Head Coach searches......

[jakez4ut]

a couple years ago i remember posting about some of the coaching searches that were going on at the time.........UNC hired Butch Davis, NCSU hired Tom Obrien and a couple of others as well.......Urban Meyer to FL, Nick Saban to Bama etc.......

the thing about these hires that stood out to me was the timing of the hire. whether it was of their own doing, a la UNC firing Bunting in order to get a guy that was then unemployed in Butch Davis before anyone else could, or it was a last ditch effort, a la Bama and Nick Saban after several other "1st choice" candidates turned their nose up, Saban was then able to be swept off his feet by the Tide after all.

then this year comes along......

Clemson gets things going first, which at the time i thought would be a huge advantage, but they wound up going ultra conservative by hiring from within. In all fairness, i think Dabo will do OK at Clemson. But then we throw our hat in to the ring as well by ousting Fulmer with 4 weeks left in the Season. 1 month later we hire Lane Kiffin.

Washington hires Steve Sark.....Brian Kelly gets locked up at Cincy, Leach is negotiating a great new deal at TTU, Muschamp is deemed CIW at UT. Mullen hired at MSU.

and then Auburn fires Tubberville.

WTF? after all that happened, now Auburn makes their move.

nice. talk about great timing.

Mushcamp.......no. Jimbo Fisher.....uh, no. Houston Nutt? Not a chance. Leach.....thanks but no thanks........

so who do they wind up with? Gene Chizik.

that's right. Gene Chizik. that's what timing will do for you.

now, say what you want about the Kiffin hire. it is yet to be seen whether Kiffin or Chizik will be a bust or a boom.

but give credit to Mike Hamilton for this one thing........at least he got to make a decision in who he hired. He got to sit back and actually say "hm, which one do i want?".

can Jay Jacobs say the same thing?

well, i'm sure he can. but he'd be lying.

like most things........timing is everything.......we'll see sometime in the future who made the most of it.

[VolunteerHillbilly]

AU folks seem to be very upset. There are lots of rumors circulating that Chizik was only hired as a puppet, although there are wildly varying opinions on who the puppetmaster is (Lowder, Dye or others). Many fans seem to think Muschamp was in the bag but the deal fell apart over the subject of reporting only to the Univ. President as Saban does. At any rate, I doubt Jacobs will be AD at the Barn for much longer.

[jakez4ut]

i don't think there's any doubt, regardless of how this hire turns out, of who's in charge on the plains.

it's really a joke, and if i were an Auburn fan, i'd be a bit irrate as well.