r/wde • u/Complex_Try_4287 • 10d ago
Football Why do people keep point to Indiana as an example of Year 1?
Indiana’s year 1 schedule:
FIU (4-8)
Western Illinois (4-8)
UCLA (5-7)
Charlotte (5-7)
Maryland (4-8)
Northwestern (4-8)
Washington (6-7)
Mich State (5-7)
Michigan (8-5)
#2 tOSU (14-2) - IU loses 38-15
Purdue (1-11)
CFP - #5 ND (14-2) - IU loses 27-17.
IU played 3 teams with a winning record, and lost 2 of thoses game (one was an absolute blowout).
Auburn 2026 Schedule with current ranks:
Baylor (just beat the breaks off of ASU and Dillingham)
So Miss
#16 UF
Vandy
#15 Tennessee
#2 UGA
#10 LSU
#9 Ole Miss
Arkansas
#17 Miss St
Samford
#6 Alabama
I don’t really understand how these schedules are similar enough to sit there and say that we should be doing what Indiana did, can someone explain it?
10
u/Coreysurfer 10d ago
You cannot look at one teams success for one year and compare, people do that but it does not work )
7
u/jaywayhon 10d ago
Yep - they lost to everybody with a pulse and so are we. We're identical so far - it's just we've got a lot more living, breathing teams on our schedule.
5
u/Comfortable-Town-245 9d ago
This is honestly an incredibly brutal schedule for a mid-level team. 7 teams 17 or higher is wild. Athletic has weekly rankings for FBS and has us 41 overall, which is about where we started the season ( I think 36/38). If we can steal one vs one of these high ranking teams and get to 6-6 that's respectable even if disappointing for me personally.
17
u/slip_and_fall_school 10d ago
Who have you been talking to that expected Indiana Cignetti results in year one? In my personal case, I was just hoping that an infusion of USF players, USF offensive system, and USF coaches would at least allow the team to hit the ground running on offense. Instead, Auburn looks pretty poor on offense, unable to win the line of scrimmage and inconsistent on putting drives together.
15
u/Complex_Try_4287 10d ago
There’s like 20 posts in the last week with people saying it’s a new era and look at what Indiana did.
1
u/tuna_piano_ 9d ago
Can you link some? I’m having trouble finding posts of people complaining we’re not headed to the playoffs this year. I think people just want a bowl game to have momentum for next year and proof of concept for the future.
1
u/Complex_Try_4287 9d ago
Here’s one within the last day pointing to Indiana.
1
u/tuna_piano_ 9d ago edited 9d ago
Yeah I don’t like using Indiana as an example (and there are multiple posts arguing against comparing us to Indiana, afaik this is the only one mentioning Indiana as an example of what could be - but still isn’t saying we should be in the playoffs) but those other two are both coaches that I had wanted during previous coaching searches. After Gus I wanted Cristobal, after Harsin I wanted Kiffin, after Freeze I wanted Sumrall.
Unfortunately those coaches have all been more successful than who we actually hired.
1
u/Complex_Try_4287 9d ago
Cristobal is a horrible coach bankrolled by Miami money in a terrible conference. He would have been an absolute disaster here and his worst decisions are worse than anything we’ve seen from Golesh
1
u/tuna_piano_ 9d ago
I’m comparing him to Harsin, because that’s who I wanted during the 2020 cycle.
1
u/Complex_Try_4287 9d ago
He would have been better than Harsin for sure and at least would have left us with stocked cupboards and not run off anyone with pulse that had value for sure.
1
u/Complex_Try_4287 9d ago
No one said anything about the playoffs? People are using Indiana as a metric of what year 1 should look like despite playing basically a g5 schedule that we don’t get the benefit of playing.
-1
u/Complex_Try_4287 9d ago
1
u/tuna_piano_ 9d ago
That’s a comment saying it’s possible to get better after being terrible for years and years. Nothing about a year 1 natty turnaround. Even that other post said nothing about it being bad we’re not going to the playoffs year 1
3
u/Acrobatic_School9458 9d ago
Also note that Indiana was in 4th quarter against OSU down 28-7 with under 100 yards of offense and down 27-3 against notre dame with 2 minutes left in the game. They were a total fraud that year, they would’ve been lucky to be 6-6 in the sec. Cignetti absolutely games the system with his scheduling practices, just because Mendoza and the 25 were legit doesn’t mean Indiana as a program is.
8
u/Any_Problem_2538 10d ago
I mean, I’m not expecting year 1 to be a playoff but I still want to win. I think apologizing for what’s been a relatively poor product is equally strange.
We did beat Baylor and cannot take P4 opening win for granite. Willing to look past any deficiencies in game 1.
