Quote Originally Posted by bobelle34:
Respect to you Jimmy and a lot of what you speak of has merit, but i think you are off base on a few things.
1. Chizik ran his own program freely. After the BCS in 2010 he let some things slide. The biggest being the conditioning program and the undermining of SC coach Yoxall. He also had a falling out with Malzahn.
2. I don't think Chizik is HC material. He stepped in at Auburn with Tubberville with an established defense and was successful. Did the same thing at Texas. Way too much credit given. Failure at Iowa State, i understand he inherited a freshman/sophomore team and couldn't do much with that in 2 years.
3. Contrary to popular belief. Bobby Lowder, Jimmy Rains and Pat Dye are not the puppet masters anymore. That ended after jetgate and the bobby petrino fiasco. Might not have ended, but it's a lot less significant than it was with Tubs or Bowden. Both of them ran theirselves out.
4. Yes there is a cancer at Auburn. It starts with AD Jacobs and he should have been fired along with Chizik. Jacobs failures extend throughout the entire athletic dept. The cancer extends with the president and the BOT and none of them know a thing about running a football program or an athletic program.
5. Saban does not have full control of Alabama! Mal Moore does, along with a host of wealthy alumni. Let Saban lose to Malzahn for 4 or 5 years in a row and the rings won't mean anything to them. They will run him off. Saban is about to win his 3rd BCS title at bama and he still has to put up with videos of Bear Bryant appearing on the big screen every tv timeout. Hell, Paul Finebaum is probably about even with Saban on control of the football program.
Auburn is and always will be the red headed step child to Alabama and that's fine with me. We've owned the series since 1982 and will be just fine.
I wear Auburn colors because i graduated from there. Most Alabama fans wear the gear because they went to Wal-Mart.
1. Chizik had no control whatsoever over any hires. That means he was not even allowed to run his own system. He was forced to run the system of the coaches that were hired for him. Therefore, I don't even know what Chizik's philosophy is on either side of the ball. When Chizik wanted to unburden the program of the biggest cancers, he was overruled. When you run a program in this manner, you undermine the authority of the head coach. That is exactly why the players didn't respect his authority. Even the players knew he was a puppet.
2. I agree that Chizik is not a very good coach. I said so many times. That said, it's difficult to get a true measure of his coaching ability given the circumstances that were foisted upon him.
3. Popular belief is 100% correct, and this hire proved it. Dye wanted Kirby Smart, but declined to offer him the job when he demanded full control of the program. Dye will never give up full control as long as he's still tipping up shot glasses.
4. Jacobs is another puppet. I doubt he had any input whatsoever on the coaching hire.
5. Saban has absolute control over football operations at Alabama. Mal Moore is his boss.
You appear to be the type of Auburn fan who can't come to grips with the reality of the internal turmoil taking place within the program. I spoke about it at length before the season began (link above). I described Chizik as a puppet, and the program as being an out-of-control tire fire. I said the team would be terrible, would begin the season 1 & 4 and would not qualify for a bowl game.
Meanwhile Auburn fans like you who refuse to deal with reality were trying to convince me how they were going to compete for a SEC title. All the signs the signs that Auburn was a train wreck were there pre-season. How is it that I was able to see it and the average Auburn fan couldn't??? It's the same thing that afflicts to this day - your warped perception of reality.