BamaHammer predicts Auburn football finishing last in SEC West in 2022
Auburn football haters better pile up their shots as much as possible here in the first official month of the ‘Year of the Tiger’.
With Austin Davis leaving the program (before ever truly arriving) a short while after Derek Mason did, the gridiron Tigers are predictably the target of everyone’s ire in the college football world, from Barrett Sallee to (of course) FanSided’s Alabama sister-site ‘BamaHammer’.
Ronald Evans, as he always does, pulled a total of zero punches in predicting a record as bad as 3-9 in 2022, ‘good’ for seventh place in the SEC West.
He had a few other antagonizing adjectives to describe how things could go on the Plains in 2022:
"Coming off just 29 wins in the last four seasons, Auburn is due to be good in 2022.It is not going to happen. Confirmed by the openly shared perspectives of Auburn insiders, the Tigers are in total disarray. The staff is both weakened and unstable. The roster has had a double door, stream of exiting players. Recruiting is the weakest it has been at Auburn for a long time."
His focus was almost solely on Bryan Harsin:
"To win with the 2022 roster, Bryan Harsin will have to be one of college football’s best coaches. He isn’t. And worse, there is considerable doubt in Auburn about how much Harsin cares. More than a few Auburn insiders think he will gladly leave, as long as he can collect the remaining chunks of his almost $32M contract."
Mr. Evans is severely underestimating Harsin’s pride as a coach, and the talent on this roster. Things clearly weren’t copasetic in the locker-room last year, but those problems were rooted out. In theory, things should be less chaotic and more under control as Harsin instills his thumbprints in year two.
Obviously, it’s easy for BH to predict a calamitous campaign in 2022, but Auburn football’s strong 2022 class and the upperclassman defensive talent returning to the roster–and, potentially, the answer at QB coming via the transfer portal with either Zach Calzada or Robby Ashford–could have the team making good on the promise that was flashed but never fully realized in 2021.