I'll be there, I always am (not with you, Snags. I haven't kissed enough ass to get your seats) And I don't have a problem with paying more for tickets, fuck I pay more for everything every year. But I get disheartened about our future...with the hoops that are in place for our present and future coaches...we will never be anything but middle of the pack. I wouldn't necessarily mind that if we were a shitty program with no history of greatness...but we aren't that. And it's the hope that is killing me. the hope that rises every year only to be crushed by mid season(if not earlier) more often than not. And why? Because we won't let a coach do what he needs to do to win. I don't know what that is, I don't pretend to know because I'm not a fucking coach. But I know when I hire someone to do something...I get someone that knows how to do said job, I tell him what I want done, and i leave him to HIS business. Then I can pat myself on the back for the end result and for hiring such a competent bastard. End of Story.
How is this so hard for Auburn?
Look around you, Ellen. We're at the threshold of hell.
We are Alabama of the 90s right now. Think about that.
Jacobs keeps looking for "Auburn Men" and we get DuBose. And Shula.
DuBose and Shula both won the SEC (I think) because they were at a school that's going to do that on occasion. So are we since Dye came back and bulldozed some things.
When Dye came to Auburn he took charge of the whole thing. He got the boosters in line, he put our brand first, he built the program the way he wanted it and he was in control of it all. Sound familiar? Saban just cheats better. So they've won three or four NCs. If the rules were the same then as they are now? Playoffs and BCS and that stuff? Dye would have three or four himself.
Gus isn't the kind of guy to grab the program by the throat and make it in his image. Neither was Chizik. Tuberville (the younger version) would have been but 2003 de-nutted him and then Jacobs' perpetual fuckery drove him out. I like Gus and think he makes a great OC. But he doesn't have the experience or the gravitas to be the only kind of coach who can succeed on the big scale at Auburn.