Malcolm Cutchins: Time for Auburn fans to unite

There is nothing wrong with high expectations for AU’s football program. The problem is the bad public relations (PR) we generate by not having a more unified fan base. It hurts recruiting. It hurts us in the national media. Its cumulative effects probably kept us out of the national championship game after the 2004 season. It most likely had a lot to do with Miami leaping over AU to win the national AP title at the end of the 1983 season.

Consider our recent events. If Tommy Tuberville really resigned (his letter has been published in this newspaper), and AU without legal obligation agreed to pay him the “buyout” in his contract, isn’t that a very commendable thing for the university to do? Isn’t it great that a very successful head coach chooses to retire in our twin-cities and work to further AU’s success? Great PR should result. Instead, we have various conspiracy theories, some that make the university look really bad, theories that get spread to regional and national audiences resulting in poor PR that will hurt us in future years.

Some fans heap extreme criticism on our leaders (men who have great integrity, our president and athletics director) while these men try to move ahead and get the best coach we can find. Even a former AU basketball great chose to convey very poor PR to the national media about his own inappropriate racial take on the hiring.

Auburn is not the only university to experience unrest in its football program. A class of ‘64 fan at another comparable school wrote an interesting article very early in this year’s season, addressing problems within their fan base. Perhaps there are some lessons to be learned here at Auburn.

One of the things pointed out in the article was a listing of those BCS teams that won 75 games during the 2000-2007 seasons. They were (with their records in parentheses), Oklahoma (90-17), Texas (85-17), LSU (82-22), Ohio State (81-20), Southern Cal (81-21), Georgia (80-23), Virginia Tech (79-25), Miami (76-23), and Auburn (75-24). All but the last two have appeared in BCS national championship games. The second best above, Texas, hired two straight defensive coordinators away from AU, including Coach Gene Chizik who greatly contributed to their national championship season.

Note some of the names that are not in this list of nine teams: Alabama, Florida State, Florida, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Penn State. (The article referred to noted “the University of Virginia had more wins in these eight seasons than the University of Alabama.”)

Wins over ranked (top 25) teams? I haven’t checked all of these teams’ records, but reportedly Virginia Tech was 12-9, and Oklahoma was 9-11. Auburn was 9-3 over top 10 teams.
One thing that is apparent is that Tuberville’s legacy is even better nationally than that portrayed by just noting he “led AU to 85 wins.”

It’s time for the AU Nation to become unified and emphasize, “It’s great, to be, an Auburn Tiger!”

Dr. Malcolm Cutchins is an emeritus professor of engineering of Auburn University and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.