This. Anybody that predicted that this would happen did it on blind luck. You can't tell me that after the MSU game, everybody 100% knew AU was going to win a NC. It almost never happens with a team replacing a starting QB. Alabama and Auburn have been the exception, rather than the rule, for the past 2 years. It just doesn't normally happen.
I'll say this. I, and a few others, weren't crazy about the hire. Then he started assembling the staff, and I quickly shut up. I could see that he was doing something special. Does that mean that I foresaw explicitly, with 100% certainty, a National Title? That's ridiculous to even say. I don't care if we were fielding the Patriots roster against collegiate athletes. Any fan of any team that ever does that ever would be ignorant to claim they
know for a fact that the National Championship is theirs before the season begins. Bammers and Buckeyes are about the only two fan bases in CFB that I know of that can be that brazenly ignorant.
But I knew something special was happening. I knew Chizik would be leading us to
at least the level of success that Tuberville had in his prime, and I knew that the reboot of the program was exactly what Auburn needed after Tuberville and staff's decline (which rapidly accelerated in 2008), which was mostly caused by complacency.
By the way, I would have reacted the same exact way if I were a Michigan fan right now. Brady Who-ke? I think Gorgeous Borgess will be a good hire for them, and I think Greg Mattison is a home run. It would have caught my attention about as much as Roof-Malzahn did. If he can put assistants in to match the ones Chizik installed, it will be the same deal. The initial shock of not landing a huge name HC wears off quick when you start to see them in action.
Contrast that with Kaos. Literally the breakdown of his thousands of posts went like this:
75% - Bashing Chizik. Declaring that he knew with 100% certainty (that ridiculous term that no one should ever use in college football), that Chizik and his staff would be the biggest collective flop in college football history. They would set the Auburn program back centuries. Our players wouldn't be able to tie their shoes correctly in order to make it on the field without falling on their face, much less win a single game until the day he was fired. When, of course, it would be too late. That the Tiger Prowl, billboards, Big Cat Weekend, was a pathetically hokey act of desperation that would only achieve Auburn being the butt of many jokes. That last year's recruiting class was a complete fluke. All of those players were way over-hyped. Newton would be a huge bust. Bigger than JaMarcus Russell was for the NFL. Even
if Chizik won a National Championship in his first five years (try two), or even won every National Championship from the day he was hired until he retired 30 years later, his hiring would be the worst hire in college football history. It couldn't be that his opinion on the hire was incorrect. It was that the hire was terrible, but somehow luck fell into place so that each of those 30 National Championships fell into his undeserving lap. All hat. No cattle. Lining up helmets. Wolfboy.
24% - Bashing anyone that dared disagree with his opinions mentioned above. Anyone that thought Chizik stood the most remote possibility of success was an ignorant drooling rube that had no business posting on a message board. It was amazing to him that these people had the cognitive capacity to operate a keyboard. His opinions were not simply opinions. They were the Gospel. And so it was written, and so it shall be done. If you dared to disagree with him, you were functionally retarded. He would anxiously await any post by any of his targets to smear shit all over the thread. Chowler. Sancho. Unicorns. Sunshine.
1% - Posts about naked Jewish girls.
He's a different breed. To address JR's suggestion that he doesn't see a need for him to eat some crow, it would be completely different had he been a little more three dimensional. If he had mentioned some of the strengths he saw at A-Day. If he had said, "I like this about what Chizik has done, but I'm not a fan of this." If he had said, "I could be wrong, but I think..." even just once. If he had not dedicated his entire Internet life crusading against all things Chizik, and anyone who did not necessarily agree that we had beyond a doubt just entered into the Dark Ages that make the Barfield Years look like Miami's run in the 80's.
I don't miss him.
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