I know taking advice from former Auburn offensive coordinators – amazingly enough, two of Tuberville’s former staffers are up for the Broyles Award this year – is probably the last thing Gene Chizik wants to hear right now, but something Tony Franklin said bears repeating as we enter into what very well may turn out to be Chizik’s farewell on the Plains today:
“New England is the best offense in the NFL for one reason,” Franklin said. “They play like colleges do. They play no-huddle, fast-tempo, they change tempos and they do what they have to do to win. I think Belichick would probably disagree with his buddy.”
“It’s the great equalizer,” Franklin said. “People say Baylor can’t play defense. You know what? Before Art Briles got there, they couldn’t play offense, either, and they couldn’t win games. Now all of a sudden, Baylor can beat people because they can outscore people.
“Obviously if you can line up and you’ve got better players than everybody else and play great defense and eat clock and win as many games as you can, that’s a great way of playing football, too. The problem is, 95 percent of us don’t have that type of talent to do that.
“So when they fall into that trap of saying, ‘Here’s how Alabama has won championships. Here’s what we should do,’ to me, that’s the trap that Coach Saban would want everybody to fall into because, the reality of it is, he’s going to have better players most of the time.”
Chizik walked right into that trap with eyes open when he ditched Malzahn and elected to go with a more traditional offensive scheme. I read the other day that Chizik without Malzahn has a 2-22 record as a head coach against D-1 teams. Choosing a course of action with the thought that Auburn would be able to go toe-to-toe with Saban’s Process, even with guys like Luper and Taylor luring recruits to Auburn, was a fool’s errand from the start and Chizik is about to be presented with the check.
It will be interesting to see where Auburn goes from here. Does it proceed to act as if it’s part of the five percent that can line it up with Saban, or does it go the let’s try to outscore ’em route – a path that served Texas A&M pretty well this year (and made Ole Miss a pain in the ass to play)?
Get The Picture 
Doesn’t look like they can go toe to toe with anyone’s process right now, much less Saban’s.
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Not a chance… The Chizik family should check into Valdosta. Lots of football has beens coaching there. Ask for Matt Dunnagan he will hook you up.
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UGA being to their East only makes it harder for the Plainsmen to recruit pro-style players.
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Not to mention Bama to their west and FSU to their south.
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Chizik wasn’t a particularly good head coach before Auburn hired him, there was no Saban to contend with Iowa State and he still had a losing record, while there is a kernel of truth to what Franklin is saying which is if you are weak school without a good recruiting base then by all means gamble on the spread/outscore them approach with the right players at the skill position you can turn those 4-8’s into 8-4’s, the reality is Cam Newton came in and give Chizik a great season, then he “regressed to the mean”, it’s not much more complicated than that.
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Hope so…Hope so …. Good morning BD.. Are you going to the game?
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Tom Brady plays for the Patriots.
14 of Malzahn’s wins with Chizik came with a feller named Cam Newton.
There were also rumblings that Chiz wouldn’t let Gus run the whole shooting match while with the Boogs. Not sure how much it would’ve helped for Gus to stay.
However, given the success of Freeze in turning around a talentless Ole Miss team, I think Gus has a good shot to return to Auburn.
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I will be there with my impressionable children so they can have this beat down seared on their brains.
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Roll Tide! My grown children 29 and 25 will be watching from home. My Grandson’s first Iron Bowl, (He is two, but has the mind and physical abilities of a seven year old. He has a Georgia Jersey that was his Mother’s when she was two. We hid it in his closet and I told him Nana would call when it was time to put it on. My Son-In-Law will be livid.
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• Mike Bobo, Georgia, Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks
Is on the list. Who do we blame for that?
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How about Cain…Let’s blame Cain. It just seems to be his turn.
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+1 for the Elvis reference!
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My fav is “Government burglers took it long before I could mail it to you Honey.”
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So is Charles Kelly, Defensive Coordinator, Georgia Tech. Clearly this is a popularity contest.
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How about Trooper Taylor for beauty contest hyperbola?
