ALERT: Auburn’s Player Evaluations MISSED BADLY | Auburn Football Podcast

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

You're listening to The Auburn Express.

SPEAKER_2 (0:12)

All aboard the AM departure from Platform 334, The Auburn Express.

We're running on time and expecting no hiccups. Doing the work, hard work, to bring you the best Auburn Sports content you'll find anywhere.

SPEAKER_1 (0:53)

And, you know, he walked away from it feeling like, oof, what was, what is that?

SPEAKER_2 (1:01)

Right.

SPEAKER_1 (1:04)

That's how he walked away from it.

SPEAKER_3 (1:06)

Yeah, I think it's, listen, just hearing that, not having, and I do have some video that I need to post to the channel from when he was recently speaking, I think somewhere in Mobile.

But it does feel like, or actually that might have been from the Monday thing that you're talking about. Let me go, cause what's our guy's name that's down there, Mobile? Corey, Corey LaBounty was there, and he gave me some video from it. I need to post that to the channel. But it does sound like they feel like they've exhausted a lot of mental energy in trying to tinker with this and tinker with that. They're just like, I don't know how much more tinkering I can do here because everything we've tried just hasn't seemed to work. So you do get a sense of frustration from that offensive staff about where they thought that they were going to be and where they are right now. And so the frustrations of the fan base, I think are echoed in their frustrations.

SPEAKER_1 (2:07)

Well, we'll get to it in some of the other harder truths, but they haven't tried everything.

SPEAKER_3 (2:12)

No, they still have more things that they can get to for sure.

SPEAKER_1 (2:15)

There's things they can get to. They have to be willing to get to them though. Right, like you cannot fix problems that you don't see as problems. And that is part of what's scary to me, is that it seems like the rest of us are sitting here thinking, you know, how far does it have to go before you start to look at everything?

But he seems like I kind of want to spoil the other hard truth. So I'm refraining right now. But you know, I think that wraps up hard truth number one. This run game just isn't very good. And it was supposed to be something that you could hang your hat on this season. Same way scoring defense is one of the things that, you know, you want you had you came in thinking when you can hang your hat on this, they may give up yards, but they're not going to give up a ton of points. And beside the Florida game, that's held fairly true. You know, you're going to have an outlier here and there because you're going to go up against some really talented teams. But so far they have not given up a ton of a boatload of points regularly. So at least that's holding true despite, you know, some other issues that you see on defense.

Do you think this offense is worse than last year's?

SPEAKER_3 (3:46)

Do I think the offense as a whole is worse than last year? No.

This offense would have scored more than three points versus Kentucky.

SPEAKER_1 (3:56)

That's fair. That's fair.

SPEAKER_3 (3:58)

Yeah. It's not much better.

SPEAKER_1 (4:01)

Howard Brown is a better quarterback in every measure than Jackson Arnold.

SPEAKER_3 (4:06)

Yes.

SPEAKER_1 (4:07)

Okay.

SPEAKER_3 (4:08)

I do think that this offensive... Well, let's just get to number two. Let's just get to number two because we're going to talk about some of the things that I do think have... And I do think the wide receivers have contributed way more this year than last year's wide receivers did on a consistent basis. So there are some elements that are better, some that are worse. But number two here, and this is why I don't think that it's fair to say that it's better, is that these evaluations have missed the mark. Like, you went out and you brought in a bunch of guys at a bunch of different places, offense and defense, and they just haven't performed up to the standard necessary to be an every down SEC player.

It hasn't been there, particularly along the offensive line. But I'd say the tight end position hasn't been great.

SPEAKER_1 (5:08)

I'd say that I feel like they haven't really utilized it much.

SPEAKER_3 (5:11)

Well, they're supposed to be primarily blocking and they're just not, they're not doing that well. And then the opportunities that they get to catch the football, you get drops every now and then, and the missed assignments at the tight end position just have they like, they haven't been what they need to be for consistency. Jake Johnson has played well, but not great. Arliss Bordingham has been, he's shown spots where he's been good, but not great. Jonathan Echols has had quite a few places where he has not looks good.