ESPN puts Auburn football in Tier 8 of college football

Another day, another national outlet taking a dig at Auburn football.

Today's insults come courtesy of the "Worldwide Leader" themselves, ESPN. They sorted all 131 D-1 college football teams into tiers, based on "similar profiles". Auburn made Tier 8, called "Big Names, Bad Records". The blurb explaining the thought process touched on familiar themes: namely, the perceived tenuous grip Bryan Harsin has on his job as we enter his 2nd season as head coach.

Five college football blue bloods, who all recruit at a championship level. And yet, they finished a combined 29-35 last season, with only Penn State (7-6) managing a winning record. It's hard to separate the sparkling sheen on these programs from the immensely average performances. FPI is impressed with Auburn (No. 11 in the preseason ranking), but Bryan Harsin could be abandoned at an I-85 rest stop any day now. LSU ranks even higher (No. 10 in FPI), but Brian Kelly's dance moves might be better than his defense. Billy Napier hired a support staff that roughly equals the population of Vermont, and yet none of them are likely to figure out how to block Jalen Carter. The point is, don't get distracted by simple th... ooh, that dog has a puffy tail!

Nothing we haven't heard before. It could have been worse, actually, as Tier 11 is titled "Hot Seats" and consists of four teams that are considered a certainty to make a change in head coaches during or after the 2022 season. Arizona State (Herm Edwards), Florida State (Mike Norvell), Nebraska (Scott Frost), and West Virginia (former Troy coach Neal Brown) are all seen as dead men walking into the 2022 season with lofty expectations, but disappointing tenures to date.

Other notable SEC teams:

Tier 1: The Clear Favorites - Alabama, Georgia

Tier 3: Rising Stars - Texas A&M

Tier 5: The (kind of) basketball schools - Kentucky

Tier 6: The under-the-radar gems - Arkansas, Ole Miss

Tier 7: Wilder things have happened - Mississippi State, Tennessee

Tier 12: The overachievers - South Carolina

Tier 14: The rebuilding projects - Missouri

Tier 20: At least they're not markedly worse than Kansas - Vanderbilt

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