The players believe.
There are a lot of fans of Auburn football who are done with their football coach even before this season begins. Unfair but true.
Fall camp isn’t here and already there are non believers. This is the world that Auburn football must operate inside circa 2019.
Many fans just want to hit the reset button, and have the people who bankroll Auburn athletics bring in someone else, someone who maybe can inspire the masses a little better. They don’t know who, of course, but maybe the Bruce Pearl of college football.
Urban Meyer, in other words.
Consumers don’t care how the sausage is made. They just want to eat a lot of it until, one day, it just stops their hearts cold.
The players care, though.
The players still believe in Gus Malzahn. They never quit on Gus last season, despite so much noise around the program, and they still believe now. For Auburn, that’s all that matters at this point in the preseason’s calendar.
It felt like there wasn’t a single reporter at SEC Media Days who expects Gus Malzahn to be back at the event next year. That’s just the truth of Malzahn’s bizarre reality right now as Auburn’s coach.
The assumption was that Auburn’s football coach is a dead man walking, and that he will be fired after this season or during it. When so many sports journalists agree on something, then that usually means one thing. The opposite will happen.
It’s physics.
Malzahn is entering his seventh season as Auburn’s coach, and his buyout is a staggering $26.625 million. That’s pretty good job security.
It’s math.
The dissonance between Auburn’s locker room, and Auburn’s fans at this exact moment in time couldn’t be harsher on the ears. In one ear there is a murder of crying, squawking, annoying crows. In the other ear is Derrick Brown.
Derrick is so talented, and so wise.
He loves his coach, and he believes.
The defensive tackle believes in Gus so much, in fact, that he turned down an opportunity to enter the NFL Draft this offseason, and instead chose to return to school. You have to understand the backstory to know why that is so significant.
Seven months ago, Derrick became a father. Now, there is nothing he loves more in this world than that baby. And the best thing for that child, Derrick says, is return to Auburn and play for Gus.
It was a tough decision, but he thinks his future is brighter this way. He wants to improve his draft stock. He wants to get his degree. He wants to beat Alabama and Georgia again inside Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Derrick isn’t alone.
Ten players at Auburn had the chance to go pro this offseason, and only two made the jump. Malzahn repeated that fact a few times on Thursday. Seemed like it made him proud. Eight of the 10 are returning, and they all believe in Gus and defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, and so Gus is understandably excited about this team.
“We've got a chance to be the best defense we've had in my 10 years at Auburn," Malzahn said. “Not only are they hungry, but they’ve got a chip on their shoulder, and they feel like they have something to prove.”
Malzahn is telling everyone who will listen that he thinks Auburn is going to be really good this season. Maybe even compete for a championship.
And not everyone in the SEC is in that position, he explained.
“The whole team takes on my personality,” Malzahn said.
They’re believers, and sometimes that makes all the difference.
It’s faith.
Joseph Goodman is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group. He’s on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.