Just curious as to what Auburns expectations are as a program...would a bad year be anything short of winning the West, or will people be happy with a 8-4, 9-3 type season and finishing 2nd or 3rd in the West?
Or, the entire SEC could just hope that the rumors are true that Saban wants to try the NFL again after this season...
I'm really not sure I can answer this for you in any satisfactory way. I consider myself and the alums that I hang out with to be rational about 80% of the time and completely irrational the rest, because it is college football and you gotta have some fun.
A successful season, to me, is just one that shows progress. Whether that is going from a 4 win season to a 6 win, offense showing improvement, defensive doing better. There is no black and white definition, so really don't know how to answer it. There's no criteria about # of wins correlating to success for me. There's certainly failure though. Even the smallest improvements can be a success, but going backwards or remaining stagnant is a failure.
For the population in general I think it is more critical. Fans at large are irrational like 90% of the time and think their program should be in the National Championship game each year. I don't really (want) to believe Auburn fans are like this. We don't seem have the entitlement that comes with a program like Alabama. But that comes from always being the little brother. That isn't meant to be a specific dig at Alabama fans, just the way it is.
Let's be honest. If not for TWO miraculous game winning plays and a come-from-behind victory against Ole Miss, Malzahan is probably already fired.
Yeah without a doubt. I was probably the sole person in the world that wasn't excited about the Malzahn hire. Never been a fan of his offense and probably won't be until he learns to reel it in. I think he has great concepts and ideas but gets so far in his own head that he won't fucking stop for a second. Apparently he and Rhett Lashlee (who has been with Gus since Rhett was playing in High School) have some sort of Offensive Coordinator by committee going on and just coin flip the play depending on who 'feels' the best about it. Like wtf is that?
But it's not like Chizik established some sort of great tradition. He got real lucky one year with a player that he bought turning out to be a gamechanger. Honestly, Auburn hasn't had a good head coach since Tuberville. I always liked that guy.
He and Chizik both benefited from individual talents moreso than coaching skills. But c'mon, we aren't past this Cam Newton bullshit yet? Keep whining about some fairy tale bought this or that. That team was loaded with talent even outside of Cam Newton even though he was a huge talent. And turned out to be a pretty good NFL talent as he's matured and progressed in his career. Tuberville was an awesome fucking coach. And back with Al Borges, Muschamp, Chizik, et all on staff we had killer opportunities. The administration and AD completely fucked that situation up.
We're about to have our 5th DC in 6 years. I mean, what is progress? Who knows when you have a DC carousel and Head Coach constantly on the hot seat. Every program faces this today and it sucks.
I'm drunk or I'd type more and probably explain shit better. Auburn doesn't need to win National Championships every year to be a success or even the SEC. No one expects us to be Alabama or anyone else. We like being Auburn. That's why there are stories published about how great an experience it is for even visiting teams to come to the Plains. There's no pretension.
The only expectation every single Auburn fan has every year is that we beat Alabama. And even if you're a 0 - 10 coach winning that single game can pretty much secure your job the next year.
