According to this, there is a movement towards Petrino as the next coach. PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF AUBURN, DO NOT HIRE PETRINO! I don't know how true this is or how much interest there is, but any Auburn person trying to get Petrino is insane. I may move to Canada and become a Toronto Maple Leafs fan if Petrino is our next coach.
That being said, my only point of disagreement is that Alabama should not be a factor in what we do. Maybe it matters, but I do not care three shakes of a rabbit's tale about Alabama football. It should have no bearing on Auburn. We should not compare ourselves to those low lifes. We are better than that.
BY Kevin Scarbinksky
20 October 2012
KNOXVILLE, Tennessee - You change coaches when you start losing to teams you’re not supposed to lose to, historically speaking, and you do it in consecutive games.
You change coaches when you’re off to your worst start in 60 years, and you’ve passed the season’s midpoint and you still can’t be sure you’ve hit bottom.
You change coaches when you’ve fallen so far behind your biggest rival that you have to trade in your binoculars for a telescope to watch him pull farther and farther away.
That’s where Auburn and Alabama found themselves Saturday. They were in the exact same state in polar opposite states.
Alabama has a head coach in search of a challenge. Auburn has a program in need of a head coaching change.
It looks like Nick Saban can’t be stopped, which is just part of the reason Gene Chizik’s got to go.
The evidence has been building toward that conclusion, and Vanderbilt 17, Auburn 13 made what should be the closing statement in that argument.
As improved as Vandy may be in its second season under James Franklin, the Commodores have beaten only three teams this season: Presbyterian, Missouri and Auburn. What do those three have in common? None of them has won an SEC game. Ever, in the case of Presbyterian and Missouri, and it may be awhile for Auburn.
As much hope as Franklin has given his fan base, the precedent has been established at Auburn. Lose to Vanderbilt during a losing season, and lose your job.
It happened to Tommy Tuberville in 2008. It’ll be an upset - not to mention a mistake - if it doesn’t happen to Chizik in 2012. Tuberville, by the way, is 6-1 at Texas Tech after a 56-53 triple-overtime win at TCU. Chizik is 1-6.
You can’t always play connect the dots in college football, but if Auburn couldn’t take the lead in the fourth quarter at Vanderbilt, a week after not being able to stay close for four quarters at Ole Miss, how ugly will things get a month from now in Tuscaloosa?
As ugly as Saban wants them to be.
The Alabama coach took no pity on one of his less-gifted students here Saturday in a 44-13 romp.
Everyone knew Derek Dooley had no chance to stand up to Saban long before the Tennessee coach decided to work on crutches on the sideline because of his surgically repaired hip.
The original plan was for Dooley to coach from a stool on the sideline, but why drag an actual hot seat into the picture? Especially when you’re winless in the SEC.
Not sure what Tennessee is going to do, but if Auburn cares about its football program, it has to change coaches at season’s end. And not just a coordinator or two, even if one of them seems all in so far over his head he needs scuba lessons.
Change staff members, and all you’re doing is rearranging deck chairs on a boat that’s become a submarine. The only way to stop a spiral that began last year with five lopsided losses is to start over. At the top.
All the good work Chizik and his staff did in 2010, in running the table and winning the national championship, has come undone. On and off the field. The fan base he rallied so skillfully that season has turned against him, to the point that one Auburn booster said a quiet movement has begun behind the scenes to gauge and enlist support for Bobby Petrino as the next coach.
The discussion of the next coach can wait. The machinery to create the opening can’t, not with actual or potential job searches at Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky as well. Someone at Auburn has to realize that being a good man isn’t good enough for an SEC head coach. Especially when the best coach in college football lives and works in the same state.
At best, Auburn will finish this year 4-8, and that’s likely only if Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Football quits in the next week to play baseball. At worst, the Tigers will be 3-9, and that’s certain only if the players and coaches haven’t completely splintered before a quality Alabama A&M team comes to town.
There’s no excuse for 3-9 or 4-8 at Auburn. No excuse for 9-11 since the BCS title. No excuse for ugly losses to old rivals and uglier defeats against old doormats.
That’s the state of our state, for better or worse. Alabama’s grinding its way toward a third national title in four years. Auburn’s grinding its gears en route to a second coaching change in that same span.
Both outcomes seem inevitable.
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