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I’d like nothing more than for Chizick and Derek Dooley to stick around. My UT and AU friends thought they were the saviors but I knew better. One consolation is homeboy Trooper Taylor can pack his bags. Maybe he’ll land at Southern Cal. Great fit with Laner
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+1 Kiffykins and Trooper, a match made in heaven!
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Maybe UT will hire Cheatsit and Auburn will hire SOD!!!
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If either of those buffoons gets a major college position in the next five years I’ll eat my hat.
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here’s an AU rumor I’ve heard around Columbus: the money boys at AU leaked info to the NCAA, because they figure they can skip paying the buyout if they terminate the Chiz for cause.
seems hard to believe, because the Chiz knows where a lot of the bodies are buried (one would assume), and it could easily turn into the kind of circular firing squad that would cripple AU for years, but boy, I sure would LIKE to believe it.
GATA!
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He found out were the bodies were buried after he became the Coach. It’s like becoming Pres. of the US. You have to ask yourself. “What have I gotten myself into now.”
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I imagine the NCAA has a kernel or two. I suspect they’ll find a way to get out of buyout without full blown NCAA hammer dtopped
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Good line, 81 Dawg , esp on the “circular firing squad”….We can only hope. Makes me think of the shoot-out scene in “Open Range” (on TV last night, to my delight!). Sooner or later the lights going to shine on the Auburn darkness and when it does, there will be no honor among thieves.
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But they will still be thicker than thieves.
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Yeah, I don’t think much will come of it. The NCAA has had them in there sights before and couldn’t pull that trigger. (Death penalty wise, anyways). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzDCH_MGQXI
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I don’t know what coach in his right mind would go coach at Auburn or Tennessee, we have our share of crazies and dumbasses but at those two schools the crazies and dumbasses have a governing majority. They are like the classic picture of the cat looking in the mirror and seeing a lion, and are pathologically ungrateful, I would like to see both become permanent cellar dwellers.
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Brandon, there are instances in the history of college football where top teams (Ole Miss, Army, Navy to name a few) have fallen down and never recovered. Minnesota was THE top team in the country (winning multiple natties) way back when and now they can’t even have a winning season. Jerry Kill may have them coming back at least to respectability this season. I think UT is already in danger of that happening to them. UT has only had 1 winning season since 2007 and that was 7-6 (’09). Now they are going to have to go through a coaching change again. If they are really stupid (and I’m betting they are) they’ll hire another mediocre HC who will fire almost all the staff and completely start all over again. 3 more losing seasons and then they get to do it all over yet again. HS kids only remember back about 4-5 years. UT’s losing streak is now 3 years in a row. I don’t see much hope for next season. When the losing at UT gets to about 5-6 years in a row the Vols won’t even be on any good player’s radar. We may be looking at a fall from grace like Ole Miss, Minnesota, Army, Navy and others have experienced where UT never comes back. I’m hoping……..
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Well now, that would just break my heart.
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bet they are missing big Phil about now….
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They are not coming back…ever. Jesus will back before that happens.
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I think a large part of the equation of how long they stay down is determined by how sustained is Georgia’s success against them. If Georgia (or florida) collapses it would leave a vacuum for them to step into. Otherwise I don’t see them coming back on their own. They’ll need someone else’s weakness.
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Good observation. Also, the ascent of South Carolina has pushed UT down even further. If Georgia and Florida remain good and Vandy continues to get better then UT is likely to be fighting UK to stay out of the SEC East cellar.
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But I thought Gruden?……
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South Carolina is a good point. SC and Clemson are keeping most of the best players that state at home now and stealing a lot of the NC players that UT used to get. Of course everybody recruits GA so with them being down, they have no pipeline from here anymore. They do have to go even further afield to find enough top flight talent to compete at a high level again.
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As much as we might enjoy that and I do agree that if it were to happen to any of the traditional SEC powers, UT would be the most likely candidate, but I think they have too much of the necessary infrastructure in place to stay down for good. With as much money involved with the program and being in the talent rich SE, they will eventually climb back up…. unfortunately.
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