After a meeting with the board of trustees today, Auburn president Jay Gogue offered up his first public statements on the state of the Auburn football program, and overall athletic department in quite a while.
Here are a few relevant nuggets from his comments to reporters.
Throughout the interview, Gogue remained firm on his stance to not make a decision until after the season, and reiterated time and time again that the team had not performed up to expectations all season long.
Gogue stated that he will address any potential changes to the football program at the end of the season (no surprise there) and that the decision will ultimately come down to him, not the board, and he will certainly listen to recommendations from athletic director Jay Jacobs.
Word has also been recently circulating that Jacobs will be evaluated at seasons end. Gogue said that they'll look at five key areas when assessing the performance of the athletic director.
"We look at how well our kids are doing academically, graduation rates, APR numbers, graduation success rates. If you look at those data, Auburn athletes only have five out of 580 that have below a 2.0. You have to feel very good about the academic performance of the kids. The average GPA of all athletes is a little over 3.0 So we look at the academic part. That’s critical."
"No. 2, we look at how well we’re complying with the rules of the SEC and the NCAA. Do we have major violations? Have we had any? Those are the areas you look at. The third area we look at, and it relates to some of the questions you asked earlier, how is the gameday experience? That means parking, that means concessions, that means a whole host of things.
"How well does the band do on that day, does the eagle fly good, a variety of things go into that gameday situation. We look at whether you’re living within your budget. We look in the financial aspects of that."
"Finally, we look at how well you play competitively. Those are the five values we look at." Gogue added.
Auburn hosts Alabama A&M (SWAC) this weekend and then closes it out at Alabama a week from Saturday. Alabama A&M has lost 3 of its last 4. Conventional wisdom would say that Auburn should win this one handily. For the staff's sake, let's hope that's the case.