TAKES. FIFTH EDITION. VOLUME EIGHT.

I spent a lot of time this week thinking about TAKES. What can I tell you? What TAKE can I impart that hasn't been took?

Auburn is good now! But we totally didn't think they would be! Isn't that wild? [Welllllllllll...I'm pretty sure I told you they'd be okay. Even when they were 1-2. But I digress.]

Bubba Pettway is a good running back! And maybe that's a surprise. I don't think we knew that he was capable of this, anyway. Like, he's not an unreasonable candidate for SEC Player of the Year right now. That's sort of wild. I can accept that that's wild.

Rhett Lashlee is calling plays now! Whaddya know? Like this is wild as hell. But really is it? Gus Malzahn's disciple who wants his own job was given a chance to call plays like becoming a millionaire depended on it and he did it like Gus Malzahn did it when becoming a millionaire depended on it. And it's probably too late to get the big job that he wants, so maybe Auburn can benefit from it for one more year before he does.

So, no. I'm not sure I can offer you much that you don't know if you have been reading my TAKES for a while and I have been validating your own opinion. Except...

Remember how Jay Jacobs reacted? The same Jay Jacobs that you hate? The same one that hired Bruce Pearl? The same one that's only real mistake was running off David Marsh?

Remember when the same story that was playing out at Auburn in September was playing out at LSU and how Joe Alleva reacted? Now, LSU legitimately may be coached by Ed Orgeron in 2017. Ed Orgeron can, sincerely and without hyperbole, barely speak English. And he may fall into one of the best college football coaching jobs in the country because Joe Alleva listened to sports radio and reacted.

To an extent, the same thing happened at Georgia last year that happened at Auburn in 2008.

Don't decide you want to fire people because sports radio tells you that you do. Don't decide you want to fire people because Nick Saban is still at Alabama. If you decide you want to fire someone, you better be damn sure of it. You better not do it on a knee jerk reaction mid-season because you think that'll "help you get ahead of everyone else." If you're gonna fire a head coach, you better have an airtight plan or you're gonna end up with Ed Orgeron auditioning for a permanent job against Alabama.

Rewind: if Auburn loses to LSU and sports radio gets what it wants, what then? Kevin Steele is interim head coach? Who are the permanent replacement candidates? Bobby Petrino (who you had already said you were above hiring), Art Briles (who Kevin Scarbinsky shoehorned into the conversation because he had well-sourced rumors that he felt necessitated actual news) and...idk...Lane Kiffin? Who rock DJ Tony Kurre hypothesized Auburn fans should take? I don't know now. You're not the expert, Quick Draw McGraw. Maybe this is the year college becomes too much for Jon Gruden to resist.

There was no clear plan. To replace a coach that had won a national championship as a coordinator and been to another national championship game as a head coach.

Auburn has been to three national championship games (or whatever the equivalent in 1957 was) and its current head coach was a part of TWO of those trips.

"Turn the Radio Off." - Reel Big Fish.