The stiff breeze from the southeast isn’t that hurricane swirling in the Gulf of Mexico. No, that stiff breeze was the collective exhalation of the Auburn nation. They finally landed a recruit that Nick Saban offered a scholarship.

I know. Hard to believe.

Is it the start of a trend?

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Probably not. They say, even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally.

Auburn landed Jonathan Atchison of Douglas, GA. By all indications, Auburn landed a fine linebacker in the person of this Rivals three-star player. He is now the 23rd commitment in the class for the Tigers.

While we are talking about recruiting, Auburn may actually sign a worse class in 2009 than 2008 if the trend continues. The Tigers signed 29 last year and 30 in 2007; the Tigers already have 23 for the 2009 class. And does anyone (outside of Auburn) believe this class will rank above LSU, Georgia, Florida or Alabama’s 2009 class? And that really is the problem for Auburn. When you finish below your biggest rivals on a consistent basis in recruiting it can take years to repair the damage.

32 thoughts on “Auburn fans exhale”

  1. This is truly beyond beating a dead horse…..For the love of all…LET IT GOOOOOOOO…….We will know soon enough if it matters or not. So why dont yall just zip it and wait. But that aint the Bammer way is it. The Bammer way is to shoot your mouth off and then wait and see if it transpires or not. One would think that yall would have figured it out by now….You see , by saying this , you only make yourselves look even dumber when it doesnt happen. I that is even possible. Get a grip.

  3. Are you saying that Auburn hasn’t gotten a verbal committment from any other player this year that Alabama was also interested in? Just curious..

  4. In all seriousness, they landed a monster of a recruit who’s going to be a phenomenal athlete in the near future. I think he’ll end up being a speed rushing DE for them. He’s got some really good film rushing the QB and is very difficult to block.

    Congratulations on this pickup Aubs.

  5. War Eagle,

    No I do not think that is what he is saying. I am pretty sure this is the 3rd Auburn commit that had a scholarship offer from Alabama. I do think it is the 1st player that committed to Auburn, who did not have previous ties to Auburn. I know that Alabama offered Terrence Coleman as well. I believe he has a relative on the Auburn team currently, Antonio Coleman. I think this is the reason that some Auburn fans thought it was a big deal.

  6. Not counting Atchinson, there are 10 players that Auburn has verbals from that were either offered by Alabama or had interest from Alabama.
    The blog said: “While we are talking about recruiting, Auburn may actually sign a worse class in 2009 than 2008 if the trend continues.” How did you come to that conclusion really? Are you basing it on a stars system?
    It seems to me that you are trying to say that since Saban has been coach at Bama, Tuberville can’t recruit anymore and Auburn should fold it up.
    That seems to be the Bama way of thinking. Keep on thinking that way and telling yourself you are better, and we will continue to beat you with no name bottom feeding recruits as you like to think of them.

  7. Cappy, when I heard about Atchison this morning on the radio, my first thought was about how you were gonna spin this. I told myself that you would start with a sarcastic, backhanded “compliment”, and then immediately proceed with a diatribe about how AU got lucky and would still sign a lousy class. Boy, I was way off, wasn’t I?

    Talk recruiting all you want to bammers. It’s been over 2400 days and counting since you won anything on the only place where it counts. (that would be the actual playing field in case you have forgotten, bammers. Judging by your obsession with Forbes articles and recruiting rankings, you apparently have.)

  8. 7 comments on a Bama board and 6 of them are Barn fans. Do they not have any websites that are hosted by barners?

  9. Educator,

    You had better not be counting me as an Auburn fan.

    War Eagle,

    Honestly, it is extremely difficult to know the exact number of scholarships that a player was offered, but everything I have read is that 3 of those players have been legitimately offered scholarships from Alabama. It is hardly all that relevent if you actually believe in your coaching staff.

  10. Julio,

    That is hardly the point of the article. It is more interesting how big of a deal Auburn fans have seemingly made over the idea that a player would commit to Auburn over Alabama. I think it tells a lot about the psyche of the Auburn nation. The article is a response to that.

    I will admit that I was surprised that anyone would commit to Auburn over an offer from Alabama, but I am even more surprised how Auburn fans are reacting. You would think Auburn just signed Julio!

  11. Since this is not Alabama Tech’s typical 2009 signee (5’8″ with 4.3 speed), are we to assume that Mr. Atchison does not fit Coach Ears’ “good character” mold?

