Jacobs and Gogue Sit Alone On An Island Today
by Jay Coulter on Dec 14, 2008 8:39 AM CST
in Football
26 comments
Short Timers?
The fallout from the hiring of Iowa State coach Gene Chizik continues today. Criticism is coming from all corners of the country and prominent Auburn people are already starting to distance themselves from embattled President Jay Gogue and Athletic Director Jay Jacobs. The backlash is so bad on this Sunday that many still wonder whether tomorrow's much anticipated press conference will actually happen. Unfortunately, it appears the hays in the barn - the Gene Chizik experiment is underway.
This morning former Auburn coach Pat Dye is already distancing himself from the hire, saying point blank that the hire is all on Jacobs. Former All-American running back Joe Cribbs said the hire was "interesting." Former Tiger lineman Cole Cubelic was more direct, ""I have a lot of respect for the guy (Chizik). But you look at his record as a head coach and you have to scratch your head and wonder what Auburn was doing and why they think it's a good move,"
Legendary kicker Al Del Greco refused to even comment. There are few takers on the Jay Jacobs train today.
Many questions are still to be answered. Who really pull the trigger on this hire? Was this Jacobs and Gogue's decision alone or did the Board of Trustee have input? Can Gogue and Jacobs survive what many are calling the most inept hire in college football history? Will Tiger fans ever really embrace a coach that's short on personality and is perceived as Auburn's version of Mike Shula?
As we've said all along, there's a massive leadership vacuum at Auburn University. Auburn people need a leader to emerge, someone who can wrestle power from those who've torn down the place we all love. It won't be easy. It won't be pretty. But now is the time to act. It's time for Auburn to take back their University. Let's hope and pray on this Sunday that a leader emerges that can move Auburn forward.
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way to go Jay
so what does Auburn have in common with Nebraska, Colorado, Notre Dame, Syracuse, and Washington?
they used to be college football powers who were driven into the ground and made irrelevant in the college football world thanks to really bad hires.
I just wish that island...
were somewhere other than Auburn…
By the way,...
can anybody identify the guy on the right side of the picture? He doesn’t look familiar, right off. Maybe an attorney of sorts,…given the brief case he’s carrying,…even though it looks like one of my wife’s purses…LOL. In the picture,…Gogue looks like he is just along for the ride,….based on the final outcome,…he probably was…
Gogue.....
is it my imagination or is he looking alot like Jim Nabors A.K.A. Gomer Pyle?
I would have gone to bammer if my grades hadn't been good enough to go to AU
Man, you nailed it...
I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. Good one.
Now that you mention it,…I do see the striking resemblance,…LOL
Wait a minute,...
it’s Moe, Larry, and Curly,…
Imagine this scene:
Jacobs: I think we should hire Gene Chizik.
Gogue: Shazam!!!!
by War Eagle Atlanta on Dec 15, 2008 10:56 AM CST up reply actions
Good one!
That’s probably about the extent of the logic that went in to this selection process…
Since last night
I have been walking around like a Baker acted family member cycling between mumbling and yelling “Gene F*&#$ing Chizak?!?!?!!!”. I can’t believe this is the best we can do…. I just don’t understand……
Butch Davis
Brian Kelly
Jimbo Fisher
Mike Leach
Turner Gill
Will Muschamp
Skip Holtz
Chris Peterson
Look at this list now… doesn’t look so bad does it?
Hating Lowder since 1993.
It's all about perspective.
What a lovely Christmas present, Jay. No really you shouldn’t have…..
by Tiger on the mountain on Dec 14, 2008 9:53 AM CST up reply actions
Seeing the list of coaches you've put up there...
I want to openly apologize to everyone on this blog who backed any of those coaches and others not mentioned in the list. I backed some of them,…but not all,…and now I would give almost anything for any one of them.
I got to be honest,…seeing that list hurts really bad about now. Kind of like a lingering bad hangover or a major toothache…or a buyer’s remorse thing,…buying a big ticket item and then wishing you hadn’t because there was something else better. Sheesh…..
I'm still dumbfounded.
…..I compared it yesterday, to Bama passing up Croom for Shula. But that comparison really doesn’t go deep enough. The closest comparison I can make is Joab Thomas’ hiring of Bill Curry, at Bama. Think about it. The Pres, without consulting anybody, goes out and hires a head coach with NO winning seasons under his belt as a head coach. Not only that, but the grad is from Georgia Tech, a school with which Bama had some bitter animosity towards. Bobby Dodd and Bear Bryant’s disagreement 25 years prior had torn the SEC apart, and led to Georgia Tech pulling out of the SEC. 25 years later, an air-head administrator hired a Georgia Tech grad. Curry never had a chance. Even when they won the SEC, people weren’t happy.
