It was an awful hire from this sidewalk fan's perspective too. Other than his strong experience as a coordinator at both Auburn and Texas there was no reason whatsoever to believe that Chizik would be this successful to date as the Head Coach at AU especially given the Iowa State results...NONE! It was a hire somewhere between Barfield and Dye or Bowden and Tubs IMO. Everyone was scratching their heads because it was such a bland hire newsworthy only for it's blandness when there were some bigger names out there and I think most of us were preparing for a high profile guy after the previous regime and the mixed feelings about Tubs from alumni to media. In fact it left me much less excited than when Tub's left Ole Miss for Auburn.
As positive as I wanted to be with Chizik, the staff and the losses of Todd and Tate, I readily admit that my nine to ten win prediction was goofy-assed hope and not very rational given the returnees, plugged in names of unproven recruits and no Nick Fairley in sight. Oh we had a guy in the rotation by the name of Nick Fairley but not a force as important as Cam Newton would become.
Admittedly, I rested my ridiculous prediction almost entirely on Gus Malzahn and playing Alabama off it's feet in the Iron Bowl. Hell I even threw out the miraculous win over Northwestern as an aberration because our pass defense sucked so badly the entire game, the entire season really. There was no reason to believe that team could pull nine wins in the coming season after seeing that game, even with a genius defensive coordinator on board to compliment Malzahn, favorable schedule upcoming or not.
There was Tyrik Robinson whom many thought was the the second coming on recruitment boards, Kodi Burns who would readilly tuck it and run (already an afterthought) Neil Caudle and Barrett Trotter, one recovering from a knee injury in high school and the other about to rehab a knee injury he would suffer in the spring game not yet happened. We had some video of a JaMarcus Russell-looking kid with a few plays at Florida with far less in the cupboard than the actual prospects at LSU with a returning QB Jordan Jefferson and GA transfer Mettlenburg minus Nevis and Peterson next season.
Thanks to Auburn probably seventy- five teams think they are one player away from arrival, BUT THEY AREN"T AUBURN! I don't think it can be explained but the assemblage and retention of a staff of recruiters has to be a large part of the equation but we have seen good staffs with hot shot recruiters before doing far less with better prospects. And for as much as many of us are sold on Tracy Rocker as a DL coach, I seriously doubt Nick fairley was a Rocker creation any more than Newton was a product of Malzahn. Face it, Tracy Rocker cannot teach a guy to become a destructive force and Gus Malzahn cannot teach a guy to refuse to lose, these guys just inspired the others to raise their games.
We had Bama right where we wanted them at halftime right?, Clemson, Kentucky, Arkansas... all strategically planned, never in doubt. Whatever took place, it falls somewhere between extremely good fortune and divine intervention and it happened under a dark cloud of hate-filled scorn against all odds that seemed to only fuel the team to persevere beyond all expectations or any stretch of the imagination and ...it was sustained over an entire season.
There just was no losing with this team, it could not be beaten and we lived it vicariously through them, much sweeter than any other team could possibly have enjoyed before or since because it was our team and Auburn stuck it up college footballs collective asses and multiple times for Auburn rivals. You could actually turn on the post game shows and watch the resentful syllables seeping out of their mouths when they mentioned Auburn. It was distressful for them to come to terms with this team, and I hope it traumatizes the bastards forever. There IS NO reason to think Auburn has a chance to win nine or ten games in 2011... there just isn't! Any thoughts along those lines must contain a strong degree of faith over logic.