 win season at Auburn? That's inexcusable and should inform the firing squad to clean the muskets. We cannot overlook that we almost lost to Jax State in overtime at home and nearly lost to Kentucky. 4-8 was very much a possibility.
2016? We looked good for about three weeks. LSU? 1 second away from a loss. The Clemson game was the worst I've ever seen Auburn's offense including 2011, 2012, and 2015. The reality is that we looked like dogshit in 7 games this season. Escaped with a win against LSU. Too close for comfort against Vanderbilt. No where near competitive against Clemson, A&M, Georgia, Alabama, and Oklahoma.
I don't care if a QB gets hurt. The backups shouldn't be that bad. Especially backups that aren't true freshman.
Sad but true: Malzahn should probably be fired immediately but for buyout and reputation sake, we'll keep him one more year.