Tag: Gene Chizik

The day after: Lasting thoughts on Notre Dame’s win over North Carolina

What still sticks out in your mind?

After a rough first two games the Irish finally righted the ship over the last two weeks. An escape at home against Cal and a very solid road victory should give Marcus Freeman and his team some momentum as they enter the bye week. Yesterday’s 42-35 win was nice, especially on the offensive side. There are still are a few things that stuck out in my mind since the game ended, and here they are.

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Mack Brown: ‘I’ve got tremendous confidence in Gene Chizik’

UNC football coach Mack Brown said that he has ‘tremendous confidence’ in Gene Chizik despite the defensive struggles to start the season.

UNC football is off to a 2-0 start this season, but both games have had inconsistent play from the defensive unit.

The Tar Heels defeated Appalachian State on Saturday, 63-61, and it was another defensive struggle for UNC. The North Carolina defense gave up 361 passing yards and six touchdowns through the air, which was disappointing enough.

But, it was even worse on the ground. Appalachian State ran for 288 yards and three touchdowns while averaging 6.7 yards per carry. The gameplan coming into the game revolved around the running back duo of the Mountaineers, but the UNC defense was unable to even put a dent in it.

The Tar Heels gave up numerous big gains — mostly due to missed tackles and poor positioning.

On Monday, UNC head coach Mack Brown made it known he had full confidence in defensive coordinator Gene Chizik.

Coming into this season, the UNC defense made significant changes by letting Jay Bateman go. Then, not only did they bring in Chizik as the defensive coordinator, they also added Charlton Warren as the defensive backs coach.

There is no question that the defense needs to get much better and do so quickly.

With the offense firing on all cylinders through two games, there is promise that if the defense can come around, this team can be very good.

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Breaking down Auburn’s Football Power Index ranking since 2005

A look back at each year’s Football Power Index rating since 2005.

Over the last two decades, Auburn Tiger fans have seen the ups and downs of their program. The highs were the 2010 BCS National Championship team and the lows were the 3-9 campaign that ended in the dismissal of Gene Chizik.

In the first year of the Gus Malzahn era, the team was battling for another national championship but came up short against the Florida State Seminoles. A new era began in 2021 with the dismissal of Malzahn and the hiring of former Boise State head coach Bryan Harsin.

In recent weeks ESPN published their updated Football Power Index (FPI) that measures team strength, based on 20,000 simulations as explained on their website.

This year the Tigers have the following preseason FPI ratings:

FPI: 13.9

Overall Ranking: No. 10

SEC Ranking: No. 3

Auburn Wire breaks down each final FPI dating back to 2005:

Year-by-year salaries of Auburn head football coaches since 2012

How significantly has Auburn raised the salary of its head football coach over the past decade?

Coaching salaries have skyrocketed in recent years as programs jockey for position in the rapidly evolving world of college football.

The Auburn Tigers are no exception. From Gene Chizik to Gus Malzahn to Bryan Harsin, the Tigers have compensated their football head coaches handsomely over the past decade. The results have been mixed, which shouldn’t come as a surprise in the hypercompetitive Southeastern Conference.

That said, Auburn has spent nearly $50 million on head coach salaries over the past decade and has won just two bowl games. Is the school getting its money’s worth?

With all that in mind, Auburn Wire revisits the annual compensation paid out to Auburn football head coaches over the past decade below.

[Source: USA TODAY college football coaching salary database; figures do not include income from non-university sources, incentive bonuses or the value of perks and benefits.]

Taking a look at former Auburn defensive players in the NFL

Here’s a look at how some of the Tigers former offensive stars performed in the NFL this past season:

A lot of the NFL’s superior players came from the SEC, and some of those players come from the Plains. Whether it be on the offensive or defensive side of the ball, the Tigers have produced some of the league’s more premier talent. Coaches [autotag]Gene Chizik[/autotag] and [autotag]Gus Malzahn[/autotag] certainly laid out the foundation for Tigers to perform well in the NFL.

It just so happens that the majority of the Tigers players in the league come from the defensive side of the ball. Yesterday, we took a peek at some of the performances that former Tigers offensive players had. Today, we will break down some of the best defensive players in the NFL that once wore the memorable orange and blue.

Mack Brown explains hiring process of Charlton Warren at North Carolina

Mack Brown explains the hiring process of former Tennessee assistant Charlton Warren at North Carolina.

