With it appearing nearly certain that the Auburn baseball team will miss the SEC Tournament for the fifth straight year, there is much talk in the air about the dismissal of coach Tommy Slater.
Despite highly-ranked recruiting classes and assistant coaching changes, Slater in his four years has been unable to advance Auburn's once proud program even into the conference tournament.
Four years ago, then-Auburn University interim President Ed Richardson fired baseball coach Steve Renfroe, over the objections of his athletics advisor, former baseball coach Hal Baird.
At the time of his dismissal, Renfroe had an overall record of 141-96 and an SEC record of 59-61. Three of Renfroe's four teams made it to the SEC Tournament in Hoover, but his last team didn't make it.
Baird's pleas to Richardson to give Renfroe one more year fell on deaf ears, and Auburn's baseball program has subsequently fallen into the SEC baseball dumpster.
Going into this weekend's series with a sizzling LSU team, Auburn is 27-25 overall, but a miserable 11-16 in the SEC.
For his four-year Auburn career, to date, Slater is 113-108 overall, but a dreadful 42-75 in SEC play.
Athletics Director Jay Jacobs didn't hire Slater, but from the standpoint of the future of Auburn baseball, it is his duty to fire him.
Jacobs has said he won't do anything until the season ends, which is reasonable.
This is simply a four-year experiment that has gone horribly wrong. It's time to put the Tiger baseball program back in the top echelon of the SEC, where it has historically resided.
The university can do that by paying off the final year of Slater's contract and launching a true national search for his replacement.
