The Bodda Getta

One more thing.......AuGR, before kickoff I suggest that you and I consume as much alcohol as is medically safe. The wives can entertain each other. Im talking about a biblical drunk. God knows we are gonna need it.

The thing that alot of people have a hard time understanding is - why should we be having to rebuild after 4 years? Why cant you understand that?

4 years by any measure is sufficent time to establish who and what you are. The idea that the present state of the program should not be questioned is nuts.

Actually, Jason Campbell was very good his sophomore year. He started as Daniel Cobb's back-up (unbelievably), came off the bench down 16 against Florida on the road, led us back to what would've been a victory if Damon Duvall hadn't kicked a 20 yard field goal up the snapper's butt. Campbell took over as the starter, led us to victories over 2 top ten teams (Saban's LSU and UAT), and I believe had a 5-1 record as a starter that year. The only loss was that infuriating Georgia game where Horace Willis doesn't merely jump and knock down David Greene's 4th and 15 prayer to Michael Johnson. Georgia finished ranked 2nd or 3rd in the nation I believe. So your analogy is way off base.

Here are Jason's stats, damn good his soph year:

http://www.totalfootballstats.com/PlayerQB.asp?id=595

I totally understand. It is because of leadership.

Your turn.

How about I try?

It's because the foundation of a college football program is recruiting and Chizik inherited a program in a decline that clearly was going to have a gaping hole in 2011 and 2012 due to recruiting issues.

In the mean time he resurrected an experienced roster to give us a national championship and has taken the edges off of the gap with exceptional recruiting classes. Last year his team won 8 games including a bowl game. I think the casual fan chronically fails to give Chizik the credit he deserves for that. But ya, Chizik has won three bowl games, an SEC championship and a National Championship in his first three years while largely making decisions that are best for the long term health of the Tiger program without taking any recruiting shortcuts according to an exhaustive NCAA investigation.

People spending the Herculean effort it takes to type a post that required neither thought, any apparent burden to support an opinion, nor more than 30 seconds at best really seem to miss the forest for the trees IMHO.

If Chizik were fired today he would be leaving behind a Tiger football program that is in much better shape than the one he inherited.

But if one simply wants to vent and dig no deeper than empty platitudes while refusing to see any positive sign of progress or inertia, then I guess it's one's prerogative. But I'm mystified by why someone wants to be viagra for Shadow. it's frankly kind of disturbing on many levels.

This is exactly where we should be with what CGC had coming in 4 years ago. He brought in an offense that allowed us to score points with inferior talent, because that's what we had, but knew to create a consistent winner we needed to be a pro-style team. The only misstep he has had to this point is that he didn't change Offensive philosophies directly after winning the NC Championship... but imagine the out-cry by us if he replaced Gus after he helped us win it all... Our talent is young and they are learning a pro style scheme on both sides of the ball. "There are no shortcuts". I'm pretty sure that every coach on our team has said this. The kids are learning and working hard and are/will get better.

My question to everyone is, if it's really all about winning now, how can we even entertain the idea that we need a whole-sail change in the coaching staff? That would set us back at least another 3 years. We need to let the very capable and proven CBVG teach his defense how to play at a very high level. We need to let Lefty develop KF into the QB we all know he can be. In short, we need to support this team and be as positive as possible through what are essentially growing pains. This year, anything else would be inviting mediocrity for another 3 years.

WDE

The free subscriptions certainly help with the general negative tone of the board in my opinion. These people (what is their real allegiance?) are augmented with the vocal minority of Auburn fans (I hate to call them that) who are always negative and have wanted Chizik gone from day one. The ignore option has become my best friend. Reading Phillip's columns is one of the few bright points (along with the excellent recruiting information) of AUC.

AUVTM all plans are a go Saturday sir

In addition to my earlier post...

You also have to consider where we are in year four against what we are up against in our conference and in recruiting. Instate, we recruit against a team that can win 3 out of the last four national championships this year for which the media constantly boats their accomplishments while minimizing ours. We have the toughest instate recruiting challenge in the country. W are bordered in recruiting by teams who are traditional powerhouse teams (top 10-20 programs) and traditionally dominate their instate recruiting. Georgia, Lsu, Tennessse, Florida, and etc...We usually got whipped by all these guys while Tubs was here are were left to our teams being made up of a few stars and mostly summer camp evaluation diamond in the rough types. Remember when we singed Blake Field and Calvin Booker at Qb? What about Jerald Watson at Rb? I don' care what anyone says, something in Tubs changed or things changed for us after we got jobbed in 2004 and didn't get to play USC. Because we started bringing in mid-level Sec talent and not top level SEC talent. If you look at the composition of talent on the 2004 team it is pretty incredible. But, there was some luck involved with unheralded guys coming in and turning into big time players. The degree our talent level had really been decimated to, following the Lee Ziemba class, was a shame. Then we kept losing all of our top guys to behavioral attrition. Guys like Christian Thompson etc. Then we depleted our roster of skill position talent via the Tony Franklin experiment. It takes time to get big time LBs and Dbs away from traditional powerhouses when we had been down and dominatted for a while. You want to have the wealth of talented depth of LSU and Alabama? Guess what? It takes time. Like it or not it takes a little longer at Auburn. Most kids in Alabama grow up Alabama fans. same for Georgia and LSU. These coaches have had to invest in relationship building with high school coaches and re-brand what it means to be Auburn. They have to evaluate young prospects and build relationships starting with team camps and etc with coaching staffs and high school freshman and sophomores. Recruiting starts so early now. And we have had our share of top guys come in... some are developing, some busted out, and some are really contributing but we don't yet have the full cycle of depth with regard talent and experience that makes a perennial top ten team. For us, the barometer is year 6 like it or not. What our coaches are doing with bringing in top talent is special but you don't win conference championships with sophomores.