After Gus Malzahn and Bryan Harsin, a ray of sunshine ‘looks like a heat wave’ to Auburn fans
Auburn football fans don’t know how to act right now, with Hugh Freeze flipping 5-star recruits from Alabama and Georgia and the program selling out all of its season tickets, especially in the aftermath of the Gus Malzahn and Bryan Harsin era according to AL.com’s Kevin Scarbinsky — who said that after the last two head coaches, AU fans wouldn’t know a ray of sunshine from a heat wave.
“Let the Auburn family have its fun in the sun,” Scarbinsky prefaced before saying, “When you’ve suffered through the last, gloomy stages of Gus and the dark ages of Bryan Harsin, a ray or two of sunshine looks like a heat wave. A few recruiting victories feel like the promise of plenty of satisfying Saturdays to come.”
Freeze is finally leveraging the Plains’ resources and is starting to build enough momentum for the Tigers to compete with the Crimson Tide and Bulldogs on the recruiting trail and, eventually, on the field as well. Harsin did as little as possible in what was one of AU’s all-time worst coaching showings, while Malzahn did well to add impact skill position players on offense but consistently underrecruited in the trenches, leaving the Tigers often overwhelmed by more physical position groups from the opposition.
Analyst predicts Auburn football will be awakened by reality eventually
Scarbinsky doesn’t believe Auburn football fans will remain on their current high for long, predicting that the Tigers are going to be awakened by reality on September 30 when Georgia comes to town or in 2024 when the recruiting class currently being heralded arrives as a bottom-tier SEC group.
“Reality is likely to return no later than the last Saturday in September when Georgia takes its next step toward a three-peat at Auburn’s expense in Auburn’s house,” Scarbinsky prefaced before saying, “A more sobering reality check is available now in a glance at the 247 team recruiting rankings, which on Wednesday showed Auburn 18th in the country but ninth among schools that will compete in the SEC in 2024.”
AU certainly registers as one of the more unpredictable teams heading into the 2023 season. It’s hard to imagine things getting worse than the five-win bowl-less season the Tigers just suffered through, but it’s also tough to imagine a drastic jump in the SEC with the conference by and large improving just as Auburn did.