SEC Football expert predicts Auburn to trend down from last season

There will be a ton of different opinions that surface this offseason about what Auburn football is capable of in the second year of the Bryan Harsin era.

David Ubben of The Athletic does not appear to be buying Auburn's chances of success.

In his SEC Mailbag column, he answered a pretty thoughtful question.

There were seven teams that finished 7-6 or 6-7 last year. Of that group, what team are you buying, and what team are you selling?

Ubben made cases for buying into Tennessee, Florida, Missouri, and Mississippi State.

The Auburn Tigers were among teams that he is not as confident in.

"It seems impossible to recruit and run a program after what amounted to a failed coup last month," Ubben writes. "The concerns about Bryan Harsin’s recruiting and fit are very real and very fair, but recruiting has a real on-field impact, and unless he can win nine or 10 games in 2022, having a sizeable portion of power brokers seemingly invested far more in Harsin’s demise than his success is going to make life difficult. Beyond the uncomfortable atmosphere, recruiting is impossible in that kind of environment."

Since the school publically backed Harsin a few weeks ago, the recruiting method has changed in Harsin's second year. The staff is offering more prospects and learning how to get in front of more high school coaches and promote large events on campus.

Harsin has also appeared more approachable and fan-friendly since the news and has made some hires that make the coaching staff appear pretty solid moving forward into spring practice.

Ubben could be right and Harsin is unable to write the ship but it seems too early to say one way or the other.

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