……At Auburn, we’ve possibly exceeded that act of stupidity. Gene Chizik was a capable, hard working defensive coordinator. As a head coach, he was a dismal failure. Even his area of expertise, defense, was awful at Iowa State. Then, there’s the past history of Chizik at Auburn. Unlike Bama’s situation, it’s only been four short years since Chizik jilted us, for the Texas job. Chizik all but called Auburn a dead-end job, a second-rate place with no future. Now we bring the traitor back, as the head coach? It boggles the mind! This guy left us high and dry, and started a revolving door of defensive coordinators. And now we have to rely on him to rebuild the program? My God, Jay Jacobs! I underestimated your stupidity!
…..I don’t know if I’ll even be able to watch, if Chizik brings Wayne Bolt with him. Bolt did ok as a Division I-aa coordinator at Troy, but when he jumped up to the mid-majors at UAB, he was in over his head. Watson Brown’s UAB teams were known for their defense, even shutting teams like LSU down, in a 2000 win over the Bayou Bengals on homecoming, 13-10. Under Bolt, UAB gave up an avalanche of points, eventually costing both Bolt and Watson Brown their jobs. At Iowa State, Bolt plunged a team that had gone to 5 bowl games in six years, to DEAD LAST in the Big 12 in total defense, this year. The Cyclones gave up a whopping 479 yards a game, this season. Bolt as an Auburn defensive coordinator, scares the heck out of me!
Bill Curry......
won at Ga Tech……recruited two national championship teams one at GT and one at Bama…..and won 10 games a year but just couldn’t beat AU. What are you telling me? ISU is gonna win an NC next year because of Chiziks Stellar recruiting?
I would have gone to bammer if my grades hadn't been good enough to go to AU
National championships, yes.
…..Bobby Ross won it with Tech in 1990, with SOME of Curry’s players. And Bama did in 1992, with a lot of Curry’s players.
…..Winning at Georgia Tech… well, I should have checked my records better. One bowl trip in 7 years. Records: 1-9-1, 1-10, 6-5, 3-8, 6-4-1, 9-2-1, 5-5-1. Overall, that’s 31-43-4.
More of the same
Everywhere Chizik has gone and failed he has ultimately blamed the program or the talent. Tommy and his coordinators sound familiar? IF Chizik fails at Auburn this go-round he will probably smear Auburn’s name in the press if he doesn’t blame the players(and that would be a difficult and surprising task). But I guess nothing could be more surprising than this decision in the first place.
I don't want to seem like a traitor but. . . I freakin love corndogs.
To Todd92 and anyone else I've disagreed with....
On Tuberville and how this season went down….I apologize from the deepest bowels of my being. I would never EVER would have wasted a word criticizing Tuberville OR Franklin or The Spread if I knew anything like this was going to happen. A head coaching search is a lot like going in for brain surgery. You do it right and everything bad in your life is good again, do it wrong and…well….. Jacobs by hiring Chizik decided not to operate and just decapitate the patient. I would have chosen an unproven co-ordinator than an ingrate who has only proven he excels at failing as a head coach.
Again all my apologies, Chizik may turn out ok but on the surface one of the worst hires in the history of sports….and I don’t even think I’m exagerating.
On what day did the Lord create Bear Bryant and couldn't he have rested on that day too?
Another bad sign is...
I read where some people are distancing themselves from commenting about the decision to hire Chizik. When asked to comment,…they will either say he is a “good” coach,…they don’t understand the hire,…or ‘no comment". The “no comment” replies are essentially saying, "you don’t want me to comment on it" or “I’m not touching that with a 10-foot pole”. And some of these are former players and a former coach.
Its all good Angus.....
nobody and I do mean NOBODY could have possibly predicted this clusterf@#k. We went from being a stable upper echelon SEC program that had one bad season to a total mess in the matter of a couple of weeks. And again we agree on what we would have done had we had the ability to choose. I am hoping we are all wrong and Chizik wins it all.
I would have gone to bammer if my grades hadn't been good enough to go to AU
This past month has been nothing but...
……waiting for the next bad thing to come down the feed reader. If Chizik ditches Wayne Bolt, I’ll breath easier, and feel like we’ve finally hit rock bottom, and it’ll get better. If Bolt’s our DC next year, look out. We’ll be looking back at 5-7, fondly, as a good record! Remember how our back seven looked clueless when Noel Devine and other backs were tearing up the field? That’ s Bolt’s specialty…
I keep waiting for the bad things to stop.