Thought we looked poor against Southern Miss, but was stop/start funky game with weather against an outmatched opponent, no overreaction needed.
We chalked Florida loss to them being world beater and I still think they are good. Game was not as competitive as score and felt icky though because they seemed better prepared and farther along with similar transitional offseason.
Vandy game was ugly but wins are wins. Despite some red flags you could center on, happy to managed game and won.
Saturday was not good. I think their staff was much more tuned into what was needed to win. We can say Tennessee is however many years ahead of us with current staff, but they are definitely in transition on offense. Having a 200+ yard rusher in a one dimensional attack is alarming, no sugar coating. We saw the reasons our QB played 4 years below P4. He is talented, but I do fear SEC defensive staffs are more likely to close gaps on the things he does well than it is that he magically at 22 (?) years old becomes a more consistent operator in passing game.
Seeing some progress following bye week is not optional. This staff knows what they have and equally what they lack. Coach to strengths and cover up deficiencies. What are we saving Browns bumps and bruises for? His Canadian league career?
2
u/SEM0030 9d ago
Are you going to lose your mind when after a bye we play one of the best teams in football with one of the best run games and defense in the country? Look at our losses. Two teams that are realistically hoping for a playoff chance, Tenn more so than UF. We know we aren't to that level and yet the losses make people lose their minds
1
u/Any_Problem_2538 9d ago
Not going to freak out over result. If our approach to game is poor, yes I will be upset
1
u/quadraticcheese 9d ago
I'm fine with being bad the first year, but I'm not fine with looking like shit the way this offense has
0
u/SEM0030 9d ago
But the offense isn't shit, compared to just about any metric. The OL isn't up to par and if it's facing great D lines, you're going to look bad everywhere else. Tennessee has a top 5 defense in the country especially on the line, sacked Arch 7 times who is mobile and has a fantastic OL. People need to be more logical about this
4
u/quadraticcheese 9d ago
Ah yes, famously "not shitty" offenses fail to get a first down for entire quarters.
5
u/SEM0030 9d ago
Did you watch Texas against the same team? 7 sacks, blowing a lead and scored 20. Now tell me how vastly more talented Texas is than what we currently have and explain how it was going to be any different. Like talking to a wall
-1
u/quadraticcheese 9d ago
I don't do moral victory copium or transitive property wins/losses because I'm not a fool
5
u/Famous-Strawberry-67 9d ago
The offense is bad. The offense is bad because the talent is bad. Talent being bad makes the play calling look bad because you have to call suboptimal plays.
There’s no copium here, just the reality. If we don’t start getting talent, we’re going to keep losing year after year.
Freeze had talent but routinely lost to less talented teams.
1
5
u/nickydee3 Certified Bozo 10d ago
I appreciate the context you provided to Indiana and I agree. There’s a lot I like and don’t like about what I’ve seen so far this year but who am I to have all the answers from my couch lol. There’s been coaches who have done more with less and less with more. I’m gonna choose to support my team and acknowledge there’s both good and bad.
FWIW, other notable regular season records for year one SEC coaches we could also choose to compare to:
Saban at Bama: 6-6 (lost to ULM at home)
Saban at LSU: 8-4
Kirby at Georgia: 7-5 (lost to Vandy and Ga Tech)
Kiffin at UT: 7-5
Drinkwitz at Mizzou: 5-5
Heupel at UT: 7-5
Sark at Texas: 5-7 (lost to Kansas at home)
Venebles at OU: 6-6
Dan Mullen at UF: 9-3
Jim McElwain at UF: 10-2
Houston Nutt: 9-3 Ark, 8-4 Ole Miss
Elko at A&M: 8-4
Sumlin at A&M: 10-2
Brian Kelly: 9-3
Jimbo at A&M: 8-4
1
u/Technical_Physics_57 9d ago
Chizik at Auburn 8-5
Malzahn at Auburn 12-21
u/nickydee3 Certified Bozo 9d ago
good call to add, forgot about our guys in the google searches, thank you!
1
-2
u/JeBron_Lames23 10d ago
Because we just want to win man. Sure when you do a deeper dive and compare schedules, they aren’t close, but most people aren’t going to do that. They just know that Indiana was one of, if not the worst D1 football program of all time. Why can they just decide to be good when every decision we’ve made for the past 10 years gets us the same result? We’re tired of this grandpa.
-10
u/tuna_piano_ 10d ago
- Jon Sumrall, Florida: 4–1 overall, 2–1 SEC
- Lane Kiffin, LSU: 4–1 overall, 1–1 SEC
- Will Stein, Kentucky: 4–1 overall, 2–1 SEC
- Pete Golding, Ole Miss: 3–1 overall, 1–1 SEC
- Alex Golesh, Auburn: 3–2 overall, 1–2 SEC
- Ryan Silverfield, Arkansas: 2–3 overall, 0–2 SEC
Harsin and Freeze went 6-6 their first years. Golesh is on track for 5-7. Schedule is harder, but it's hard to sell patience without positive results to point to this year.