    PS: In the 2008 signing class, only ONE of your commitments was offered a scholarship to play for Alabama;-) On our list, we had 18 commitments that Alabama Tech offered scholarships to.

  12. who gives a damn? all of you bammers slobbering over 17 year old kids is pathetic. Really.

  13. Kenny, you say that Auburn fans have made a big deal over a recruit signing with Auburn over Bama. What do you base that statement on? Simply because Cappy posted an article stating that it’s so? The actual truth is that the bammers are defensive as hell because AU has gotten a lot of publicity over all the recruits that have committed, and now they’re getting even more defensive because some of the recruits were also being pursued by Bammer. Relax bammers, it’s just recruiting.

    Kenny, let me ask you this: When will the “process” yield an IB victory? (And spare me the garbage about Bammer only worrying about championships and not Auburn. Bammer’s not winning any championships without going through Auburn). You don’t honestly think it’s gonna be this year, do you? As to next year, do you really think Bama’s going to come in to Auburn with a new qb and a bunch of redshirt freshmen and pull out a win? Have you seen how few seniors Auburn has this year, and yet is still ranked in the pre-season top 10?

  14. I base the statement on what most people base any statements on, their own personal experience. I have had Auburn friends and other Auburn fans tell me about the fact that Atchinson committed to Auburn over Alabama.

    What publicity is Auburn getting? Most talk has been about how Auburn is recruiting against some Sun-belt teams. Auburn and Alabama are ranked fairly evenly in every recruiting ranking I have seen. The difference of course being Alabama has more room to improve, where as Auburn is almost finished with their recruiting.

    Are you completely unaware that this is the start of Saban’s second year? Auburn fans like to pretend that Saban has been the coach for the last six years. I know Auburn fans want to deny that things will change, but yes it is going to happen. I think that we will win this year, and there is every reason to believe that we will be even more talented next year.

    Alabama is going to get better, and I think you know it as do all Auburn fans. The typical response is to simply deny it.

  16. Kenny, I don’t dispute that Bama is going to get better as time goes on. I’m just saying Auburn is still going to be better. The problem with bammers is that ya’ll don’t want to acknowledge that Auburn is strong as a bull right now, and they are winning against all of the SEC. Also, it’s not like this AU team is laden with nothing but seniors. Marks, Blackmon, Burns, Powers, Savage(next year), McNeil, Ziemba, Ramsey, Pugh, Coleman, Carter, Blanc, Stevens, Ethridge, Tate, Fannin, Billings, Hawthorne, Goggans, etc….none of those guys are seniors. My point is that Bama is thin this year, and I don’t see a bunch of redshirt freshmen/true sophomores coming into Jordan Hare and winning next year and beating those veterans at home. That will be 3 years and 12 million dollars later in the “process”. For God sakes, Bama got rid of Shula after only 4 years. When is the Saban “investment” gonna start yielding returns worthy of its price?

  17. “For God sakes, Bama got rid of Shula after only 4 years. When is the Saban “investment” gonna start yielding returns worthy of its price?”

    Uh-huh. Yep, the tread’s really been worn thin on a guy with one year behind him. And a top recruiting class in the books. And another top-5 possibly on the way.

  19. Regarding JA: You guys should be comfortable losing to Auburn.

    November 29, 2008 will be just another Auburn Victory over the Tide. This head to head battle is the only victory that matters to Auburn fans. We Auburn fans get excited over winning football games and Not Recruiting victories in August.

    Thanks for trying though.

  20. Cappy,

    I know you bammers are hung up on recruiting rankings and all of that, but you are really just about the only ones. The smart analysts (i.e., the ones who don’t SELL recruiting rankings to the masses) don’t put as much stock in this BS as you all do.

    I know you all have declared yourselves recruiting national champions, and made all kinds of excuses about how “bad” your recruiting has been the past 10 years. In fact, your recruiting has not been bad at all the past 10 years, probation or no. Mediocrity is now the norm in T-town, and that is something that you all have to adjust to. And it doesn’t matter about the recruits, because Rivals.com doesn’t decide who the champions are at any level. And keep in mind that Saban’s nameless, unknown assistant coaches (and the high turnover his dictatorial style creates) will cause nothing but unrest in T-town.

    In short, it doesn’t matter who or what UAT recruits. You all will still continue to languish in mediocrity.

  21. who gives a damn? all of you bammers slobbering over 17 year old kids is pathetic. Really.

    Really… Really… REALLY! Until Nick Saban took the job, ALL I heard if it wasn’t concerning the streak, was how dynamically awesome the 17 year old kids who committed to API over Alabama was. Suddenly… need I say more? REALLY?!?! REALLY?!?! REALLY?!?!

