Auburn Football Announces Thier New Head Coach: Gene Chizik?

I know that typically I don’t blog about sports and this post will make two in one week, but what in the world is going on in Auburn, Alabama? The new head coach will be 5-19 Iowa State Head Coach, Gene Chizik?

As an Arkansas Razorbacks fan, I have not kept up to date with the goings on in Auburn, but have always had the highest respect for Coach Tuberville and his tenure at the helm of the Tiger Football program there. It seems that since the magical undefeated season in 2004 (which any other year, including this one, would have earned him a spot in the National Championship game) with the likes of Jason Campbell (now with the Redskins), Ronnie Brown (Dolphins) and Carnell “Cadillac” Williams (Bucs) and many others that things between the “powers-that-be” and Tuberville have gone sour. I don’t know what’s happened, but why in the world did they let Tuberville go? What more do they expect Gene Chizik to do?

Wikipedia reports that Tuberville’s record against Alabama was 7-3 during his 10 years including 6 straight victories. Does one loss and a great year for the in-state rivals create such a stir as to get rid of a highly successful head coach? The report is that Tuberville resigned and he has not made any attempt to go into more detail since December 3, 2008, when his resignation was made public. There are reports that Tuberville’s mom says Auburn fired him. From one on the outside looking in, it certainly looks like they encouraged him to go.

Auburn alum, Charles Barkley, has gone public through ESPN stating his opinion that race was a factor in the hiring of Gene Chizik. Barkley has a reputation for readily speaking his mind and though I don’t always agree with Sir Charles, I think he’s right on the money here. Why they went with 10-consecutive-loss Chizik instead of Turner Gill currently with Buffalo (or perhaps another minority candidate – surely there are several who don’t currently have a 10-loss-streak going) I will never know. As previously stated, I live in the south and am well aware of the rampant racism that still exists, particularly within the moneybags within the SEC. Now that Croom has been unsuccessful at Mississippi State and has now been removed, I wonder how long it will take for the SEC to hire their second minority head football coach?

I digress. All-in-all, I’m thankful that Chizik was hired at Auburn. Surely I can quickly eliminate them as a SEC Western-Division contender for the next few years: Just one less team the U of A Razorbacks will have to fear.

OU's Bradford: The 2008 Heisman Award Winner

I did not watch the Heisman award ceremonies last night, so this morning I awoke eager to discover the winner of Division I College Football’s most prestigious award. Not wishing to find shoes to walk down to pick up the paper, I turned to foxsports.com to read of the winner.

The 2008 Heisman trophy went to… Sam Bradford?

Yesterday, while giving blood at a local United Blood Services center, I met a local UT Longhorn fan. Living in a Texas border city, this is an often occurrence. He and I were not acquainted before yesterday, but his fanaticism was easily ascertained – he worn a burnt orange t-shirt, socks, hat, and jacket all displaying his loyalty to the esteemed Texas university located in Austin, Texas. I began our conversation asking about Longhorn-nation opinion of the Big 12 South’s tiebreaker and therefore a lost opportunity to play in the championship game (which he stated without reservation that Longhorn-nation was disgruntled) but conversation quickly turned toward Saturday night’s announcement of the Heisman award. We discussed the merits of the three (of course, he was of the opinion it should go to UT’s Colt McCoy) and both agreed that we would be surprised if the 2007 Heisman winner, Florida’s Tim Tebow, won this year as the Heisman voters appear to be greatly hesitant to give the award to the same person twice (while I am a U of A Arkansas Razorbacks fan and thus an SEC fan, I didn’t necessarily expect and/or push for Tebow to win). We spoke of the merits of the Oklahoma Sooners offense and their explosiveness particularly during the back end of the season, but neither of us gave credence to Bradford’s probability of winning, placing him third on our list (not that we get a vote anyway): McCoy, Tebow, and then Bradford.

How surprised was I to learn this morning that Bradford won! So, scrapped are the ideas of writing of Tebow’s two-time winning of the esteemed award, tossed is the notion of writing of McCoy’s winning though snubbed out of the chance for a National Championship, and trashed is the notion of writing of McCoy’s success with Heisman voting when fellow UT Quarterback Vince Young was passed over during his Championship Season just a few years ago.

At the end of the conversation with Longhorn fan yesterday, I made the statement that regardless of my opinion, I would not be surprised if any of the three won. Sure enough, though Tebow had the most first place votes, Bradford had the most points, McCoy the second and Tebow the second runner-up. Peter Schrager with foxsports.com reports this was the closest Heisman voting since 2001 when Nebraska’s Eric Crouch won over Florida’s Rex Grossman and Miami’s (the U) Ken Dorsey.

Congratulations, Sam Bradford. You’ve earned the right to be called the 2008 Heisman winner. It is good to know that the three top guys this year are good guys and good role models. AS Pete Schrager reports,

“Each of them, hanging out together all week — both in Orlando on Thursday and in New York this weekend — have a shared appreciation for each other any football purist would only hope they would. Each player is about their families, their teammates, and their faith.

“If the three of them were to make up some sort of 2008 college football ‘Rat Pack,’ well, you’d imagine the night involving a game of Monopoly and some milk and cookies; not exactly a free-for-all made for the blogs and Facebook.

“Perhaps, in this age of the modern student athlete — that’s the true sign of leadership. Setting the example for others and focusing on a shared goal. Bradford, McCoy and Tebow embodied just that this year.”

A hearty “thank you” to all three of you for standing up and accepting the roles of leadership and role modeling. What an incredible college football season 2008 has been.

As for the national championship game in Miami on January 8th: GO (SEC) GATORS!