The arms race is now fully underway. It began with Urban Meyer and the resurgence of Florida. Close behind was Alabama with Nick Saban. Then other schools began to react. Now Lane Kiffen is anointed at Tennessee, while Meyer’s protege Dan Mullen is being touted to turn around Mississippi State, and our own Gene Chizik tries to find his way on the Auburn sidelines.
Even Steve Spurrier tends to be forgotten in the coaching hotbed that is the SEC.
Yes, it’s a ‘new SEC’ today. The coaches are obsessed with winning. The recruiting landscape is like nothing we’ve ever seen. The television dollars are flowing like wine. There is no longer a margin for error or patience with losing. Everybody wants the prize. And the prize is not the SEC Championship, but the National Championship, which an SEC team has claimed each of the last three years.
This new environment provides a challenge for the Auburn Tigers. Gene Chizik arrived on campus with one of the biggest disadvantages in college football history. He landed at the airport in the midst of controversy, with many media members crying racism over his hiring, and even more complaining about his record at Iowa State.
In addition, Chizik arrived at the height of recruiting power for Alabama, Florida, LSU and Georgia. Each ranked in ESPN’s Top 6 in 2009 recruiting rankings. Each school is taking care of it’s territory. And since Auburn’s territory has historically overlapped these schools, that means potential trouble for the Tigers’ recruiting efforts.
It seems Chizik is set up for failure. But an interesting thing has happened on the Plains. Gene Chizik has won over many loyal Auburn fans. While many fans hid their faces in shame, Chizik assembled what most analysts have praised as a solid coaching staff. Then the coaches got creative, and that’s where the excitement begins.
There is hope for today and hope for tomorrow. The hope for today rests in the abilities of the new coaching staff to get more out of the current Auburn players than Tommy Tuberville’s staff could last year. Gus Malzahn and Ted Roof both have a track record that leaves fans optimistic that better days are on the horizon on both sides of the ball.
The hope for the future rests in recruiting, where Chizik’s staff, led by Curtis Luper and Trooper Taylor, has come up with creative ways to make Auburn relevant in a difficult recruiting environment. Big Cat Weekend, and the Tiger Prowl tour, were both large in terms of media hype, but larger for Auburn in terms of building the important relationships you must have with coaches and players to succeed consistently at recruiting. And Auburn is challenging seriously for top recruits, something that has not happened much in the last five years.
It will take another level of creativity, and a lot of hard work, for Auburn to stay competitive in the new landscape of the SEC. Auburn’s challenge will be to continue to find innovative ways to carve out a recruiting base that brings a solid flow of good players. We will also soon discover if Chizik and his staff are as impressive on the field as they have been off of it.
Because as we discovered with Tommy Tuberville and Phillip Fulmer, in today’s SEC, not moving up means moving out. And ultimately the truth on Gene Chizik will be made clear on Saturday afternoons.
Most of us are cautiously optimistic.
Entries (RSS)