Fuck this. Don't read it. Skip to the conclusion if you want. Fucking hell.
To: The TPTB and The Mount Rushmore of BBQ Clubs
November 15, 2015
During the home football game, Saturday, November 14, 2015, 85 scholarship football players plus a few walk-ons for Auburn University took the field against the school's second most hated rival, the Georgia Bulldogs. This rivalry game has been throughout history a showcase for the magic that is college football and particularly the magic of the Auburn program. However, the magic of Auburn football has begun to dry up like an old prune, only flickering to life in rare moments that feel more like dreams than reality. On Saturday, November 15, 2015, when those young men suited up and seemingly played their hearts out, when they looked for the magic that has inspired and carried so many teams in the past, all they found was an industrialized product that has kinks and careless errors. Wiring that has been tangled, poor craftsmanship, and most importantly, a number of pieces from God-Knows-Where but somehow has been jammed and hammered into what was the Auburn University football program.
This memo thus represents the concerns of every Auburn coach, player, and fan. It represents the concerns of former players, alumni, booster, and sidewalk fans that still pledge allegiance to the orange and blue. It represents the concerns of a family. The Auburn experience is old and full of tradition. Many of our family remember when Jordan Hare was surrounded by a grassy parking lot, made of new steel beams, and simply the place that held a nice Saturday afternoon of family, friends, and football. They have seen this stadium evolve into one of the largest, loudest venues for football; one that features state-of-the-art technology; one that has held the college football world's eye countless times over the past decades. A place that has featured legends, broken hearts, and celebrated champions.
On Saturday, November 15, the Auburn University football team became losers to the University of Georgia. What was once a close but comfortable lead in the overall series has quickly become a one game deficit. This marks a new era for Auburn football. For the first time in over a decade, Auburn has a losing record to all three of her rivals: Alabama, LSU, and Georgia. What was a closing gap in the Alabama series has widened and is heavily predicted to widen further in two weeks. What was a close series against LSU has widened to a deficit that could take decades to recover from. Schools that Auburn usually dominates have begun to regularly compete with or defeat the Tigers. Auburn is 6-4 against Mississippi State and 4-6 against Arkansas. We are 7-3 against Ole Miss, but as everyone saw in 2014, a freak injury is the only reason why this series is not at 6-4.
The Auburn football experience has been cornered in athletic department offices that seem to spend more time on the phone with sponsors and media organizations than with fans. A proud program that celebrated the family experience on campus while still being a competitive, hard-hitting football team has been forced to change into something it does not represent. Therefore, it is time for adjustments in those offices if there is the hope that what Auburn has been can be reclaimed.
The following is a list of demands for the improvement of the Auburn football program. These adjustments should bring back the magic of Auburn football and begin to reassert the program as not only one that wins but one that is special in its ability to foster the family atmosphere it has claimed as its unique property.
If these demands are not met, then we as fans and alumni will continue to take it up the ass.
List of Demands
I. We demand that Auburn University's athletic director Jay Jacobs write a handwritten apology to the students, season ticket holders, and boosters for the purchase and installment of the one monstrous jumbotron. If he needs to do this in crayon, he is allowed to do so. The logic of installing one gigantic jumbotron that 70% of the stadium can see is the logic of an eight-year-old. He must recognize and state that he has learned a lesson about such foolhardy purchases that seem to have done nothing to boost recruiting or the fan/student experience. He must also recognize and state that this jumbotron has been the official dead end for the direction he has taken the program.
2. We demand that Auburn University demote or relieve Jay Jacobs of his duties as athletic director. He must be presented with a thank you note for the hiring of Bruce Pearl.
3. We demand that Auburn University's new athletic director be an experienced professional that has more on his resume than "former football player" and "buddies with a few boosters." He also must have proof that he can make informed, human-like decisions and not be a puppet with strings attached.
4. We demand that Gus Malzahn defeat Alabama on Saturday, November 28, 2015.
5. If he cannot succeed in demand #4, we demand the following: A complete assessment of Malzahn's tenure with the honest consideration that he be removed from his position.
