Replacing Tuberville
12-22-08
By: Mark

My dad thinks Sean Connery was the best James Bond. My uncle thinks the best was Roger Moore. I like Pierce Brosnan's version. Why? It's probably because I saw his Bond movies first. I saw them in theaters, they had more action and cooler gadgets than the previous ones. Bond movies with Connery and Moore were boring to me*.

I freaked out when I learned Daniel Craig was going to be the next James Bond. The dude had BLOND HAIR. James Bond isn't supposed to have blond hair! I was very against it.

I eventually saw Casino Royal and it was completely different from the cheesy Peirce Brosnan movies I had previously enjoyed – yet it was still awesome. Change isn't always bad.

Like Brosnan, Tommy Tuberville is the only Auburn football coach I've ever known. I vaguely remember Terry Bowden. I liked Bowden because he showed that a guy could be successful despite being short and socially awkward (it gave me hope). But, Tuberville has lead Auburn for as long as I've been watching Auburn football. It's going to be hard to adjust.

Like with Connery and Moore, I fail to see what the big deal is when it comes to Pat Dye. Similarly, people probably don't understand what I see in Tommy Tuberville or Pierce Brosnan. And like I was with Daniel Craig, I'm also finding myself very skeptical of Gene Chizik's ability to succeed.
As fans, our perceptions are so biased when it comes to the old guys that it's very hard to judge the new guy. We're Auburn fans, so we're going to support Gene Chizik until he gives us a reason not to. Why should we support the new Auburn coach?

Because it's fun.

Don't be an Auburn football fan because you have a degree from Auburn. A degree doesn't require you to cheer on Auburn's equestrian team or to even know what equestrian is (I don't – but apparently Auburn is pretty good at it). Don't be an Auburn football fan because the team wins championships. It's not about championships. If it was about championships, your fandom has mostly been in vein. Be an Auburn fan because, for whatever reason, it's fun.

I'm hoping the Gene Chizik years are fun.

Let's start with the bad news though; Now that Gene Chizik is head coach, I'm going to have to make some unfortunate revisions to my previously held football beliefs. I can no longer fault Nick Saban for leaving the Miami Dolphins. Voluntarily leaving a team worse off than a coach found it is now officially “Ok – but sorta frowned upon” and not “Horrible – something that the absolute scum of the Earth does”.


Moral relativism is wrong with the sole exception of being a sports fan. It's better to revise your own ethical code than to make one-time exceptions because “Alabama did it too”.

I'm being petty when I say this, but I don't like how leaving Auburn turned out to be the best career move Chizik ever made. Tuberville and Borges had the opportunity to make lateral moves like Chizik did after the 2004 season – but they didn't. What did sticking with Auburn get them? Fired. What did leaving give Chizik? Eventually, a head coaching job... and the #1 coaching job in all the universe after going 5-19 as a head coach. (He must have a really good agent. Booo.)

It's hard to rally behind someone who just got a raise even though his last team regressed in terms of wins and losses. Didn't Auburn just fire someone for that same reason? It's hard to believe that Tommy Tuberville wasn't allowed to call 2008 a mulligan when his successor's entire head coaching career to date must be ignored.

There is reason to hope. Chizik can give Auburn fans immediate hope by hiring an elite coaching staff.

These days, it seems like coordinators make or break teams more than head coaches do. The nature of college football requires the head coach to be a manager type more than in the past.

Cable TV, local news and the Internet are all making the coaching profession a smaller world. Head coaches are required to manage more while coordinators and assistants are having to pick up slack as playcallers and position specialists.

Today, head coaches make far more money than their athletic directors. It's weird for an employee to make more money than the boss, but it makes perfect sense here. I imagine that there will soon be a day where offensive and defensive coordinators will make more money than the head coach. Head coach salaries are still rising every year, but coordinator salaries are rising at a much faster pace.

Coaches are almost always coordinators before they become a head coach. However, the job description for a coordinator is very different from the job description for a head coach. I imagine the difference between a coordinator and a head coach is similar the difference between an engineer and someone who manages engineers.

