It has only been four days since Gus Malzahn was thrown out the door by powerful boosters and there have already been enough storylines to fill a book.
Infighting between the aforementioned boosters. Continued silence by athletic director Allen Greene outside of a prepared statement. Auburn fans already preparing for a bad hire. Some possible back stabbing?
Yes, not even the writers of Days of Our Lives could come up with some of the crazy nonsense that goes on down on the Plains during a coaching search.
It seemed as if it was going to be so simple. Boosters pay the money to Malzahn with a replacement already settled on and we could look forward to 2021 and the start of a new era. How naive we all must have been to believe this narrative.
The search went from zero to inane in a matter of seconds.
Was there a possible deal for Mario Cristobal that fell through after Oregon was put in the Pac-12 Championship Game in place of Washington? Maybe. As of Thursday at 1:20 p.m., Cristobal has been offered a new contract — six years worth $27.3 million — and all he has to do is sign. Will Auburn come back with a counteroffer?
Why were the boosters so afraid of going after Hugh Freeze? Granted, there is some baggage but I laughed at the fans on Twitter who claimed they didn’t want Freeze because of his troubles at Ole Miss. These are the same people who welcomed Bruce Pearl with open arms and have no problem with the football field being named after a coach that famously got the program on major probation.
What about Steve Sarkisian? Billy Napier? Bueller? Bueller?
Yet all the disagreements between the powers that be has turned Auburn into a national punchline again and, if the new coach isn’t a home-run hire, the reaction will be even worse. That will especially be the case if it is Steele.
Auburn paid $21 million to get rid of a coach only to hire his defensive coordinator, a guy with a 9-36 record as a head coach and is 62 years old? Yeah, that won’t go over well. It certainly won’t go over well if it comes out that Steele was all part of a coup that got his boss tossed. Et tu, Steele?
All of this is turning what happened in 2003 into the good ole days. At least Auburn had a plan, even if that was going behind the back of Tommy Tuberville for a man of questionable morals like Bobby Petrino. At least they were going after one of the highest sought-after coaches in the game at the time.
Heck, this is making Tennessee’s search for a coach in 2017 look competent.
It has long been wide-spread knowledge that the person who is supposed to be in charge of the athletics program, the athletic director, is basically a yes-man to Jimmy Rane, Bill Harbert and … gulp … Bobby Lowder. Of course, Auburn isn’t the only school that has this problem it’s just most of the time these men screw up.
They care more about their egos and power than Auburn itself, plain and simple. The football program is just a game of Risk to them.
So, when all of this is over and Auburn likely comes away with anything but a home-run hire, you can put another chapter in the story of Auburn screwups.
It is what Auburn does best.