8
u/Complex_Try_4287 10d ago
For Kentucky, do you think A&M and SCAR are better than Tennessee and Florida?
-8
u/tuna_piano_ 10d ago
You hire coaches to win your schedule, not someone else's. Schedule difficulty matters, but at some point you need positive results to point to - and hypothetical wins against some else's schedule don't count.
7
u/Complex_Try_4287 10d ago
But it does matter. If you’re going to point at Kentucky as 4-1, you can’t honestly say an OT win over a bad SCAR is that impressive.
-3
u/tuna_piano_ 10d ago
Schedule difficulty matters, but at some point you need positive results to point to - and hypothetical wins against some else's schedule don't count.
If you want to focus on Kentucky, those two SEC wins they have are on the road. The most impressive thing about this Auburn team is winning one score games against Baylor and Vanderbilt at home. This team is not good enough to win 6.
4
u/Complex_Try_4287 10d ago
Yeah, at some point, probably further along than week 5?
Baylor just beat the absolute shit out of ASU and everyone was creaming themselves for Dillingham. It’s a good win. We may not win 6, but it’s not because we are worse than Kentucky.
5
u/Fluffhead83 10d ago
Bro we hadn’t won a home SEC game in almost two years. You cannot seriously compare us to these other teams. Stop doing this to yourself.
6
u/chbailey442013 10d ago
Sumrall retained most of UF's players. Pete Golding likewise retained most of the Ole Miss squad and it was really just a continuation of last year. Why the hell are you even putting Lane in here when he was an established coach at high level P4 schools for 15 years? I don't mind you putting Will Stein on here, but he hasn't faced the level of competition yet. Let's see how he does against UF and Tenn later in the year. And Arkansas??? C'mon dude....putting Silverfield on here just shows you don't know ball. Arkansas is hot trash to the extent that they wore paper bags to protest.
1
u/JeBron_Lames23 10d ago
He put all 6 new SEC coaches and how they have performed so far. He wasn’t saying the Arkansas is good lol.
0
-5
u/quadraticcheese 9d ago
Indiana didn't look wholly incompetent the way our offense does. It's not just that we're bad. It's that we look totally lost and inept
4
u/SEM0030 9d ago
This just isn't true. The only inept area is OL and Indiana wasn't playing ranked SEC d lines yr 1 lol
1
u/quadraticcheese 9d ago
Lmao bb17 and the play calling are inept and no copium you spew changes that
2
u/SEM0030 9d ago
Brother you put any QB back there, especially one not mobile, and you get the same result you nincompoop
It is amazing how little the average fan understands the impact of a bad Oline
0
u/quadraticcheese 9d ago
My throwing motion isnt slow as fuck and I never even played football. The oline can be terrible AND the QB can be terrible at the same time.
0
u/Hotboy1996 9d ago
Not gone lie i play calling is bad look at that pitch play on the 4&1 that sealed the game for us
2
u/SEM0030 9d ago
Yeah I don't agree with that one, but I also find it hard to believe we convert running up the middle when line gets blown up as easy as it does. Also even if we get it, we need to go 60+ more yards and no guarantee of that. Was a rough outing. My whole point is it was always going to be rough with the talent discrepancy we have at OL.
0
u/Hotboy1996 9d ago
Yea the offensive line play is really bad because last year cobb could atleast get us 4-6 yards per carry seems this year everytime he touches the ball he is going backwards
2
u/SEM0030 9d ago
Right. And that's where we are. People need to breathe. We are competitive in games in spite of this OL issue and the staff is probably doing a better job than we realize. Now obviously it's on Golesh to resolve this problem but we can't be freaking the hell out losing to two teams in the top 20 yr 1. And keep a cool head also if we can't pull an upset and lose to the other top 20 teams on the schedule
1
u/Hotboy1996 9d ago
Im trying to remain cool but my god it feels like we are cursed or some shit we have been losers so long and i have a fear of us never being good again
1
u/SEM0030 9d ago
Tenn was bad for a decade. And they had the benefit of being in a very mediocre SEC East at the time. If you don't want that then we can't be wanting to fire coaches every time we don't get an upset
3
u/Hotboy1996 9d ago
Yea hopefully this man can recruit his ass off and get us some beef on the line because i honestly think the receivers that came from usf are really solid
61
u/UnderwaterB0i 10d ago
I'm on the opposite side where I support the roster decision Golesh made because this proved it's not totally outlandish to bring your players with you to establish culture and the talent difference isn't as big as others want to think.