Misery Index Week 3: Bryan Harsin has turned Auburn into a bad and boring football team

Auburn’s biggest problem is not necessarily losing 41-12 to Penn State.

Make no mistake, it’s not good. The worst Auburn team you’ve ever seen should not lose by 29 points at home to the best Penn State team James Franklin could possibly put together. But it’s not the first or last time Auburn will have a bad day on the football field.

The more pressing issue for Auburn right now is in the recruiting rankings, where 247 Sports ranks the Tigers’ 2023 class No. 62 in the country, just behind Washington State, Oklahoma State and Missouri.

Auburn’s current coach is Bryan Harsin. After going 6-7 in his first season, it seemed that a salacious whisper campaign about his alleged off-field behavior was aimed at getting him fired. After the school found there was nothing to those rumors, Harsin kept his job. But the reality for Harsin was that only two things were going to calm the waters long-term: A lot of wins or a lot of blue-chip recruits.

The first one isn’t going to happen. This might be the least talented Auburn team since the late 1970s, and it would be semi-miraculous for Harsin to win eight games this year. If Auburn had a bunch of studs waiting in the wings, this might be survivable for another year. But at 62nd in recruiting? This seems like a dead end for Harsin, who won a lot of games at Boise State but has not shown an aptitude or an appetite for the cutthroat world of SEC football.

Auburn’s initial hiring of Harsin was rooted in athletic director Allen Greene’s preference for normalcy and distaste for the roller coaster drama that surrounded every result under former coach Gus Malzahn.

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Harsin was the kind of paint-by-numbers hire you make at a normal school. But Auburn isn’t a normal school.

Auburn fans and boosters are often accused of being hair-trigger crazy when it comes to coaches. But the reality is that for Auburn to function best, it needs juice, it needs controversy, it needs an in-your-face presence to distinguish the Tigers from everyone else.

Even if the team is good or bad in a given year, Auburn is not supposed to be boring. Harsin is boring, his team isn’t good and it’s very clear that this isn't a good fit.

Of course, Auburn parted ways with Greene before the season, which means there is no permanent athletic director in place at the moment to manage what happens next. That means the boosters are in charge again at Auburn, which is how a lot of people there like it best.

It doesn’t mean Auburn’s next moves will be the right ones. But they can’t be any worse than getting blown out by Penn State and having no blue-chip recruits to pin their hopes on in the future.

Things will probably get better for Auburn at some point, but for now the Tigers are No. 1 in the Misery Index, a weekly measurement of which fan bases are feeling the most angst about the state of their favorite program.

Four more in misery

Colorado: There is always one power conference program so awful that you have to pay attention the way rubberneckers slow down to look at car crashes on the side of a highway. For a long time, that team was Kansas. But no reign lasts forever, and it appears the Jayhawks’ dynasty of incompetence has ended. Luckily for the Misery Index, though, they have a worthy heir to the throne in the Colorado Buffaloes.

How bad is Colorado? The Buffaloes have been outscored 128-30 in three games this year. Last week against Air Force, they had 51 yards passing and went 1-for-11 on third down. This week against Minnesota, they threw for 90 yards and went 1-for-12 on third down. There’s not much else to analyze, and with the Buffs about to open Pac-12 play next week against UCLA there’s a pretty good chance they’re headed for a winless season. That hasn’t happened at Colorado since its first year of football in 1890. Karl Dorrell was a strange hire for Colorado in 2020, but the school was in a difficult spot from a timing standpoint after Mel Tucker surprisingly left in mid-February for Michigan State. The problem is, other than Tucker, Colorado has gone bust on four coaching hires since firing Gary Barnett in 2005. Can fans trust this administration to get the next one right?

Georgia Tech: Since Geoff Collins is not eligible to be the first coach fired this season — Scott Frost already has that one wrapped up — he’s now the odds-on favorite to be the next one shown the door. Georgia Tech fans who want Collins out can probably breathe easy. After a putrid 42-0 loss to Ole Miss, Collins’ record stands at 10-27. It's not working, and there are no signs it’s going to turn around.

But there’s a bigger existential question Georgia Tech will have to answer with its next move. What is this program about? Tech pushed Paul Johnson out because it was tired of the triple option and wanted someone who could raise the ceiling in recruiting rather than rely on a quirky scheme. But given how poorly Collins’ tenure has gone, Georgia Tech must figure out if it merely hired the wrong guy to modernize the program or if the Johnson model was a better fit for a school with tough academic standards and budget limitations.