The best engineer managers are people who used to be engineers themselves. Also, the better engineers tend to be better managers. However, this does not mean that a good engineer will be a good manager. Many qualities of a good engineer are actually bad qualities of a manager. I believe the same is true for coordinators who become head coach. Good coordinator qualities can become bad qualities for a head coach.

I don't think it's a given that Will Muschamp would be a good head coach for this reason. Sure, he has “fire in his belly”, but can a guy who gets as emotional as he does really make the best decisions in an environment where decisions of great consequence must be made so quickly?

It's ridiculous that some blogs mentioned Muschamp's ability to injure himself with a headset as a positive thing. Don't hire an engineer just because you heard that he once accidentally stabbed himself with a pencil. That doesn't necessarily mean he has “fire in his belly”. That probably means he's clumsy at best, an idiot at worst. The same goes for coaches who bleed and cuss on the sideline.

Being a good coordinator is not an automatic sign that one would be a good head coach. It just means that it's more likely.

Throughout the coaching search, newspaper reporters claimed that the search was focusing on successful head coaches at small schools and successful assistant coaches at large schools. The questions concerning these candidates were similar to one which always comes up during presidential elections;


Which is better? A candidate with a little executive experience (a governor or mayor), or a candidate with a great amount of experience in the legislative branch?

Those in the legislature have no executive experience, which is not good for someone who wishes to have the country's top executive spot. However, these candidates have been in DC for a long time and are able to observe previous presidents' actions. Those with executive experience have seen very little of what happens in DC, but have experienced many of the same problems as the president, just on a smaller scale.

Turner Gill was similar to candidates Sarah Palin and Barack Obama. Like Sarah Palin, Gill's greatest accomplishment was that he had a successful tenure as an executive in the frozen north. Gill is similar to Barack Obama because both men have six letters in their first name.

Gene Chizik has not proven himself as a good head coach yet, but it doesn't mean he can't be a good one at Auburn. If nothing else, at least he's shown that he won't need to wear a football helmet to protect himself from himself during games. What scares me is the rumor that the new Auburn regime will have a heavy Dye influence to it.

There is no doubt in my mind that Pat Dye is an Auburn man. He's one of Auburn's most successful coaches, and Auburn fans love him. He obviously only wants what's best for Auburn. However, as Pat Dye has proved in the past, the road to NCAA probation is paved with good intentions.

Most Auburn fans I know speak of Pat Dye in the highest regard and consider him to be Auburn's best coach of the modern era of Auburn football. Personally, I think Tuberville was Auburn's best coach. I never saw Pat Dye coach for Auburn so I can't judge him with an unbiased opinion. The record books tell me that Pat Dye had a very good record at Auburn - practically equal to Tuberville's. Dye won 69% of his games, Tuberville won 68%.

Considering their nearly equal records and equal time spent as Auburn's head coach – I give the tiebreaker to Tuberville since, well, he didn't cheat. Also, Finebaum doesn't make Tuberville come close to tears nearly every week on his radio show like he does Pat Dye.

As you can probably tell, I'm a little bummed. But, uhh, that's a part of the fun? For reasons which will probably never be fully known, Tommy Tuberville won't be Auburn's coach next year. It was a fun 10 years, and we're going to have to move on if we're going to enjoy watching football in the upcoming seasons. I'll have to do exactly what Pat Dye supporters have already done – support the new guy, and whoever comes after that. They've done a good job. They've had fun. I've had fun. I'm on board for Auburn's reboot of the football program. Gene Chizik is a good guy and a great defensive coordinator. I think he can be Auburn's next great coach. I'm excited to watch the next chapter of Auburn football unfold.

WAR EAGLE!

E-mail Mark at mark@theauburner.com

* Here's what I mean by "better"; People will always remember Auburn's 1957 team as one of Auburn's best teams. However, if a time machine was used to pit Auburn's 1957 team against Auburn's 2008 team - who would win? It would probably be the 2008 team because they're faster, stroger and know more about the game. The 1957 team, and the old Connery movies, are considered better because they were the better than their competition. Connery and 1957 Auburn achieved more, but Brosnan and recent Auburn teams are quantifiably better.


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