At most schools, as the losses continue to rise for a football program and the fan base starts to get extremely frustrated, you usually hear from the athletic director in some sort of way.
“I have all the confidence in our coach.”
“I like the direction that our program is going.”
“It’s just a misstep in the resumption of our program becoming a power again.”
You know the athletic director speak. I’m pretty sure it is taught to you once you take the head position at a collegiate athletic department.
Yet when it comes to Auburn’s AD Allen Greene, there has been nothing but silence despite the school’s most popular program being run into the ground by a coach that has made four-loss seasons not just the norm but the expected on the Plains.
So what does Greene even do? Has any Auburn fan been inspired by his leadership? Does he even have any power or is he just a pawn?
The lack of communication with absolutely no one, whether it be the press, fans, alumni or else, is absolutely frightening, especially when the trust in the football program has fallen to an all-time low. Does Greene think Auburn fans will continue to pay a lot of money to see a mediocre program play in Jordan-Hare Stadium when they could easily sit at home, watch on a big screen and not have to deal with another pathetic performance against a ranked team?
Does he not see the problem? The Tigers and Malzahn have yet to beat a team with a winning record this season. The best win is against 4-4 Ole Miss and even then Auburn needed a major break to come away with the victory. Oh, and let’s not forget the loss to South Carolina which gets more embarrassing by the day.
No, this doesn’t all fall on Greene. He was handed a bad deck in the Malzahn contract when he took the job and, in a year where everything is just strange, it will take some major guts (and money that, per sources, has already been raised) to get rid of the football coach after eight seasons.
The thing, though, is that this is exactly the right time to rid Auburn of this mediocrity. There are plenty of better coaches out there that would bite at the bit to take the job on the Plains. If Malzahn (and Chad Morris) are brought back for another season, it is the equivalent of kicking a field goal on fourth down when trailing by seven. It is giving up, plain and simple.
We don’t know what Greene is thinking because he is quieter than a kid playing a game of Hide-and-Seek. He releases emails on a sporadic basis that provide us an update but has not shown any signs of being the leader that Auburn needs as a whole.
The Malzahn era needs to end. He has lost the interest of even the most loyal Auburn fans. Now, it is up to Greene to show some signs of being a leader and doing what is best for the whole.
Everyone is waiting.