The Auburn Family: A Divided Group and no one Divides them More Than Bobby Petrino

Professor Wayne Flynt thinks that Bo and Pat, who he says believe in the Auburn Creed (and love it), would never recommend hiring Bobby Petrino. I can only hope that he is right. As Professor Flynt suggests, we are Auburn and we are better than him. STAY OUT OF AUBURN, BOBBY!

BY Charles J. Dean
al.com
29 November 2012

AUBURN, Alabama - Jack Warren sat on a stool at historic Toomer's Drugs eating his toasted sandwich and talking Auburn football with a stranger when the question came: Who would you like to see as Auburn's next coach? How about Bobby Petrino?

Warren stopped chewing. He swallowed. He wiped his mouth. He then looked directly at the stranger. "No sir. Not that man. Not at Auburn," said Warren, who is an area manager of an air conditioning and heating company and who has lived a half-hour from Auburn in Columbus, Ga. for 56 years.

Asked why not Petrino given that he has won at every coaching stop in his career with the exception of the NFL, Warren didn't pull any punches.

"He's not a moral man, I don't care how many football games he has won," said Warren.

Asked why that mattered to him, Warren again was direct.

"A man's character matters, especially a man or a woman who is in charge of helping students grow from becoming teenagers to young men and women," said Warren. "I know he wins. But, I also know he can't be trusted in how he conducts his public life and his private life. What would Auburn be saying to those young men if he got hired. It would be saying anything goes as long as you win. I don't think that's what Auburn is about. I hope it's not."

Down College Street a block or so from Toomer's Corner, C.L. Smith was pumping gas into his truck on his way to a construction site on campus where he works as a carpenter. Asked the same question as Warren, Smith answered just as quickly and just as self-assuredly as Warren.

"Hell yes I'd hire Bobby Petrino in a heartbeat," said Smith, 37. "I know he's had his issues and I'm not saying I like him as a person but as a football coach he knows how to win and he knows how to win in the SEC and that matters. ...Look, Auburn is a mess. They didn't win one game in conference, not one. This thing has to be built back up and you need a guy who has done that and who has won and Petrino is the best coach available. .... Look, when I go to church, I want to hear from a preacher who will help me find my way to the Lord. But, when I go to the game, I want a coach who knows how to put a team together to win the game that day. I'm not looking for a saint as football coach."

One coach, two starkly different views. And, they are views one hears echoing all across not just the AU campus but deep within the so-called Auburn family.

It's a family that right now is divided not so much over the firing of Gene Chizik as they are over the depth of the problems Chizik leaves behind and over what path to choose to fix what has gone wrong in a program that just two years ago sat at the top of the college football world. Today, Auburn football finds itself the butt of jokes after a three win, nine loss season and, more importantly, the focal point of an NCAA investigation looking apparently at the recruitment of some players.

In interviews over the last few days with current and past trustees, with current and former administrators in athletics and throughout the university and with key supporters from the corporate community and politics, what emerges is a picture of serious men and women who care about the university but who see different answers to what Auburn President Jay Gogue must do to fix problems. They see different answers because they see the state of the school's athletic program very differently. Some see a program, especially the football program, in deep trouble. Others see a football program in need of, as one school trustee said, a new set of wheels but the wagon is essentially sound."

Another key supporter of the program laughed at the analogy.

"The wheels are off all right but if you look at the wagon, it's sunk in quicksand," the supporter said.

This supporter said he had hoped Gogue would have fired AD Jay Jacobs and then hired a new AD who would have been allowed to hire a new coach. The supporter said, "So many of our programs right now... all of them really are not functioning at a very high level."

That particular supporter said he believes that the next football coach should be Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart. Why? To repeat the history of 30-plus years ago when AU hired Pat Dye, who had been at one point a key coach on Paul "Bear" Bryant's Alabama teams of the 1960s.

"We need to hire the guy's (Nick Saban) guy and that's Smart. Whether Auburn people want to admit it or not, Saban isn't going anywhere and Auburn has to find a way to deal with him and who better than his right hand guy," the supporter said.

Of Petrino, the supporter said he opposed his hiring citing Petrino's baggage and the fact the he's never beaten Saban and in fact seems to freeze up when he faces him, the supporter said.

Another key supporter who has given AU many dollars over the years said he hopes Petrino is the man Gogue hires. The supporter called Petrino the realistic choice, a coach who could walk through the door and turn the program around. The supporter said there is talent on the team.

"This isn't a matter of having to build it up from the ground. Petrino might not be the man Gene was, but I think he's probably twice the coach he was and what we need now more than anything is know how in that job and Petrino has it," the supporter said.

NBA hall of famer Charles Barkley, Auburn's most famous round ball hero ever, fueled the debate over the school's next football coach when recently during the telecast of an NBA game on TNT Barkley said he'd like to see Petrino get the job at AU.

