Aubserver Mailbag 173: How important is proof of concept?
This week: Retaining talented players, track and field, the road game at Duke, snack pastries and a whole lot of Olympic sports
WR Cam Coleman (Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)
Welcome back to the Aubserver Mailbag.
Maybe it was the great finish to the athletic calendar by Auburn’s track and field team that got me on this path, or maybe it’s the upcoming U.S. team trials. Either way, I’ve found myself thinking about Olympic sports a lot this week, which prompted me to ask the Inner Circle about their favorite ones to watch.
This week’s mailbag starts out with a couple of big questions about football and an important topic in light of this week’s State of the Position pieces. We also talk about Auburn basketball’s massive SEC/ACC Challenge trip to Duke this December, along with a truly random ranking of snack pastries at the very end.
Thank you all so much for reading, listening and subscribing. I hope these mailbags — and everything else we’re putting out this time of year — helps us all get through the long summer months.
Let’s go.
It feels like this the passing game HAS to get right this year — or at least show substantial progress — or else AU could start losing some of the receiving pieces it worked so hard to get. Am I overreacting?
The weirder the sport, the better. This year, give me breakdancing.
Carter
You’ve already highlighted two areas where we have a lot of incoming stud freshmen. I am concerned that if we are not good enough this season, we may lose them instead of building toward what looks to be a promising 2025. Is retaining the best players in the freshmen class a function of their development, winning, NIL, or all three?
In the spirit of the mailbag questions this week, my favorite Olympic sport to watch this summer will be swimming.
Scott
First, Carter isn’t overreacting here. Second, I think Scott’s question can tie in nicely to what Carter is talking about overall.
You’ve got to show “proof of concept,” which has become a popular term in college football circles thanks to our friends over at Split Zone Duo. (Go listen to the podcast this week with Alex.) If you want players, recruits, fans, donors, administrators to keep supporting you in the times where you’re not winning big, you’ve got to show that what you’re doing is on the right track. For Freeze, a lot of that is going to come down to the offense, as it was a big reason why Auburn decided to hire him.
I think there’s more to keeping great players on your roster than just “are you good or not” — otherwise everybody would just pile up to the powerhouse programs year after year. But, in a current format where any player can transfer at any time, you have to give players a reason to want to stay. There will always be opportunities elsewhere, and tampering is just part of the game. They’ll get the message from the outside.
Auburn just signed a wide receiver class that is as good on paper as pretty much any other you’ll find in the modern recruiting era of college football. The good news for the Tigers is that they needed that kind of talent infusion, given how rough the production has been at the position over the last several years. There should be opportunities available for Cam Coleman, Perry Thompson, Bryce Cain and Malcolm Simmons.
And I’m of the belief that all four of them could find their way onto the field this fall. This coaching staff is going to want to play these guys and give them reasons to stick around longterm. Sure, KeAndre Lambert-Smith and Robert Lewis will be good pieces to have, but they’re one-year rentals. Caleb Burton III, Camden Brown and Sam Jackson V are wild cards in my eyes. I’m not sure what to expect from any of them in 2024, for varying reasons.
Auburn doesn’t need to turn into 2019 LSU in order to keep everybody happy in 2024. Massive improvement is probably unrealistic, given what we’ve seen from Payton Thorne since his breakout 2021 season. I’ve said multiple times this offseason that sticking with Thorne and using the money/time/energy in recruiting on building up a better overall roster was probably the right call.
But it can’t completely backfire.