That will not be an easy call for athletics director Todd Stansbury. And even though coaching changes are generally a shot of adrenaline for a fan base, Georgia Tech fans will have every reason to view this one cautiously.

Northwestern: Pat Fitzgerald is only 47 years old, but he's been at Northwestern in some coaching capacity since 2001. He’s now in his 17th season as the guy in charge. Fitzgerald, a beloved alum and proven winner as a head coach, has had plenty of opportunities to leave for jobs in both college and the NFL. Perhaps he should have taken one of them.

Because the reality in college football is that sometimes things get stale. Sometimes coaches get too comfortable. Sometimes having iron-clad job security encourages stubbornness and arrogance.

Here’s what we know: After Saturday’s 31-24 loss to Southern Illinois, Northwestern is likely headed for a third bad season in the past four — the exception being a 7-2 record in the funky COVID season sandwiched between dual 3-9s. That’s not going to get Fitzgerald in trouble. First of all, it's Northwestern. Second, he is the same coach who went to 10 bowl games and two Big Ten title games. But maybe that’s the problem. If there’s no pressure, will Fitzgerald make necessary changes to staff, philosophy and recruiting? Or will he coast into 2023 and lean on his history of bouncing back? If it’s the latter, the Wildcats may have big problems to address next year.

South Florida: By nature of being stuck in the American Athletic Conference, the Bulls are not going to ever get many shots at a victory as meaningful as beating Florida in the Swamp. They had that chance on Saturday — and blew it. Down 31-28 with one drive to either win or tie, USF was driving deep into Florida territory with enough time on the clock and timeouts in its pocket to give the Bulls some options. But it seemed like coach Jeff Scott did not want quarterback Gerry Bohanon to make a big mistake, so USF kept things pretty simple and conservative and looked as if it was playing for a field goal. That didn’t work out for the Bulls when a bad snap with 44 seconds left cost them 14 yards, setting up a 49-yard kick that was close to being made despite a wobbly hold. It would have been nice to see USF push for a touchdown before that bad snap, but it didn’t so we’ll never know. After three straight losing seasons, including a 4-20 start to Scott’s tenure (1-20 against FBS teams), it would have been a massive boost to beat Florida. Instead, it's just more frustration for a program that has a history of what-ifs and missed opportunities.

Miserable but not miserable enough

UCLA: If one image could describe the meaning of apathy, it would be the overhead view of the Rose Bowl on Saturday where a sparse and depressing crowd gathered to watch the Bruins squeak by South Alabama, 32-31. Sure, UCLA is 3-0. But after starting slowly against Bowling Green in Week 1 and needing a field goal at the buzzer to beat South Alabama, it seems that Bruins fans are not particularly into this team or the Chip Kelly era. Can you blame them?

Houston: It's never a good sign when teammates shove each other in the middle of a game where everyone can see it. But early in the third quarter of Houston’s 48-30 loss to Kansas, receiver Joseph Manjack came over and shoved receiver Sam Brown on the sideline, necessitating coaches and players to step in and separate them. That is not the kind of thing that happens with a disciplined team that has its act together. Then again, 1-2 Houston is arguably the nation’s biggest disappointment after starting the season as the team to beat for the Group of Five’s bid to a New Year’s Six bowl game. Dana Holgorsen, who was supposed to be a transformative hire for the Cougars, is now just 20-17 in his fourth season.

South Carolina: Nobody would say the Gamecocks are in the same weight class as Georgia, historically, but they’ve managed over the years to turn that game into a pretty good rivalry. Not only has South Carolina won its share (eight times in the last 23 years) but a lot of the Georgia wins have been pretty close. It’s a game Georgia has to take seriously — until now, anyway. Georgia’s 48-7 runaway on Saturday, following 40-13 last year and 45-16 in 2020, shows that the gap is now so big, it might be a while before South Carolina can make this seem like a rivalry again. Georgia’s longest winning streak in the series is 10 (between 1966-77) but it may be at least that long until the Gamecocks taste victory again.

Miami: The Hurricanes spent a lot of money to bring prodigal son Mario Cristobal home. But perhaps they didn't realize they were also getting his coaching style, which was proven at Oregon to be more conservative than a GOP convention and seriously lacking in clock management. Miami somehow lost 17-9 at Texas A&M and failed to score a touchdown despite having 27 first downs, 392 yards of offense and four trips into the red zone. Even at the end, when Miami needed to show some urgency and get something done quickly, the Hurricanes were plodding, safe and ultimately ineffective. It’s hard to be “The U” if you’re afraid to throw a pass beyond the first-down marker.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Auburn has become both bad and boring under Bryan Harsin