  22. I always love the “Polytechnic” comments. Would someone please explain to me why having an agricultural department is somehow a bad thing? The last time that I checked, eating was pretty important.

    Also, declaring that Bama is the flagship university of Alabama is analogous to me claiming I am king of USA. I can certainly say it and I may even believe it, but that doesn’t make it true… no matter how hard I want it to be so.

  23. You guys are the ones who made a big deal out of this kid signing with Auburn. It is the article written by a Bama fan that is making the big deal. Whether you care to admit it or not Auburn has 10 players who have given verbals that were either offered by Alabama or were being recruited by Bama. Get a subscription to Rivals or Scout and you can see that information.
    Point being, the Bama so called fans are the ones who make such a big deal out of recruiting. As I said before, continue to “claim” the recruiting battle and we will continue to take the victories on the field.

  24. Please, anybody knows that recruiting correlates with success on the field. For the last six years, Alabama has recruited below, Auburn, Florida, Georgia and LSU. Guess what. We’ve not done very well against those teams.

    As for 10 players being recruited, there is a difference between recruited and offered a scholarship. EVERY player could be said to be recruited by a team. Saban unlike your coach or our previous coach actually loves recruiting and works at it constantly.

    And Auburn fans were making it a big deal with Auburn’s rivals site having an orgasm with its headline LB picks Auburn over Alabama. And I’m not even going to mention the message boards.

    But we all know that Alabama will sign most of the remaining key prospects (AU will get a couple)—and the Tide will have a higher ranked recruiting class when the season is finished.

  25. You guys are typical in your responses. If a coach was not interested in a player or even interested in recruiting him or offering a scholly.. why bother?
    No one ever said recruiting is not important. Obviously you must recruit well to stay atop of the SEC. But you being a typical bama fan put too much stock in rankings with recruiting. You never know how a recruit will pan out until they step foot on a field and still it is not a guarantee. Case in point Notre Dame who consistently has top 5 recruiting classess year in and year out but never does anything with them.
    It doesn’t matter who or what Alabama signs in their class, they are all All amercian recruits right?
    If you look at the average star rating of your class from last year and Auburns class from last year.. what was the average rating? Really close huh? so where does all that matter? you got it.. on the field and no where else.
    Keep putting the stock in your rankings of recruiting, and we will continue to win on the field where it matters.

  26. And you are typical in your response.

    You recruit a player because you have to evaluate him. You don’t know what he is like or if he fits your system until you see him, talk to him, etc. Also, you can’t believe when a player says he is recruited by someone…or did you forget the player out west who just made up his signing day?

    You can’t win on the field when you can’t get the best athletes. Period. Keep up the delusions though, because it will just make climbing out of your hole that much harder.

  27. Cap ,,,Your only partly right.It takes more than just p;ayers. Ask Notre Dame. It takes the whole package to compete. It takes coaching, recruiting , discipline, facilities, a budget, program commintment, etc. Yes , good players are important. But not the whole picture.

    Do I whish Tubbs recruited better last year. Yes. I am pretty pleased with this years bunch so far. They are going after the one thing you cant coach. Speed. But, there were fast players last year that never gave us a look. That isnt good. Will it be the death of Auburn football ? Of course not. Less talented teams that are well coached beat talented not so well coached teams every year.

  28. I completely agree with you Ballplay. You must have the complete package—and recruiting rankings can give you an incorrect picture like Notre Dame.

    I think you are getting some players nobody else wanted with the “speed” players. Of course, that can work out well like Mike Shula’s find of Arenas.

    But I think people who are Auburn fans need to realize the spread isn’t a panacea.

  29. cap- You see things from a bama fans point of view and I see things from an Auburn point of view. Until you prove that you can complete again in the SEC and win games, it is mute point anyway. Correct? Because like ballplay said, it takes more than just that 5 star player.

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  31. Cap-

    So, you really think Auburn is stinking it up in recruiting again this year too? There are only 2 maybe 3 guys that I am not that excited about out of this class so far.

    Also, have been extremely impressed with at least 10 guys out of last years class….even a couple of those little speedsters that nobody else wanted:) I expect at least 3 freshmen to see considerable playing time on offense and 4 or 5 on defense this year.

    Anyways, just stopped by to read some of your unbiased REAL news and make sure that you are keeping a watchful eye over the trash:)

    War Eagle!!!

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