Gus Malzahn sure left a tough act to follow for the rest of Auburn's first year coaches.
He made turning around a program in just one season look easy. Too easy, almost.
The success of Malzahn left a lot of expectations for Sunny Golloway and Clint Meyers in their first year of work, especially considering that both had more previous success than Malzahn as a head coach.
While Meyers has fielded one of the top softball teams in school history this season, Golloway's baseball team went backwards in 2014, finishing an even 28-28, five games worse than the year before.
Golloway made a lot of noise with constant talk of 'Omaha' in his first few months on the Plains.
Even as the team rapidly slid down the SEC standings with their late year skid, Golloway never wavered in his determination to reach Omaha.
In the end, his team didn't even make it to Hoover, Alabama, the annual site of the SEC Tournament.
Golloway butted heads with players and media all along the way, eventually dismissing one senior outfielder and allowing two other upperclassmen to walk on their own accord in February.
With nine seniors, four of whom were regular starters, departing, there will be a number of holes to fill on Auburn's roster next spring.
Considering everything that's happened, it's easy to look at the 2014 season as a failure.
But there's a certain short-sightedness in condemning Golloway and his brash style after just one season.
Golloway didn't spend years recruiting to Auburn before taking the head coaching position, as Malzahn had done from 2009 to 2011.
To say that there was a change in coaching style from 2013 to 2014 would be an understatement; the free rein which players had under John Pawlowski was quickly, and necessarily, pulled in by Golloway and his staff.
His complaints about a lack of depth and discipline left for him by Pawlowski became glaringly obvious late in the year.
Lineup changes were constant, and the mix-and-match bullpen eventually turned to outfielder Ryan Tella to pitch the team out of jams.
So while Golloway probably didn't do himself any favors with his lofty talk of Omaha, the inevitable fizzling of their season highlights just how difficult it is to turn around a struggling baseball program.
A quick look around the SEC shows just that.
Tennessee's Dave Serrano, who went to two College World Series and three NCAA Super Regionals with Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine, has floundered at the bottom of the SEC in his first two years on Rocky Top.
It wasn't until year three that Serrano led the Volunteers to Hoover for the first time since 2007.
Rebuilding a baseball program takes time. Some players from the previous administration need to be flushed out in order to make room for the future.
It's a painful, but necessary process. And as Golloway said after his team's elimination last Saturday, it will lay the foundation for the program's future success.
So think twice before giving up on Golloway and his lofty, and often unrealistic expectations.
Because would you honestly want a coach that was aiming for anything less than Omaha?
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