Possibly The Worst Coaching Hire In Years

by Beergut on Dec 15, 2008 1:08 AM CST Comment 1 comment

Auburn's decision to hire Iowa State's Gene Chizik might be the worst "promotion" of an Iowa State coach since A&M hired Jim Myers to replace Bear Bryant following the 1957 season. Myers went 4-5-1 in his only season as Iowa State's head coach before he was lured away to replace Bryant. Members of the Aggie Corps of Cadets camped out on Myers' lawn until he agreed to take the A&M job. The Aggies were rewarded for this hire with records of 4-6, 3-7, 1-6-3, and 4-5-1 over the next four seasons. Similarly, Auburn is hiring Chizk after he won a grand total of 5 games in two seasons at Iowa State, and ended the 2008 season on a 10-game losing streak. The Iowa State fans should be celebrating, because now they can bring in Nebraska alum and current University of Buffalo head coach Turner Gill to try to turn around their program. This is possibly addition by subtraction for Iowa State, because they have a chance to replace someone who wasn't getting the job done in Ames. I think you can make a valid argument that Gene Chizik was the worst coach in the Big 12 Conference (now that Ron Prince is gone from Kansas State), and Auburn just took them off of Iowa State's hands. More after the jump....

Auburn fans must be somewhat perplexed by this hiring, because they are replacing a coach who left after going 5-7 last season with a coach who won 5 games in two years. This is an improvement? It appears that some Auburn boosters (Bobby Lowder?) were so worried about Nick Saban's success at Alabama this season that they ignored everything Tommy Tuberville had ever done for the university, and forced him out. If the best candidate Auburn can come up with to take the job is Gene Chizik, these boosters didn't do their homwork before forcing out Tuberville, though. What really amazes me is that if the rumors about Mike Leach and Auburn are true, and Auburn told Leach 'no' to his overtures about the head coaching job, this means the Auburn officials said 'no' to Leach while saying 'yes' to Chizik. As someone who wants LEach to stay at Tech, I'm happy this happened, but are there really idiots out there who think Chizik is a better coach than Mike Leach? This just shows you what happens when you let the inmates (boosters) run the asylum (Auburn athletic department).

0 recs | Comment 1 comment | Share

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Horrific Hire

I am absolutely perplexed by this hire. I can not believe that they hired a guy who managed to win a total of 5 game in two years and couldn’t win a game in conference play after playing 5 games in the dreadful Big 12 North. What were they thinking? Or what weren’t they thinking? I don’t understand how you pass up a coach that managed to go 7-5 in arguably the toughest place in the country to win a football game (Buffalo) or passing over a coach that managed to go 11-1 and produce consistent 8 and 9 win seasons at a place like Tech is beyond me. This hiring just proves that the SEC runs a “good ol’ boy” system and does not run a hiring system based on merit and competency. Have fun being irrelevant Auburn. Nick Saban must feel that he won a national championship. This hire has basically given the SEC West title to Alabama. The only coach in that division that is good enough to handle Saban is Nutt, but he won’t get enough talent to compete with ‘Bama. Les Miles is an idiot and its basically proven that he is a mediocre coach. Petrino is good enough to compete but he won’t stay around long enough to make an impact. ‘Bama start printing tickets to the SEC Championship game. Auburn won’t beat ’Bama in sometime now.

I watched a video on ESPN and while I usually agree with Herbie on most thinks and generally like him, I could not disagree more with his assessment of the hire. Being a good defensive coordinator is a good predictor of success at being a head coach. Just look at Greg Robinson at Syracuse. A failure of Epic Proportions. Herbie could not be more wrong after this hire. I would not be surprised if Auburn runs Chizik after one season.

Completely agree with you Beergut a great example of when you let the inmates run the asylum.

by PrimeTime2012 on Dec 15, 2008 11:30 AM CST reply actions 0 recs