But then I picture Bolt as our DC and Nix as our OC. Then I open another bottle of wine…
by Tiger on the mountain on Dec 14, 2008 7:45 PM CST up reply actions
Oh, I am feeling a group hug......
pass the bottle of Scotch.
by Tiger on the mountain on Dec 14, 2008 7:41 PM CST up reply actions
everyone
(334) 844-9891
jacobjo@auburn.edu
Those are Jay’s phone number and Email adress , please write and call with all your concerns. Maybe we can get it through his head.
Auburn fans await ‘wow’ while receiving season ticket renewal packages in mail
Posted by Ray Melick — Birmingham News December 15, 2008 7:37 AM
Link: http://blog.al.com/ray-melick/2008/12/auburn_fans_await_wow_while_re.html
To say the hiring of Gene Chizik lacked the “wow” factor Auburn fans were hoping for is an understatement. The timing is questionable at best.
Not just Jay Jacobs’ announcement that his replacement for former Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville is Iowa State head coach Gene Chizik, he of the 5-19 career record, although there are plenty who question the timing of that.
No, what Jacobs may discover to be really bad timing is the mailing of renewal forms for Auburn’s “Tigers Unlimited Football Ticket Priority.”
The renewals were mailed last week, and donors started getting their renewal forms Friday and Saturday, just about the same time word started spreading that Jacobs was hiring Chizik.
If phone conversations with prominent Auburn boosters and e-mails from people claiming to be Auburn season-ticket holders is any indication, the early returns to the “Tigers Unlimited” fund may be limited, at best.
Such seems to be the depths of unhappiness over the hiring of Chizik.
Particularly when the early word out of Iowa State is that the Cyclones may be going after Buffalo head coach Turner Gill as Chizik’s replacement. Whoever Iowa State does get, Auburn fans will watch with great interest, knowing it’s a coach the Tigers could have gotten first.
To say the hiring of Chizik lacked the “wow” factor Auburn fans were hoping for is an understatement.
No matter how well Chizik does at today’s introductory press conference – and the betting here is that Chizik handles himself extremely well – Auburn has already “lost the press conference,” as the saying goes.
Chizik’s first task is going to be to sell himself to the Auburn faithful who have lost faith in the leadership of Jacobs and university President Jay Gogue.
There are Auburn fans who want him to answer for leaving his position as defensive coordinator at Auburn for the same position at Texas. Some seem to think of Chizik’s decision as a slap in the face of Auburn, that Chizik felt Texas was a better place from which to become a head coach than Auburn.
Never mind that it worked for Chizik, that he did get a head coaching job after only two years on the job with the Longhorns. Angry Auburn fans want to know how he is now going to lure a top-notch staff to Auburn. By promising them he’ll prepare them for future jobs on Mack Brown’s staff?
Chizik, through no fault of his own, will be starting out under such doubts from so much of his own school’s fan base that trying to win the commitment of recruits away from the likes of Alabama and Florida and Georgia may be easy by comparison.
His best chance to make up some of that ground in a hurry is by hiring a staff that brings a “wow” factor that Chizik’s hiring lacked. Whether that means raiding top schools to get top coaches who have national reputations, or find a way to bring home some top assistants with Auburn connections, such as Rodney Garner and Stacey Searels, the makeup of Chizik’s staff could smooth some very ruffled feathers.
The other is, of course, with some early recruiting victories. Nothing wins over hardcore fans like winning a few high-profile recruiting battles against the top teams in the country.
Meanwhile, those “Tigers Unlimited” envelopes will lie on desks all over the state, as fans who have poured so much of their hard-earned money into the Auburn football program overcome their objection to Jacobs’ direction.
Eventually, of course, Auburn fans will come around. They always do. They will mail in their donations to keep their seats in Jordan-Hare Stadium, because the same people who supported Shug Jordan supported Doug Barfield. The same people who backed Pat Dye fell in behind Terry Bowden.
The same people who supported Tommy Tuberville will find themselves drawn toward supporting Chizik, because they are Auburn fans first, and that’s what fans do.
Jay Jacobs is counting on it.
Without a doubt Auburn will support Chizik until it is evident he can't succeed......
or will continue until he steps down if he does succeed. That does not excuse Jacobs, Gogue, or the BOT from orchestrating the lunacy to begin with. No the Auburn nation is not upset with Chizik personally and we are even now ready to support him as our Coach. The Auburn family should relentlessly call for the resignations of those who would manipulate and bend Auburn to their desire with no concern for Auburn or its reputation or common good.
I would have gone to bammer if my grades hadn't been good enough to go to AU
Ahhhhhhh! I am sick….. I was hoping we would make a big splash, but no one knows we are in the water….
by Ghost of Tubberville on Dec 16, 2008 1:37 AM CST reply actions
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