Does losing by 29 points to your top rival really constitute a solid season?

Losing to a two-win team that fired its coach before the end of the season is a success?

Auburn deserves better than considering a 6-4 season a success. If Malzahn doesn’t realize that, he’s not the right coach for the program going forward.

But sometimes, programs need to have a jolt of energy. Sometimes, hanging on to avoid a buyout can cost more in the long run than paying the buyout would cost. Sometimes, the only answer that will work is to move on.

Has Auburn reached that point? That is for others to decide, but Auburn football is in a precarious place. Recruiting has suffered. A slide toward the bottom of the league, if it happens, might take years to reverse. Auburn people are not happy, and that will eventually show up on the bottom line if it hasn’t already.

Meanwhile, Malzahn has lost four or more games in seven consecutive seasons, going 8-5, 7-6, 8-5, 10-4, 8-5, 9-4 and, so far this season, 5-4.

The decision Auburn power-brokers have to make is whether that is enough and, if it’s not, if Malzahn is the man to get the program to where Auburn people so desperately want it to be. After that, the question will be if they are willing to make the same commitment to success that their rivals have made.

Auburn administrators seem to want to simply ignore the angst and the frustration and say nothing. That is the worst option of all.

At what point, though, is Auburn’s mediocrity going to start affecting the bottom line? Is the old truck worth the price to always keep fixing it? These are the things people at Auburn should be asking themselves behind the scenes. Never mind Alabama and Georgia, is Auburn ever going to catch Texas A&M again?

It’s probably wise to view this college football season of the bizarre with a patient and sensible perspective, but this is the SEC. South Carolina fired its coach weeks ago despite the Gamecocks’ first win against Auburn since 1933. I might also add that South Carolina beat Georgia last year, too. Auburn hasn’t done that since 2017.

A four-loss season is solid for the likes of Vanderbilt and South Carolina, not Auburn. The fact that Malzahn admitted his right after — you guessed it, the fourth loss of the season — is appalling.

This is a sign of a man who has no business running the program he is in charge of nor has a feel for the fans that fill Jordan-Hare Stadium on a normal basis. Ask ANY coach if a four-loss season is solid, and 95% of them are going to respond with no. It is the point of a coach to not settle for mediocrity and that is exactly where Malzahn is with himself and the Tigers.

This is not how winners think.

Yet when it comes to Auburn’s AD Allen Greene, there has been nothing but silence despite the school’s most popular program being run into the ground by a coach that has made four-loss seasons not just the norm but the expected on the Plains.

Does he not see the problem? The Tigers and Malzahn have yet to beat a team with a winning record this season. The best win is against 4-4 Ole Miss and even then Auburn needed a major break to come away with the victory. Oh, and let’s not forget the loss to South Carolina which gets more embarrassing by the day.

The thing, though, is that this is exactly the right time to rid Auburn of this mediocrity. There are plenty of better coaches out there that would bite at the bit to take the job on the Plains. If Malzahn (and Chad Morris) are brought back for another season, it is the equivalent of kicking a field goal on fourth down when trailing by seven. It is giving up, plain and simple.

The Malzahn era needs to end. He has lost the interest of even the most loyal Auburn fans. Now, it is up to Greene to show some signs of being a leader and doing what is best for the whole.

Coaching: F

Settling for field goals was not the move. The defense probably never had much of a chance to contain Alabama, but the offense needed a better game plan than it had.

Overall: F

Gus Malzahn has been Auburn's coach for eight seasons. He has never won a road game at Alabama, Georgia at LSU.

Yet this is Auburn, one of the top-15 programs in the history of college football, and all we can hope for is to keep it close? Is that where we stand as a program?

Mac Jones was a 3-star recruit. Nix a 5-star. Who would you want right now?

Listen, if you want mediocrity and four-loss season, we can stick with Malzahn. Yet I think our program deserves better than that. Our fan base deserves better. Our players deserve better.

It’s time to make a move or else there might be a mutiny on the Auburn football ship. People are fed up and I don’t blame them. Heck, I am one of them.

Thanks for the memories, Gus. It has been a highly mediocre experience.

I get the sense that the emotional rollercoaster is starting to get boring. It's a natural occurrence that tends to happen when a coach has been at a school as long as Malzahn has been without winning numerous titles.

The Auburn offense is a mess and I don’t know how this is an easily fixable situation. You start doing the math and you start saying thank goodness for the head official in the Arkansas game or otherwise, we would be talking about a dire situation right now. You have to search three or four years back to see a Gus Malzahn offense working consistently.

There has to be a breaking point. Saturday was not the tipping point. It was close. It was bad, but it was not unexpected.

There are no ifs, ands or buts about it after Saturday’s embarrassing loss to South Carolina in Columbia: Gus Malzahn has got to go, and for the sake of Auburn football, that decision needs to happen sooner than later.

Yet Malzahn will never admit that maybe he isn’t the right person for the job. He’s still the smartest man in the room despite opposing defensive coordinators and coaches now laughing at him. Heck, the Tigers realistically should be 1-3 at best.

Let it sink in that while Malzahn has been watching, a lot of other SEC teams have improved in strides. Let it sink in that once defenses caught on to his system, Malzahn refused to adjust until completely giving up control to a coach who led Arkansas to exactly zero wins in two seasons as a head coach.

This is an Auburn program with College Football Playoff expectations. And, now, three weeks into the season, it is mediocre. At best. This is vintage Auburn under Malzahn, the reason Gus Bus occupancy is always in transition. Auburn’s wild rollercoaster has returned. And most fans just want to get off.