Has AU become the job that nobody wants?

[CCTAU]

Just how old is Lowder anyway?

We interviewed the hell out of folks. Where are the exit polls. How many of those interviewed actually came out of the interview wanting the job? I'm not pissed about the Chizik hire. I'm more befuddled than anything. I thought we had a chance to take a calculated risk on an up and coming winner, yet we go back to something familiar. But was it by choice, or last resort?

Auburn has become a job no one wants

By Matt Hayes - SportingNews Dec 14, 5:36 pm EST

   So let me get this straight. Auburn fired a coach who averaged nine wins a season, went unbeaten in 2004 and won the most bitter rivalry in all of sports six of the last seven years … then rolled craps.

How else can you describe the hire of Gene Chizik? In two years as a head coach at Iowa State, his teams have won five games and lost to the likes of—in case, you know, anyone at Auburn cares —Kent State, Toledo, UNLV and Division I-AA Northern Iowa.

Why would Auburn, a jewel of a job in the best conference in college football, settle for Chizik, you ask? Because no coach of significance would take it.

This is what happens when you treat coaches like play toys, react to the moment and scramble to tie up loose ends by throwing boatloads of bad money after good. You get a reputation—and you get a majority of the coaching community that won’t touch your job for all the sweaty cash in megalomaniac booster Bobby Lowder’s Santa sack.
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Before we go further, let’s all please remember that Auburn—on the surface—is one of the top 10 jobs in the nation. The people on The Plains are terrific; supportive, passionate, loyal. The facilities are impeccable.

There’s just one eensy-weensy issue: Lowder. He’s the trustee who controls the program—not president Jay Gogue and most certainly not athletic director Jay Jacobs.

A quick look at life with Lowder:

Coach Tommy Tuberville’s contract specifically stated if he were fired by Auburn, the university would owe him $5.1 million. If he quit, the university owed him nothing. So Jacobs strolled to the podium earlier this month and said he was surprised that Tuberville resigned—but that Aubie, what the hell, will pay him the Five Large, anyway.

Those kind of monetary mistakes cost people jobs in the real world. Unless you’re doing the dirty work for the man who owns everyone and everything at Auburn.

You do the math.

Who in their right mind thinks Buffalo coach Turner Gill, a man with impeccable character, would wade in that cesspool? And Will Muschamp? Please.

Six weeks ago, while Muschamp was glowing in the postgame aftermath of Texas’ thumping of Missouri, I asked him about Auburn and what could potentially happen if the university pulled the plug on Tubs. He would be, I said, the prime replacement candidate.

I’m not completely certain, but I think Muschamp threw up in his mouth.

It has finally come around to bite Auburn. All those years of buying off and paying out coaches, assistant coaches and anyone else who didn’t/wouldn’t do things the Lowder Way, and now the program has never been in worse shape.

Nick Saban has Alabama at the top of the SEC, getting louder and prouder with every elite blue chip he signs. And Auburn counters with a coach who lost 14 of 16 conference games in the Big 12 the last two seasons.

Now I’m gonna puke.
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