During a spring where I guess after reading other Auburn sites we are all supposed to be super excited about softball and gymnastics, I find myself not that pumped. Oh and I forgot the equestrian team. I do not mean to poke fun or marginalize these sports. I have a daughter who plays sports. I am all for women's sports and Auburn being successful in every sport it fields a team. However there are three large facilities built for the three largest and most popular sports at Auburn and they are men's football, basketball and baseball. Like it or not, these sports are the main indicator of athletic success at any university.
I am tired of many Auburn fans seemingly ignoring the absolute disasters men's basketball and baseball have become not to mention football at times. The NCAA men's basketball tournament is considered one of the greatest spectacles in all of sport. I am sorry people, I am not excited when our men's basketball team is not a part of it for the THIRTEENTH YEAR IN A ROW. And until they give Plainsman Park to the softball team, baseball is more important. Other than two great seasons in football these sports have not been successful at all during the decade plus reign of athletic director Jay Jacobs. Jacobs continuing to remain employed as Auburn's athletic director really is "The Big Con".
Here is Jacob's flowery bio from Auburn's website. The bio starts with his brilliant five goals which are basically the same five goals of any college athletic department. They are: "Winning, graduating student-athletes, managing the department's fiscal affairs, complying with SEC and NCAA rules and providing a positive gameday experience." First "providing a positive gameday experience" does not mean jack if you do not meet objective #1, winning. Jacobs can build all the fifteen million dollar scoreboards he wants but if the football team finishes last in the division, it really does not matter.
Auburn should be able to find plenty of other candidates that can handle graduating student-athletes, managing fiscal affairs and dealing with compliance. An AD can get himself fired by failing in those categories but any decent one should be able to take care of them. The difference between a great AD and the rest is winning and taking care of business in the rest of them. This is where Jay Jacobs has miserably failed and if he is conning people in the other categories like he tries to do in the "winning" category, he might be worse than even I think he is.
The next thing Jacobs brags about in his bio is "The Auburn Athletics Department has consistently ranked in the top 10 percent of the NACDA Directors Cup." Read it carefully, not the top ten but the top ten percent. I mean the number of athletically successful "Power 5" schools is not that big. I am not sure how great an accomplishment it is just being the top ten percent for overall athletics for Division 1 schools. It is good but I think Auburn could accomplish that feat without Jacobs.
Next we come to the national championships at Auburn since Jacobs took over... Auburn has clamed 11 national championships during Jacobs' reign but lets take a closer look. First, three of those national championships are from the equestrian team. Again I do not want to demean or take anything away from that great accomplishment but I am going to go out on a limb and say Jacobs has pretty much nothing to do with our equestrian team strength.
(NOTE: The equestrian team has just won another national championship this spring and shockingly they have not updated Jacob's bio with it yet so you will soon hear of another national championship won under him.)
Second, the rest of those except for football in 2010 and women's track in 2006 are all swimming and diving national championships and were all won under coach David Marsh except for 2009 which was won with his recruits. It is so pathetic that Jay Jacobs tries to take credit for anything David Marsh has done since Jacobs is widely credited with hastening Marsh's departure from Auburn. He can deny all he wants but there was friction between the two. Why Jacobs was not giving David Marsh anything he wanted is beyond me.
I stated earlier that the three men's major sports are the main indicators of athletic success at any university. As with just about any rule there are exceptions. There are times when a coach and a school becomes so good in one of the other college sports that they rise up and join football, basketball and baseball. This happened with swimming at Auburn with David Marsh like it did at Bama in gymnastics under Sarah Patterson or at Tennessee in women's basketball under Pat Summit. Most smart athletic directors then do anything they can do to keep these legendary coaches.
Bama and Tennessee did with Patterson and Summit. These coaches stepped down from their positions for health reasons. David Marsh left Auburn still in his prime after becoming one of the most successful coaches in the history of sport. He has more national championships than Patterson or Summit or even Bear Bryant. Marsh won twelve national championships at Auburn. Any decent athletic director should have done just about anything to keep him and Jacobs did not. He did not do everything he could to keep Marsh and then he tries to use Marsh's success for his own personal gain.
