First, I originally wanted to do a post as to my thoughts on where Gene Chizik went wrong. However I just did not have the motivation and I do not think anyone wants to read anything else about it. This blog however serves as an imperfect but almost complete history of Gene Chizik's tenure at Auburn. I started it before his first season started. It contains game reviews for every one of Gene Chizik's games at Auburn and plenty of other commentary good and bad. I will have to say here that not adjusting his defensive philosophy to mesh with Malzahn's offense and then trying to change it was one of Gene Chizik's biggest mistakes. That is a good segway to this list...
PROS (of bringing Malzahn back)
- There is no doubt that Malzahn's handling of the Cam-powered Auburn offense was one of the finest coaching jobs I have seen. Many Auburn fans including myself prefer an offensive coach ESPECIALLY after over a decade of defensive coaches completely reliant on their offensive coordinator. It is one of the biggest cons on that type of coach. Just look at the tenures of Tuberville and Chizik, they both got into trouble when they made bad picks at offensive coordinator. We now have an offensive philosophy that will not change as long as Malzahn is head coach.
- Chizik always came off as so disingenuous. His inane coachspeak got on everyone's nerves. He just always came off as trying so hard to show that he was cool and had seen everything. It just came off as a bad act to me. The guy was just so fake so much of the time. Gus Malzahn is not like that. While every coach has to constantly throw out cliches, Malzahn is a much more genuine. The guy is a real coach and it shows, not somebody trying to act like a real coach. He has won championships as a head coach.
- Coaching changes are tough on the current players. The new coach has to come in and show he is in charge and that usually entails being hard on the players. The players do not know the coach and it is usually tough times for awhile. Bringing back Malzahn only one year removed should alleviate a lot of that pain. Most of the players know and seem to like Malzahn. The offensive players will surely like going back to this offense especially the quarterbacks. Frazier and Wallace should be much better running this offense. The defensive players are looking forward to any change I would think. I am praying that Malzahn will move us away from the bend-but-don't-break philosophy of Chizik and Tuberville. Maybe just maybe we might even recruit some gasp... BIGGER DEFENSIVE PLAYERS.
- The fall of Gene Chizik was casting another shadow on a great day in Auburn's past. I am tired of every Auburn achievement being pushed aside everytime we have a coaching change. Nobody remembers the great seasons under coach Dye because of his perceived meddling in the program. Terry Bowden's name and subsequently the 1993 season are never spoken of. Tommy Tuberville and all the great things he did are buried by the current administration. Now it was looking like our national championship season was going to take a back seat to the downfall of Gene Chizik. At least bringing back Malzahn lets us hold on to the great 2010 season. It is now time to make things right with all our history even if people do not like the head coaches during those seasons.
- This move is helping Jay Jacobs stay in power at Auburn. I think Malzahn was pretty much the choice all along. He was a safe pick that most people would like or not completely hate and subsequently help Jacobs survive. I will continue to say that Jacobs "is a cancer that is killing Auburn and will make sure any success found like 2010 will be short lived." Basically nothing has changed in the Auburn administration except the football staff and I do not believe the football staff was the whole problem. They might lay low for awhile but Jacobs and his henchmen will continue to mess things up as long as they are at Auburn.
- As much as I criticized Gene Chizik he cannot be blamed for everything. Yes he slowed Malzahn down in 2011 but that does not excuse the horrible offensive game plans and execution against Arkansas, LSU, Georgia and Bama that season. Malzahn did do a horrible job in those games. Malzahn also took Mike Dyer at Arkansas State when he knew what he had been doing. Malzahn got out before the roof caved in but he was involved in the fall of the program. That has to be said. The biggest question I have heard on Malzahn is can he bring about and maintain the discipline needed to be a successful program. Every program has their problems but the amount of players Auburn has had get in trouble the last two years is ridiculous. It has to be stop.
Coaching changes usually hurt that year's recruiting. The night the hire was announced I thought we might escape this but no such luck. It looks like we are going to lose a lot of great prospects. We desperately need help on defense especially at linebacker and losing some of the best linebacker prospects in the country is going to hurt. A sub-par year recruiting could set Malzahn back a bit. Recruiting is an in an inexact science but the teams with the best players are the ones that win. Yes you have to coach them up as well but you also have to have the players. Auburn fans should not delude themselves, our best teams were loaded with really good players and most of them were big-time recruits.
I have gone back and forth on whether Malzahn should have kept Trooper Taylor to get some of these recruits on board. However at the end of the day considering every that has happened this season I agree with his decision to completely clean house. It is a shame Trooper Taylor was selling relationships to himself over recruiting a kid to Auburn. Let us just hope that Trooper was not doing anything worse with the NCAA poking around. We also do not know if that had anything to do with completely cleaning house on the staff. It also appeared to me that Trooper and Luper were more concerned with recruiting rankings than building a team.
Can Gus Malzahn and the staff he will hire be able to recruit the players needed to compete for an SEC championship in the current environment? That is the question. Auburn fans are quick to answer yes to that question but I do not think it is that easy an answer. People point quickly to 2004 and 2010. Well folks I hate to burst your bubble but the bulk of the 2004 team was recruited while Bama was in big trouble with the NCAA and the majority of the 2010 team was recruited Mike Shula's last year at Bama. People then point to Gene Chizik's last three "top ten" classes. Well I will point out again that those rankings were made on signing day. None of those classes would be ranked near as high the first day of practice the following year. Those classes are littered with kids that did not make it, character problems and good old-fashions "busts". There are some good players remaining but not near enough to win an SEC title.
It has never been tougher recruiting at Auburn. Right next to us $aban has Bama on top of the world, to the east Georgia has been to the SEC Championship game the last two years, to the west the Mississippi schools are both about as strong as I can ever remember and to the south Jimbo Fisher and Florida State are grabbing a lot of prospects in our areas. Auburn coaches have to work twice as hard as they have ever had to for recruits. The SEC's success is pushing every school to get better. Nearly every team in the league has a good coach especially in the SEC West.
Times are tough and while I think Gus Malzahn was a good hire I think people are underestimating how hard it is to comptete for an SEC championship right now. However the bottom line is that we at least have some hope and that is desperately needed after this last season. I hope that at the very least we will have a good offense during Malzahn's tenure and avoid the extreme ups and downs on offense we experienced under Tuberville and Chizik. I hope that will help recruiting. I hope we will run a defense that meshes with Malzahn's offense much better. I hope...
