Excuses (Scott)

If there is one thing I hate most in sports, it is excuses. (Actually I hate flopping to draw offensive fouls in basketball more, but for emphasis I will exaggerate [lie], and elevate excuses to number one.) Winning is expected – regardless. Losing is offensive – regardless. College football coaches are notorious for the amount of excuses they offer every year. Each football season I have to listen to coaches talk about their lack of experience, loss of seniors, tough schedule, difficulty in finding quality opponents, rule changes, …. The list goes on forever. Tommy Tuberville is no exception. Last year the Tigers finished 11-2, which is a good record; however, it was not good enough to take the Tigers to Atlanta, in my opinion a disappointment. The team played well pretty often, and I am proud of a lot of the games they played. Never-the-less, they loss two games they could have won. The team could have gone undefeated, no excuses.

First I need to address Auburn’s non-conference schedule. I have discussed this at lengths before, and I will continue to do so. It is embarrassing. Washington State is an average team. It has never been more than an average team. They are a team that finishes with a decent record, but is rarely a threat to win the PAC-10. The other teams were: Buffalo, Tulane, and Arkansas St. All pathetic. Whenever talking about Auburn scheduling I hear an unbelievable preponderance of excuses. There is a great variety but they break down into two categories. The first attempt to excuse our non-conference schedules is to deny the problem. People brought up Washington State as if that silenced the issue. There is some saying about one rotten apple not affecting all the other apples. I ignore clichés so I can not recall it to memory, but the inverse of the proverb is equally true, one decent apple does not exculpate all the rotten ones. For this years upcoming season I already hear fans speaking in a manner that I assume only intends to deceive themselves – fans talking as if Kansas State or New Mexico State might give Auburn trouble. That is ridiculous. Auburn might play down to one of those teams, and keep it close for a little while, but neither team has any shot to win. If you honestly believe that either team has a decent chance to win next year, then as a fan you should get your sack clothe and ash ready, because you believe Auburn will be terrible. Some say the non-conference is not an issue because Auburn plays such difficult conference games. Yes there are difficult conference games every year, but let us not be so snobbish as to believe that every SEC team is a great team. This year Auburn will play Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, and Ole Miss. More often than not, Arkansas is mediocre, and Houston Nutt will find a way to completely destroy every bit of success they enjoyed last year. Sure, there are tough conference games, but scheduling a quality opponent, will not create a schedule so difficult that the entire season is hopeless. In fact, losing a non-conference game is far more forgivable than losing to an SEC opponent. The sooner Auburn teams and fans stop worrying about the elusive “national championship” and start winning attainable SEC championships, the more respect Auburn will have around the country. Attempting to preserve the undefeated season is not worth boring the fans with games against Southwestern North Dakota State Community College.

The second excuse, one that Athletic Directors love to deliver, is that they tried, but no team wanted to play. As if every team in the nation is deadly afraid of Auburn. The last few teams Auburn scheduled home and home games with fared pretty well (Georgia Tech, USC, Syracuse). If teams like Texas and Ohio State can play each other, then Auburn can find championship contenders to play. The truth is that the Athletic Dept. is either to lazy to do the legwork to find quality opponents, or unwilling to make the necessary away game – both unacceptable. I have heard the argument that fans (especially ones donating large sums of money) would rather have more home games. This is not logical. No sane person would rather get up to watch Auburn play Tennessee Tech in person than watch Auburn play Oklahoma on television. If that person is a rich contributor, all-the-better, they can afford to travel to the game. Play a home-and-home series with a championship contender, and play no Division I-AA teams, no excuses.

At the end of last season, Auburn won a News Year Day Bowl, went 11-2, and had beaten the “national champion.” Yet listening to Tuberville, one would have been amazed we scraped together a win against Tulane. Unless you believe the LSU and Florida games were enormous flukes, then Auburn was at least capable of beating any team. Yet Tuberville would have us understand that we should be incredibly thankful that the team did not play embarrassingly worse. There was a time when coaches gave players credit for winning and took blame for losing (see most articles quoting Bear Bryant after win or loss); those days are over, and coaches are now too media savvy, too self-promoting, and too easily fired. They are able to, enjoy doing, and need to take credit. It is difficult to justify a several million dollar yearly salary. What I could only wish hearing last year was, “Good season, but could have been better. It will be next year.” Do not justify losing or patronize fans, no excuses.

This year I am already trying to acclimate and desensitize myself to the inevitably upcoming excuses. ESPN has recently rated Auburn’s schedule as the fifth toughest, and expect Hugh Nall to say at least 37,905 times that the line is inexperienced (which is true). Yes we lost a lot of linemen last year, and a lot of other players, but so did every other team in the nation. That is the nature of college football. Every player leaves in a few years. Despite this great teams are expected to be good every year, not once in every four years. If this seems impossible to you as a coach, then you should let it be known that you have no intention of being a great team. It should be no surprise that great teams are great because they constantly bring in great recruits. There have been plenty of teams with rosters of underclassmen to play great. Losing experienced players is unavoidable. Attract great recruits, no excuses.

As to this year’s aforementioned difficult schedule, get over it. Auburn has won in Georgia, LSU, and Florida before. Auburn has lost in Auburn before. Home field is valued at only a few points by the guys in Vegas who get paid to know more about football than you and I. Unfortunately, the schedule will cause many people to doubt Auburn’s chances this year, and some coaches will inevitably bring it up to justify a record, if it disappoints. For fans like me who vomit up the excuses that coaches feed us each year, Will Muschamp is a coach after our own hearts. “I don’t care where you play, it’s tough,” he recently said when asked about this year’s schedule. “The schedule is an excuse. I don’t care. I don’t want to hear it.” Just win, no excuses.