It should be noted that Auburn's 2013 season featured a near-loss to Miss State at home, an embarrassing blowout to LSU, a fluke ending to defeat Georgia, and a series of poor decisions that lead to a loss in the national championship game.
It should be noted that Auburn since Malzahn's hiring has shown a series of regression going from 2 losses, to 5 losses, to now (most likely) 6 losses. There is the potential for a sub .500 finish to this season depending on the bowl game.
It should be noted that recruiting, while fickle and difficult to assess, is at a low point with few big names still on the board with Auburn as its leader.
It should be noted that the majority of the losses in this treacherous 2015 season have been due to poor playcalling, poor player development, and poor substitutions, all on offense.
It should be noted that Gus Malzahn is considered to be an offensive guru.
6. We demand that if Gus Malzahn is retained, he should be required to provide the fanbase with more information than just coachspeak. Never again shall "rhythm," "good week of practice," or "young, youth, inexperience, simplified" be mentioned by the head coach.
7. We demand that the program as a whole wipe the dirt off its shriveled penis, hit the weightroom, and bring back the confidence and strength that once was the Auburn program. We demand that we no longer make changes in response to what Alabama is doing. We demand that Auburn once again be the power team that will bull you over, make tackles, make big plays, develop guys for the NFL draft. We demand that this pussy-footed, deer-in-the-head-lights look, make-plays-in-space bullshit disappear from the hearts and mind of the entire family.
Conclusion - You're not going to fire Gus, but you're delaying the inevitable. Nothing in this memo matters until the program decides it is going to divert its resources to getting back to what was built here. If you want to claim Pay Dye as the "modern era's" beginning, then do that. He played hard-nosed football. He produced strong, talented, exciting running backs. He had strong defense that could lay the wood and strike fear in opposing teams. He was replaced a guy that did things differently, and the program regressed. We went back to the Dye-style of play with Tuberville and we had strong running backs, hard-nosed football, NFL draft picks, defenses that could lay the wood. We went undefeated. We defeated and competed with rivals. We tossed aside piss-ant programs like those in Mississippi.
And Tuberville was able to do that without pumping shit hip hop music through a mega-jumbotron.
No one fucking robbed people. There wasn't a gang-mentality on the team. No one went through punching sprees in the community.
No one danced like a teenager while down 28-0 in the first half to an opponent at home.
But maybe I'm atavistic. Maybe I'm wrong and we're just a quarterback away.
Though maybe our players are mentally weak. Like fumbling the ball going into the endzone or making a crucial mistake when the game is on the line, how many times now? How many losses do we have like that? How often does Alabama deal with that? How often did old Auburn programs deal with that? Mentally weak children.
And you know what's the worst of it all?
8. We demand that good seasons be expected and bad seasons only be because we barely missed expectations.
You wondered about 2010 going in. How good would we be? 2011 was the year. Watch out. The start of 2010 was worrisome. Go undefeated? No even on your mind until halfway through the season. Even then, would we beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa?
You doubted 2013. You know you did. We got butt-rekt in Baton Rouge and you hoped we'd improve from 2012. We dragged Manziel down in mid-October and started to feel good about the season.
But that's it, folks. Two good seasons that had the ball bounce our way and thank God we had freak of natures at a few positions.
We have been blown out a lot and lost some games we shouldn't have.
Did you ever in your life think that in a span of five years, you would see scores like these to our rivals...
45-7
42-10
34-7
45-21
42-14
49-0
38-0
...and then watch Auburn not do an entire overhaul of the program, system, philosophy?
Like maybe those scores are indicative of the program as a whole. Maybe...maybe scoring 265 points and giving up 493 points in our three main rivalry games over the past five years is not a good place to be as a top 15 national and historic program.
Maybe being the annoying speed bump at the end of Alabama's season in 2015 is not where we want to be in year three of a tenure, year 8 as a program.
Because we're running the same program. We're running the same offense and have had mostly the same shit defense since Chizik was hired.
Maybe we should fire Gus. Maybe that should be demanded no matter what happens the rest of this season.
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