The way I see it is what does it matter iffin they are all mythical pre-bcs anyway? Other schools do it and if it helps with recruiting, I'm o.k. with it. I do think some of those are legitimate arguments but haven't studied it enough to know which ones.
I'm no Jacobs fan but I think it's good for him to bring it up for discussion. I don't know who should make the final decision. The board? The pres?
If something this trivial can help with recruiting, go for it. Do I really buy in? No but it's not for me. It's about convincing a 17 year old kid why he should come to AU and more championships could help. It's perception. Ex: I bet the recruits UA is signing this year truly believe that Bama has 14 football national championships.
We're the anti-bammer. We don't lie to ensure recruiting goes the way we need it to go in order to not harm ourselves. We don't claim national championships to validate our existence.
Auburn University was thriving as an average top tier football program. Our numbers were sky high starting back in early 2000 and through the Tuberville years. Not once did we attribute our university funding, population, and reputation on the quality of our football team. It was a focal point of our culture, but not the reason for being. It's why we focus on family and not one head coach and not one football team and not a select few seasons that featured our best football teams.
But at Alabama, they've seen vast improvements to their university and time and time again, I hear them credit Nick Saban's arrival as the reason. It's their head coach. It's their football team. It's all they have.
Let's be honest, their claim to fame as an academic institution is their law school and their business school. Not all lawyers and business men are scumbags, but I'd say there are ample more examples of shitty, arrogant, blowharded individuals coming from those colleges than there are coming from the engineering, agriculture, nursing, pharmacy, and veterinarian schools at Auburn. That is if we're comparing the two university's best college programs.
So, no, Jay Jacobs, we don't need to look at what everyone else is doing. Sure, we don't have as much consistent success as other schools. But we have more class. We don't have as many national titles as other schools. But we have more unity and bonding.
How often do you hear alums talking about moving back to Auburn one day? How many people showed up to send off a couple of plants? How often do you hear about Auburn fans and Auburn alums getting arresting for harming others over the result of a football game? How many pages would an "Isolated Incidents" thread be if it were focused on Auburn?
We are very, very different from most big time sports schools. It's what makes us different and special. It's why everywhere we go, the opposing fans speak of the classiness and generosity of Auburn people. If we start adopting the ways of other schools, we'll become more like other schools.
Because what honestly will come of this? Just more ammo to brag and fight on shows like Finebaum and message boards like the SECRant and more cause for fist fights in bars and anger and vitriol and eventually leading to piling it on and on and on and suddenly we have our own Harvey Updykes.
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