What Awaits Auburn at LSU?

Having led young men in much more stressful environments than college football I find the panic of the Auburn nation quite predictable. We do not have a team of perfect athletes as no such thing exist. We did not hire a perfect Coaching Staff as no such thing exist.

We have a team of young men being led by older men. This being said no man is perfect, but some are more perfect than others. We watched and cheered as our Tigers ate up the first five teams on the schedule. Louisiana Tech is wondering about Coach Dooley and staff after a tremendous last season. Mississippi State is wondering if Coach Mullen was the right hire for there program. West Virginia was fighting mad and ready to lay the blame of that one squarely on their Coaching Staff. Tennessee was ready to run Lane Kiffin out on a rail after that one. 

Now it is Auburn's turn. Every coaching staff goes through times like these. Everyone expected it to happen to Auburn this year. If any real fan of Auburn that knows football did not expect this I do not know them. 

The result is not in the last two losses. The result is not in the poor performance of our players. The result is how our new Coaching Staff pulls our team together and handles these symptoms. 

We at Auburn are not unused to these symptoms. They all happened last season. Our previous coaching staff did not handle them well and were replaced. Now we see if our new Coaching staff fares better. 

We now find out what kind of man Gene Chizik is and if he has put together a good staff that he can use to lead our team out of this wilderness. Does this mean winning the rest of our games? No it does not. It simply means getting back to the point where our Football Team is enjoying playing the game again. Most fans might not have noticed, but our team stopped enjoying the game when we played Tennessee and started looking like men with an impossible task to accomplish.

This is a leadership problem. It is a problem with moral and that leads to a problem with discipline. Quite simply it means the wheels have fallen off. How quickly our Coaching Staff puts the wheels back on will tell us how proficient they are at leading young men. 

All people young or old perform better when they are doing something they want to do and enjoy doing it. All of our young men want to play football or they would not be on the team. Our young men are not enjoying the task at hand. It is up to our coaching staff to remedy that.

Leadership is accomplished best by example. Our New Coaching Staff has gone from being an optimistic lot of towel twirling men to a group of deer in the headlight of an oncoming truck. They must first get a grip on themselves before the team will follow. The product on the field reflects the leadership on the sidelines. 

Our Coaching Staff must force themselves to get a grip and start enjoying the game again. They must make sure the players see them doing this. Adversity in the leadership of a group of young men will lead to catastrophic results.

It is time to throw the old out and bring in a clean slate. It is time to start fresh. The minor mistakes of the last two weeks will disappear if our Coaching Staff has faith that they will. Motivation is the largest multiplier in any game where young men are competing. This is what must be rejuvenated. 

Last season the approach to this point was to cut the heater off on the side lines and point fingers and hand out blame. It did not improve anything. We will see how this young staff handles things differently. 

Our team got here due to the way the season was handled by the Coaching Staff just like last season did. It is not the players, it is not the talent, it is the Leadership. A good leader will recognize this and adapt successfully. I think this coaching staff will do just that.

What is waiting for Auburn at LSU? The future of our football program is waiting. We will find out if we are to have a successful collegiate football program or failed leadership. I think LSU has a surprise coming and it is not the one Arkansas and Kentucky got. A week will tell us if my feel for this is correct.