Reading the quotes from the inside and the outside of the Auburn and Tennessee programs, you know who has to feel like a complete idiot these days?
George O’Leary. I bet he’d like a mulligan on that resume he submitted to Notre Dame.
It wouldn’t matter to Pat Dye, whose ability to read men’s souls and predict their future is legendary.
“[Chizik’s] record don’t make any difference,” Dye said after the news conference. “Coach Bryant won one game his first year at Texas A&M. Coach Jordan won seven his first two years at Auburn. His record, that record don’t mean nothing. We hired a man and a coach, not a record.”
….
“Saban went 6-6 last year and got his a– beat by Louisiana-Monroe at Alabama,” Dye said. “Can you imagine that? Huh? You think those Alabama people were proud of Saban when they walked out and got their a– beat by Louisiana-Monroe. It happens, you know?”
See what I mean? If a national championship – which Saban can boast of and Chizik, unfortunately, cannot – doesn’t matter, why should a degree?
Same deal at Tennessee, as we’re assured by one Weston Wamp:
… At this point, too much attention has been paid to the few deficiencies on Lane Kiffin’s resume and too little attention has been paid to the fact that his father, an elite NFL coach, is coming with him to run his son’s defense, therefore allowing the younger Kiffin to focus primarily the offense, something he has proven he can do very well.
Of course, that assurance doesn’t stop Mr. Wamp from dumping all over Chizik’s resume which, when you look at it carefully, isn’t very different from Kiffin’s. Except for parentage.
By the way, Tennessee and Auburn face off October 3, 2009. As Dye might say, the preliminary punditry for that game almost writes itself, don’t it?
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UPDATE: USC beat writer Scott Wolf says about Kiffin that for UT it was a package deal with Daddy, or no deal at all. (h/t Doc Saturday)
Get The Picture 
The more I think about the Lane Kiffin hire, the less sense it makes. When was the last time somebody at a program of UT’s stature made a head-coaching hire based on an assistant the HC promised to bring in?
A co-worker of mine thinks it’s a great move because it will allow Lane to “learn” the head-coaching ropes under his dad, but to me that’d make it an even dumber decision. Again, what in the world would a program like Tennessee want with a head coach who still needed to “learn” how to do the job? And what kind of a message does it send if people get the impression that the DC, not the HC, is really the one in control? It’s like a Bobby-Bowden-at-FSU situation, only at the opposite end of the age spectrum.
If Tennessee really wanted Monte, they should’ve hired Monte. Hell, he’s demonstrated exactly as much aptitude for head coaching as his kid has, if not more (he at least went 16-17 at N.C. State in the early ’80s).
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I think UT had two reasons for the hire. 1. They were faced with replacing a legend (small L) and paying a S load of money to said legend. 2. They rolled the dice on a no buy out sort of HC.
It could work and so could C(whatever) at Auburn. We won’t know until the rubber meets the road.
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