Jay Jacobs had little to nothing to do with David Marsh's success at Auburn. Marsh won five of those national championship before Jacobs even took over. I think you could even say seven. Jacobs is apparently claiming the two Marsh national championship from 2004 when Jacobs did not even officially take over till December of that year. Jacobs will stop at nothing to grab something that makes him look better. I think he did not like Marsh having a much higher profile than himself at Auburn. I think Jacobs wanted all coaches having success to be ones hired by him and maybe that is why he spent so much time trying to run Tuberville off and why I do not think he was too sad to see Marsh go.
So again we are left with the 2010 Auburn football national championship and a 2006 women's track national championship on Jacobs' resume. I guess Jacobs gets credit for hiring Chizik who hired Malzahn who convinced Chizik to recruit Cam Newton. However he also should get the due blame for Chizik's complete meltdown two years later. Also, the bulk of the 2010 team outside Cam Newton and a few more was recruited by Tommy Tuberville. The offensive and defensive lines were recruited by Tuberville. Also, all of the champions on the 2006 women's track team were seniors recruited before Jacobs ever took over.
The rest of Jacob's bio blathers on about all the building projects he has been involved in as well as media and apparel deals. Of course the first one he brags about is Auburn Arena which as I have said in this blog many times he and the Auburn administration deserve no credit for. They only built Auburn Arena for basketball because it was cheaper in the long run than renovating and maintaining the Beard Eaves mausoleum. The Auburn administration would get credit if it has been built after the great 1999 season or earlier.
Am I saying Jacobs deserves no credit for any success at Auburn? No. I am saying the record of success is much smaller than it is made out to be. This is also just establishing a base for the most damning evidence against Jacobs and that is Auburn's record in the men's major sports during his tenure. Most Auburn fans seem to have no idea how bad it is. It is always about how things are "looking better next year" yet that year never seems to come. I do not know think there is any athletic director in modern history that has survived at any of the SEC's traditional top tier schools with a record like Jacobs.
LET US LOOK AT THE NUMBERS... beginning with baseball since it is the first men's major sport that started after Jacobs took over in December of 2004. In the ELEVEN seasons since Jacobs took over Auburn has gone 137-193 in conference. This has included FIVE last place finishes in the SEC West compared to only one first place finish. In fact, the one first place finish in 2010 was Auburn's ONLY winning season in conference in the eleven seasons of baseball under Jacobs. Folks, that is TEN losing seasons in conference out of eleven under Jacobs. COME ON.
This has also included THREE coaching hires made by Jacobs, he inherited Tom Slater. It is still ridiculous though this man has gotten to make three hires in this sport. Especially after his first two were dismal failures culminating in the embarrassing hiring and firing of Sonny Galloway. Everything is supposed to change, again, with his latest hire in Butch Thompson yet at the date of this post Auburn is once again back in last place in baseball in the SEC West. Auburn is already guaranteed ANOTHER losing season in conference right now. That brings it to 11 out of 12 losing seasons under Jacobs. COME ON.
Moving to basketball which I pretty much covered in my last post but let's just do a quick recap... Auburn is an ABYSMAL 58-126 in basketball under Jay Jacobs. This has included THREE last place finishes and as with baseball only ONE season with a winning conference record and NO NCAA tournament appearnaces. Like baseball that is TEN losing seasons in conference out of eleven under Jacobs. During this time Jacobs also made the worst hire in Auburn basketball history in Tony Barbee whose surly conduct was about as embarrassing as Sonny Galloway in baseball. COME ON.
Some people would argue that he made the best hire in Auburn basketball history in Bruce Pearl. Technically that is right but going after a disgraced Pearl was an obvious move anyone at Auburn would have done. First, Auburn would never even have a chance with Pearl without his NCAA violations at Tennessee. Next, nobody was going to give Pearl, who was still under an NCAA show cause penalty, the money a desperate Auburn was so it was not like it took much skill or maneuvering to get him. I am glad we got him but I do not give Jacobs much credit for "pulling it off".