Another coach that has been mentioned is Florida State's Jimbo Fisher. An insider close to the situation shook his head at the name and those who bring it up. This key supporter, a former trustee, said it is "hubris" to believe that right now Fisher would leave the FSU job for the Auburn job, although the supporter said Fisher would be a good fit at AU.

But, this supporter questioned how good the job at Auburn is right now vs. the FSU job given the NCAA investigation and the fact that the SEC West division is tougher than the whole ACC in which FSU plays.

"No, I just think Fisher's agent is trying to get him a raise, not a new job," the supporter said.

One former trustee still close to the situation agreed that the AU family is divided over what is the right answer. But the former trustee, who said he hopes Petrino gets the job, said it will matter little this time around what boosters or trustees or so-called insiders think regarding the depth of the problems or who should be the next coach. The former trustee said Gogue will be the man making the final decision this time.

And, that's a good thing said Wayne Flynt, professor emeritus at AU and a noted historian who has written with distinction about the state and about Auburn.

Flynt agreed that Gogue is the decider and it marks the first time in decades that the school's president is the one making the hiring decision.

"The undeniable fact of life at Auburn for years is that when it has come time to change coaches, to fire and hire, those decisions have been made in secret and by a select group of trustees and boosters," Flynt said. "That practice has led to an almost myopic view among some that Auburn is a football team with a university."

Almost a decade ago, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed Auburn on probation finding that AU trustees had too often stepped over the line to micromanage school programs, especially the football program. The probation embarrassed the school, lead to the resignation of the then president and a shakeup in the athletic department.

And, nine years later, more than half of the school's trustees are relatively new. All of it has resulted in giving Gogue the kind of free hand to make decisions on coaches that past presidents did not have, said Flynt.

Gogue last week announced he had formed a search committee to find and interview coaching candidates. In addition to AD Jacobs, Gogue appointed Auburn football icons Pat Sullivan and Bo Jackson, both winners of the Heisman Trophy and both Auburn men through and through.

Gogue turned down a request for an interview. He knows there is much debate going on in the AU family about the decision he will make and when he might make it. He did release this statement about the on-going debate and situation.

"Auburn is a special place with an active group of alumni who care about this school and its football program. I view the Auburn family as a source of strength and that's why we have such a powerful and dedicated search committee tasked with recommending to me our next head coach. I expect them to take their work seriously and move with all deliberate speed. When this thoughtful and through process is concluded, I look forward to receiving their recommendation."

Flynt said the move appointing the committee is Gogue at his best.

"I think it was an adroit move by Dr. Gogue," said Flynt. "What that committee does is take this search out of the hands of Jay (Jacobs) alone and puts it into the hands of two men who I doubt anyone at Auburn would question their integrity. And, it pushes away the influence of the boosters and trustees past and present who still want to have their hands in this process. It's a brilliant move."

Former AU President Ed Richardson said the committee provides Gogue with two assets he needs at a critical time: Sullivan and Jackson.

"If those men give their blessings to whoever the coach turns out to be, it will be harder for those who might not be happy to say much about it," said Richardson. "There are no greater names in Auburn football history than Sullivan and Jackson. They played the game. They understand the game. They understand Auburn. They love Auburn."

If you doubt Sullivan and Jackson's standing in the AU family, you don't have to look far to find it around the place. Along College Street are plaques cemented into the sidewalk of past AU heroes. Just in front of the entrance to Toomer's Drugs you find Sullivan and Jackson's plaques noting the years they played for the Tigers and their Heisman Trophy awards.

Driving into Auburn you find another reminder at the state rest stop just off I-85 before the Auburn exit where you find a large black and white famed photo of Jackson, Sullivan and Pat Dye each in tuxedos posing with the Heisman Trophy Jackson won in 1985.

Flynt said he was greatly pleased to see Jackson and Sullivan selected for a lot of reasons but especially because he knows many are lobbying for Petrino to get the job.

"Bo and Pat understand what Auburn means and I mean they understand that Auburn is about more than just football," Flynt said. "It's about a way to behave, to conduct your life. I can't imagine Pat Sullivan or Bo Jackson giving their approval to a man like Petrino who quit on his NFL team, who attempted to stab Tommy Tuberville in the back and who violated his marriage vows and then lied to his university about what he had done. Is that who we really want at Auburn?

Richardson said there is a division in the Auburn family over who the next coach should be, with a faction pushing hard for Petrino. He hopes they fail. And, he believes they will.

"Hiring a Bob Petrino would send a message that Auburn is desperate," said Richardson. "It would send the message that the only thing that matters is winning. I don't think that committee or Jay Gogue will allow that to happen."