When I look around, I see a general tendency to pretend like Gene Chizik never happened. His image is gone from website headers, people rarely mention his name. That cool white jacket, the one I have, is dodo bird material now. I won't wear it.
Got me wondering. What will his legacy eventually be? Will he end up having his picture on the side of the stadium for perpetuity? He did, after all, helm the only AU recognized national championship since Shug Jordan. But I get the sense now that his contributions have been diminished and that title has been boxed up as being delivered by Gus and Cam. Gene was just a peripheral player who best served the title run by staying out of the way (even though he was hailed as the steadying genius influence at the time).
Even as recently as the apartment shootings, Chizik was almost universally recognized as a rock during turbulent times.
3-9 later, he's basically a leper. Nobody even wants to speak his name.
How will Chizik be remembered?
In the CFB world, I suspect a notch below Larry Coker. In Auburn history, a notch above Terry Bowden. Bowden's decline took more time, but he actually left the program completely devoid of not only SEC talent, but D1 talent. Chiz didn't leave it in that bad a shape, and was a decent human being to boot.
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