Finally, we come to football... first are we supposed to give Jacobs a lifetime contact because we won an SEC and national championship in football in 2010 and the SEC again in 2013? It seems many Auburn fans would answer "yes" to that question. I guess all I can do is agree to disagree. Jacobs started his career as AD at Auburn embarrassing himself and the university with his public feud with Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville. It was more than obvious that Jacobs wanted Tuberville gone and wanted to make his own hire in football. That is why I do not think Tuberville's football record should count much for Jacobs.
In football we are only 48-40 in the SEC under Jacobs WITH Tuberville and ONLY 28-28 WITHOUT. That is counting Auburn's 8-0 and 7-1 records in 2010 and 2013 folks. Jacob's first embarrassed himself with his public bickering with Tuberville and then topped that by running one of the most embarrassing coaching searches ever that culminated in the hiring of Gene Chizik. It was obvious in both cases how inexperienced and unqualified he was to be an athletic director. Things were looking bad till the magical 2010 season.
Again though as I stated earlier the bulk of the 2010 team outside Cam Newton and a few more was recruited by Tommy Tuberville. The offensive and defensive lines were recruited by Tuberville. There were 27 seniors on that 2010 team and that was the foundation Newton was able to work his magic on. If Cam Newton had come back for his senior year in 2011, Auburn would still have gone 7-5. The offensive and defensive lines were terrible plus several other spots that had been manned by seniors the year before. It is hard to give Jacobs much credit for things done by Tuberville because again he made it clear he did not like or want Tuberville.
Of course, even if you give Jacobs full credit for 2010 you also have to give him full credit for 2012, arguably the worst season in the history of Auburn football. It was a meltdown of unprecedented proportions. That was his guy and the buck stopped with him. Jacobs should have been gone after a season that bad along with his failures in baseball and basketball I list above. However a weak president not wanting to rock the boat before his retirement and an even weaker board of trustees allowed him to stay. Those same reasons are why he continues to enjoy job security.
We now come to Malzahn and opinions obviously vary on him and his future at Auburn. Let's just look at the facts and those are that Malzahn is 13-11 in the SEC and has one first place finish and one last place finish. He did a great job in 2013 but has done a mediocre to bad job the last two seasons. This has culminated in a 2-9 record in conference since Auburn won at Ole Miss on November 1st in 2014. Auburn has gone 0-5 in conference games at home during that time. I do not know how hot Malzahn's seat is but we know nobody is super secure in the SEC. Is the Auburn leadership going to let Jacobs select yet another football coach if things go bad? I shudder at the thought.
I did not even mention the cowardly way Jacobs tried to hide behind a committee of Auburn's two greatest players when hiring Malzahn. I cannot fathom watching him lead a third head football coach search. On top of that, as I will continue to point out, Malzahn and all future Auburn head football coaches can thank Jacobs for having to play Georgia and Bama basically back-to-back on the road every other year. That one thing might be Jacobs biggest failure at Auburn as it has doomed Auburn to basically never having a chance to win the SEC in football in even years.
There you have it. Again, Jacob's football hires are 28-28 in conference with two first place finishes and two last place finishes. Auburn's baseball record is 137-193 in conference with only one winning season and five last place finishes in eleven years (soon to be twelve) under Jacobs. Auburn's basketball record is again 58-126 in conference with only one winning season and three last place finishes in eleven years under Jacobs. Those teams play in Auburn's largest sports facilities on campus and bring in the bulk of the revenue that runs the athletic program.
Auburn's men's major sports outside two magical years in football have been spectacularly awful under Jay Jacobs. He has had over a decade running Auburn's athletic department but has failed in his stated goal of winning in the most important sports on campus. He has been given more than enough time to try and successfully run Auburn's athletics department. It is obvious now that he is not the man for the job and change is needed. There is absolutely no reason Auburn should be this inconsistent or flat-out bad in the men's major sports. How much longer do we have to suffer through this? LOOK AT THE NUMBERS. #FIREJAYJACOBS.
