Thinking today about where we are versus where we were.
Tony Barbee was in Auburn four years. Only once a team he coached win more games in a season than Auburn's already won so far this year.
Jeff Lebo was in Auburn six years. Only twice did his teams win more than 14 games in a season.
Barbee's Auburn teams won a total of 49 games. Lebo's Auburn teams won a total of 96 games. Combined, that's 145. Average 14.5 per year. Between the two of them, a total of four seasons with more than 14 wins, only one season with more than 20.
That's a whole decade of suck.
In seven years, Pearl's teams won 139 games. Only two seasons out of eight (including this one) where his teams won less than 14 games. Six seasons over 14.
AU has been ranked in the final AP poll eight times in history (since 19-fucking-05). Of those eight, three were under Pearl. *There is a travesty there, finishing 14th in the season AU made the Final Fucking Four.*
Cliff Ellis and Sonny Smith (considered AU's two best coaches of the modern era) had a combined total of five 20-win seasons over the course of 21 years. Pearl already has three and an almost certain fourth this season.
GF is right. What we're seeing now is unprecedented. AU should give Bruce Pearl anything and everything he wants. Forever. If at some point in the near future we aren't playing in The Pearl with his statue out front and a 90-foot tall painting of him with a halo around his head hanging from the rafters.... well.... we deserve what we get.
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