Carnell addressed the coaching search looming over him while he pours himself into this team after the game. He said one of the most profound things I have heard in a long time. He said "my seat does not dictate my service." Please read that again: "MY SEAT DOES NOT DICTATE MY SERVICE." How many times have all of us been in situations where we could serve or serve more but decide not to because we are in an undeserved bad situation or dealing with a person we do not deem worth our time? We, shoot I, need to remember "my seat does not dictate my service." I have learned more from Carnell Williams in the last month than I would have ever believed. He is simply an amazing person with real maturity. He is someone I would want coaching my kids. He is a light in an increasingly dark world. I cannot remember anyone whether in church or anywhere else focusing on serving others like Carnell has the last month.
I agree that Carnell does not have hardly any coaching experience much less head coaching experience at this level but Auburn could sure do a lot worse than this man. In one way I really want him there but as I wrote last week I do not want to see him eventually become the villian. I do not want to watch him get fired like pretty much every other head coach does at big time football schools. I want him to stay at Auburn as an assistant but he has proven he can make a huge impact as a head coach. I hope he gets a chance to go and change lives and help kids like he has done the last month at Auburn. I also hope that some way and some how Auburn is able to navigate this whole process and treat Carnell right. He loves Auburn and it has shown for the last month. I do not want anything to happen to sour what he has done for Auburn over his entire career. I do not think you can underestimate how important it has been.
Unfortunately as I said in an earlier post, sports are unforgiving. They are not movie scripts. You just do not get the storybook ending and I do not think Carnell is going to get one this next week. This Auburn football team has some very good players but it is just not very good overall as you can still see each week. David Ashford appears to be a great person and fights his butt off however he is an abysmal quarterback. He just cannot even hit easy passes consistently. He is really bad. The same is still true of his offensive line. Bama is good enough to shut down the Auburn run game especially with no passing game. I fear that even with Auburn's rekindled spirit that this is going to be a bad one. This game is a lot more important to Bama this season and Auburn has been beaten badly every time in Tuscaloosa for over a decade now. Auburn's poor recruiting is about to be highlighted again in their annual final exam.
The bright spot I guess is that Auburn coaching search should end shortly after this game. Of course depending on the choice it might not be a bright sport but the last straw in a decade of bad choices by Auburn University. I was going to give some opinions on various candidates but that seems like a waste of time. I want to wait and just post my opinion on the actual choice as it could be one of the most important decisions ever made in the history of the Auburn football program. This new coach will inherit the worst Auburn roster since Shug Jordan took over in 1951. He will have to rebuild it in the toughest recruiting environment any Auburn head coach has ever seen. He will have to do this with Auburn's two biggest rivals currently considered the two best programs in the country. He will have to do this now with paying players legal and every football school desperate to get those players.
I guess this whole dark climate that seems to pervade everything is what has made this last month with Cadillac so special. As a school you have to establish core values, ethics you are committed to living by even when somebody else does not. For example, sportsmanship matters at all levels. That was proven again this week when two schools learned that "what goes around comes around". Last week both Tennessee and Florida punched in late touchdowns when they were far ahead. I understand continuing to run your offense with subs in and all that but when you have a huge lead and less than two minutes remain you shut it down. You do not beat a man when he is down, you do not needlessly rub it in. You live by what we teach our kids about right and wrong. These two great up-and-coming coaches decided to ignore that advice...
These two coaches got their late touchdowns rubbing it in on their beaten opponents. They were the toast of the highlights last week. However as I mentioned earlier that kind of garbage usually comes back to bite you and man did it ever this week. You usually do not see it come around quite this soon and this clear but this time you did. South Carolina (who Florida rubbed it in on) also got that 60 points Tennessee was so desperate to get last week and stomped the Vols 63-38 eliminating them from the playoffs. Florida and their know-it-all new coach Billy Napier went down to Vanderbilt which is always considered a disaster by any SEC team. These two guys were sure patting themselves on the back last week as they both ran it up on other teams but not so much this week.
Thank you Cadillac for all that you have done for Auburn and taught all of us this past month.
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