The Auburn football team has had a rough season.
That may be putting it lightly, because to the immensely dissatisfied fans, the team has won only two games, neither of which were against SEC opponents. Also, former national champion head coach Gene Chizik is on the hottest of seats.
After a 38-0 crushing defeat at home against Georgia, so is defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder.
Barring a huge upset in Tuscaloosa, Auburn will likely finish the season with three victories and badly miss out on a bowl game. After three straight seasons with bowl wins, the big question is what happened this year, and how can it be fixed?
VanGorder had several blunt suggestions of how to improve on the defensive side of the football.
"We've got to get bigger and stronger here at Auburn." VanGorder said. "It's pretty obvious. I think that's our responsibility -- to develop them physically and mentally. That's our job."
He also spoke of how his experience in the NFL relates to the relatively small Auburn defensive side.
"In the NFL, there was one defense that was built in the ideal of small and fast," VanGorder said. "It was a defense that was built with a high-scoring offense that was ahead all the time, and it worked."
The problem is Auburn has had anything but a high-scoring offense this season and has averaged a meager 163.7 passing yards and 17.3 points per game.
When asked about his confidence concerning his future at Auburn, VanGorder said he was unsure.
"I don't know that I can say that I'm confident (about it)," VanGorder said. "But it's not something that's overly burdensome to me."
To the organization's credit, they have not been making excuses.
The coaches and players know this year has been a disappointment, and the mindset in the locker room is to finish the season with heads held high.
"It hurts to lose the way we've been losing," said senior cornerback T'Sharvan Bell. "We've just got to keep fighting. The season is not over. We've got two games left, so we'll try to make the most of these last two games."
The Tigers will face Alabama A&M and Alabama respectively in the next two weeks.
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