Letter to the editor: Coaching staff is to blame for Tigers' woes

Everybody told me I was "out of line" and "we hired great coordinators" and to just wait and see.

Really? Auburn could be beat by Temple, and you people still believe that Loeffler is the best coordinator we could get? It's not our players (past three years' recruiting classes have been in the top 10 or top five). It's the coaching staff! The players gave up! Why? Probably because they don't believe in the system!

Chizik is a joke bringing in a coach from the Big East (worst conference in the Football Bowl Subdivision) to coach Auburn's offense and "get back to smash mouth football." What a (expletive) joke!

Frazier showed one of the worst performances by a quarterback I've seen in my 40 years. But Frazier isn't a bad quarterback; I saw him play high school ball.

Our defense is pathetic as well. The dismal 2008 team could beat this team (coached by the current staff) any day of the week!

It's time to wake up, Auburn! I love Auburn and have all my life, and I will until the day I die; I only want the best for our family, University, team, students and everyone else alike.

Just think and look back. Google it if you have to. Look at programs that had coaching changes because the staff they had wasn't a "fit" and only pulled them down further. The big-name universities all went out and hired the best coaches available, and look where they are and where they're headed! Look at our hated in state rival. They spent the money, but look at where they were during the "Mike Era" of coaches and look where they are now and what they've done and are doing.

Look at Ohio state, LSU, Vanderbilt, South Carolina--the list goes on and on and extends well beyond the SEC.

If we, as Auburn, are the family everyone talks about and wears shirts, etc. proclaiming, then why are we standing idly by and just taking it where the sun doesn't shine?

Either we get serious about our program and spend the money and get the best damn coaches available (and yes, I mean a new head coach as well), or we can just get used to grabbing our ankles and taking a pounding and wait as we let ourselves slide to the literal bottom of the conference behind Vandy, Kentucky, Ole Miss and already Mississippi State.

Chizik has done nothing any other mediocre coach couldn't do. He didn't recruit our national championship team; Malzahn coached our offense and actually stood on a table fighting for us to recruit Cam Newton because Chizik thought we were "well enough with Trotter."

We all saw how that panned out last year. Even our 1998 team, who lost its "piglet" coach after he quit, could beat the team we have now being coached by the staff we have now.

If we are the strong Auburn family we claim to be, and if we want to beat the best and be the best, then we have to have the best damn personnel, coaching staff, assistants and everyone else on down the line all the way to the best fans who demand and will never again settle for anything less for any reason.

War damn eagle!

Ashley Mangham

Mass Communications