North Carolina head coach Mack Brown hired Gene Chizik as assistant head coach for defense to his staff during the offseason.

Before accepting a position with the Tar Heels, Chizik wanted former Tennessee assistant Charlton Warren to join him and help coach North Carolina’s defense.

Brown explained the hiring process of Chizik and Warren on the show “Packer and Durham.”

“The first call I made was to Gene Chizik,” Brown said. “I said, ‘Gene, do you want to do this? Because I need your help.’

“He said yes, I do want to do it.”

Brown explained Chizik hung up and called him back.

“He said I do need one thing, it’s not a deal breaker,” Chizik told Brown.

Brown asked Chizik what he needed.

“He said I need Charlton Warren to come with me,” Brown explained. “He said he’s my guy, he’s unbelievable, one of the best in the country. We’ve been there before. We know the place, we’re familiar with it. It will be a seamless transition.

“I said let me think about it because that means you have to make some hard decisions. You’ve got to change people’s lives, that’s not an easy thing to do. I called him back and said we’re good — you’ve got to make sure Charlton will come. Then I called Tom Allen, the coach at Indiana who I have so much respect for, a lot of people aren’t calling the head coach before they talk to coaches about coming. I’m always going to do that. It’s very important to me that we do that because that’s who we are, and we are still fighting to have integrity in our business.”

Warren served as defensive backs coach and special teams coordinator in 2017 at Tennessee under then-head coach Butch Jones.

Chizik (defensive coordinator) and Warren (defensive backs) coached together at North Carolina from 2016-16.

Warren coached cornerbacks at Florida in 2018 and defensive backs at Georgia from 2019-20. He was the defensive coordinator with Indiana in 2021.

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Auburn fans have grown tired of the ‘good ol’ boy’ system

Auburn alumni and fans are tired of the same people running and ruining the football program over and over again.

For years, Auburn has been branded to the world as a family, but really it’s more of an avaricious autocracy where only big money talks.

When it comes to decisions regarding football, only a select group of individuals seem to be heard and whatever they say goes.

These individuals are notorious for sticking their dirty little hands where they don’t belong, and now they have single-handedly converted Auburn’s head coaching search into a clown show. They’re doing it all for the sake of control and access to exclusive perks that neither you nor I will ever see. Not because they love Auburn. Ego fragility at its finest.

We’re witnessing a coup of epic proportions on The Plains. Before Gus Malzahn was fired on Sunday, these guys knew who they wanted and they wouldn’t need to go far to find him. They had their eyes set on Kevin Steele because, according to them, Steele has the characteristics Auburn needs to revert back to the old glory days of the 1980s.

It’s not like football has advanced or anything in the last 40 years. Auburn  facilities sure haven’t. As I said before, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why Auburn continues to fall behind other SEC schools in recruiting  battles. Since 1989, Auburn football practice facilities have been located at the Auburn Athletics Complex, which is shared by numerous sports. Auburn football is ranked in the bottom half of the SEC in terms of facilities, and its new football-only complex, which should have been a brainchild a long time ago, is set for completion in 2022.

On Tuesday, athletic director Allen Greene and President Jay Gogue  announced the university had established an advisory committee who would cooperate with the Parker Executive Search Firm out of Atlanta to assist in finding Auburn’s next head coach. It was also around this time the public found out Greene would have virtually zero say in selecting Auburn’s next head coach, and the decision would fall to the hands of the big money boosters and ultimately Gogue himself.

This charade between these three boosters and Auburn University is so predictable it’s worse than a Hallmark Christmas movie. By Wednesday, the apathetic fan grew enraged when it was revealed the boosters planned to shove the hiring of Steele down their throats. The news ignited a revolution. By midnight on Thursday, #StopSteele was trending on Twitter, and Auburn players past and present began making it clear who they wanted to see as Auburn’s next head coach.

Here we are six days removed from the firing of Gus Malzahn. It’s been revealed current Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian is lined up to interview on Sunday. Louisiana head coach Billy Napier and Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliot are also scheduled to meet with Auburn in the coming days. But it’s also been reinforced that the “good ol’ boy” boosters are 110% committed to hiring Steele.

