Auburn hires good country people
When Manley Pointer opens his Bible will there a power run game hidden within?
War Eagle finally made their hire the other week, poaching Liberty’s Hugh Freeze to be their new head coach.
This was a momentous occasion for reasons I’ve been detailing on the blog. We’ll circle back to the major issue:
Those schools mostly follow the black belt of the American South (Tennessee is outside of it), wherein a significant portion of the nation’s football talent grows up. Atlanta is the main hub and basically the capital of the Deep South and all five programs listed above recruit Atlanta and the overall region pretty heavily.
There’s an argument to be made about which program is best situated to recruit the area, but in the coming seasons there are some obvious truths to be witnessed.
Dabo Swinney’s Clemson is on the downswing due to a talent drain from the coaching staff.
Nick Saban is getting really old and Alabama may be on the downswing as well.
Tennessee is in better shape now under Josh Heupel but are removed from the Deep South and employ an offensive system designed to help punch above their weight, not to maximize recruiting.
Georgia is probably at the height of their power as a national program.
In summation, there’s both an opportunity for Auburn to rise up in this time and also a need for it because their oldest rival is crushing it.
Given all those factors, the ridiculous circumstances of Gus Malzahn’s removal, and then the tumult of the Bryan Harsin era, Auburn was pretty desperate to get this right. The desperation was reflected in this hire.