I think Auburn is going to get into its coaching search and discover that they are not as desirable of a job as, say, Washington. Washington is #1 in their state, is in a wonderfully attractive city and region, is in a place where a little bit of success would make them the #2 or #3 team in the whole conference fairly easily, and no one out there is claiming they know football better than you. Heck, at this point Clemson is probably a better job. Auburn, in my opinion, is probably about as attractive of a job as Georgia Tech is, perhaps even less attractive because the in-conference competition is so tough.
I don't think Auburn is a place that is going to be able to get a hot young coach on the rise. They are going to have to find either a not-so-hot name or a coordinator who will jump at the first chance to get a promotion.
I don't think I imagined it would be this bad though.
I find it absolutely incredible that Auburn has apparently decided to hire Gene Chizik, formerly of Iowa State, where he compiled a staggeringly bad 5-19 record over two seasons. Just to give an indication, in the two years before Gene Chizik was hired at Iowa State, the Cyclones went 11-13. So Iowa State was 6 games worse in the two years with Chizik than they were in the two years before they hired him. And it's not like the competition was killer. The Big 12 North has not been a bad place to play the last few years.
Auburn fans are understandably irate. Non-Auburn fans are perplexed. Is this really the best they could do?
This hire generates no enthusiasm for the program. Gene Chizik will not be able to convince top recruits in Alabama (or in any other state, really) to forego the powerhouses around them in order to play for this team. I don't get it. I don't know what they were thinking. I can think, off the top of my head, of 10 or 15 coaches who probably would have been interested in the job and who would have been better hires than Chizik.
In fact, one is surprised that Chizik was even considered. He is not even remotely a hot name in coaching circles these days.
And just to throw this out there, I think the Black Coaches Association will and probably should make a big stink over this hire. Not all hirings of white coaches are offensive, but when a retread like Gene Chizik gets a big pay raise after failing at his previous job, while coaches like Turner Gill and Dewayne Walker are passed over, they have every reason to complain.