Hiring Steele reaffirms the message Auburn isn’t a family, but an institution run by the good ol’ boy system. The ramifications of this will be immediate. Greene will probably run for the hills. I mean, could you blame him? Two players have entered the transfer portal this week while recruiting is in shambles. Oh, and an already lethargic fan base will plunge even further into the depths of disinterest.

We were tired in 2003 after Bobby Lowder’s “JetGate.” We were tired in 2008 after Jay Jacobs escorted a head coach with a 5-19 record into Auburn to the chorus of, “We want a leader not a loser!”

We’re outright exhausted now.

Former Auburn linebacker: Gene Chizik ‘didn’t help sh*t’

A former Auburn linebacker is critical of the role Gene Chizik played as head coach for the Tigers.

Let’s go ahead and count one former Auburn defensive back as not a fan of Gene Chizik.

On the latest episode of Raw Room, Daren Bates spoke clearly on his opinions of his former Auburn coach stating that Chizik “didn’t help sh*t” and thought of himself “as a God.”

Bates experienced the ups and downs of the Chizik tenure at Auburn as player from 2009-2012, helping the Tigers win the national championship in 2010 while also being on the 2012 team that finished 3-9 and 0-8 in SEC play, ultimately getting Chizik fired.

“How the f*ck do you go 3-9 and still get $7 million?,” Bates asks at one point.

Bates led the 2011 team with 104 total tackles and finished third on team with 8.5 tackles for loss, 2.5 quarterback sacks and nine quarterback hurries. He went undrafted in 2013 but quickly caught on with the St. Louis Rams where he played from 2013-15. After spending one season in Oakland with the Raiders, he signed with the Tennessee Titans in 2017 where he played three seasons.

Bates recently signed with the Houston Texans.

You can take a full listen to the interview here. Please note that it is NSFW.

 

Former Auburn coach Gene Chizik on why we love college football

The former Auburn coach penned a column for AL.com on why we love college football.

On Wednesday AL.com published an opinion piece written by former Auburn football head coach Gene Chizik. Chizik answers the age-old question, why do we love college football?

Gene Chizik is no stranger when it comes to offering words of wisdom, or “words of Chizdom” as he calls it on Twitter. The wise SEC Network analyst recently wrote about the many reasons people love college football. He didn’t write this as a means to lobby for college football to be played this fall, but instead to remind us all of why football is played in the first place.

Chizik lists these four main reasons as catalysts: Generational Impact, Love of the Game, The Great Escape, and The Cinderella Story.

Generational Impact

It’s been nearly 2,300 years since the rise and fall of gladiator sports took place in ancient Rome, but some semblance of the hardcore combat still remains in modern day football. It’s draining physically, mentally, and emotionally. Chizik says that football, “pushes them to and through limits they never knew existed. It teaches young men that when they want to quit, quitting is NOT an option.” Breaking through those limits is what Chizik says makes these men, “better fathers, husbands and leaders in their own homes.”

Love of the Game

A really poignant quote by Chizik that I want to point out here is this,

“Players live for the 12 days a year they have, to display the talents they’ve worked on for the other 353 days. Most players work 10 to 12 years for a chance to live their dream of playing college football, with the hope of playing beyond that.”

These players don’t just love the game, they live for it. They build a career off of winning, and to win they must go above and beyond in preparation for the game. Success depends largely on the chemistry they have with their teammates. How strong of a family your team is determines your lot.

The Great Escape

Another home run quote by Chiz here,

“Football provides memories for fans that are hard to get elsewhere. I call it “The Great Escape”. It gives people an opportunity for one weekend, to escape bad jobs, bad finances, bad family situations, bad health issues and the list could go on and on.”

How relatable is this? I can think of numerous occasions where a trip to Auburn for a football weekend helped remedy something I was struggling with. Reuniting with friends, catching nostalgic buzzes, making new memories, and cheering on your favorite team is sometimes just what the doctor ordered.

The Cinderella Story

Aren’t we all searching for hope in these current times? Football is an amazing source, Chizik cites the triumphant story of Joe Burrow. Burrow, underdog turned Heisman Trophy winner, gives hope to people of all ages. Those are the stories college football breathes life into. I know I cried nearly every time, but I miss Tom Rinaldi’s touching segments on ESPN’s College Gameday. I look forward to hearing more triumphant underdog stories hopefully very soon.

This is a refreshing read in a time where the future of sports is uncertain. You can find the full article here.