Gill cashes in

Turner Gill didn’t get the job at Auburn, but he’s a lot better off now than when the search started.

Gill will remain the head coach at Buffalo for 2009, and, if his new deal means anything more than ink on paper, well beyond that.

The terms of Gill’s new contract, which was announced today, are unclear at the moment, but he’s locked up through 2013 and will likely become the highest-paid coach in the Mid-American Conference.

Here’s the rest of the story, courtesy of ESPN.com’s Graham Watson.

Green representing Auburn in Senior Bowl

Offensive lineman Tyronne Green will represent your Auburn Tigers in the Under Armour Senior Bowl. The game is set for Jan. 24, 2009 at Mobile’s Ladd-Peebles Stadium.

Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. and will be broadcast on the NFL Network. From my rough knowledge of the area, I’m pretty confident you can’t get that station in Auburn, but I know of a couple watering-holes that have it. Send me an e-mail and I’ll point you in the right direction.

Anyways, Green had a pretty stellar career at Auburn, starting 25 games and constantly grading out as on of the top Tigers linemen throughout 2008.

Here’s what he had to say, courtesy of Auburn media relations.

“I feel blessed to have the opportunity to play with the elite players in college football, and can’t wait to see what I can do,” Green said. ”I look forward to the whole week and I know a lot of people from my hometown plan on coming over to see me live and in person, so it should be fun.”

And here’s what Steve Hale, Senior Bowl President and CEO, had to say about Mr. Green, who I’ve heard can really belt out a tune when the time is right.

“Tyronne has been a leader on the Auburn offensive line the past two years and is a solid NFL prospect,” Hale said. “We are looking forward to watching him compete here at the Senior Bowl next month.”

A letter from Pat Dye

Here’s a note former Auburn coach Pat Dye sent yesterday to members of Tigers Unlimited.

Quick summation: He loves the hire and thinks you should too.

Here it is in its entirety.

Auburn Family,

I woke up this morning with Auburn on my mind, which is not surprising since I went to sleep with Auburn on my mind.

This is a very emotional time for the Auburn family. We all have our own opinions about what is best for Auburn and about the impact that Auburn decisions will have on our lives.

I don’t expect everyone who reads this to agree with everything I say, but I just want you to know what I feel in my heart. This time of transition we are going through now reminds me of the time in 1981 when I walked into a room full of football players who had many questions and doubts about me coming in as the new head football coach.

Their frustration showed in their faces, and anxiety was in their eyes because of the unknown. I had a simple message: Whether they had come to Auburn for the right reasons or the wrong reasons, they had chosen to get their education and to play football at Auburn University, which would lay the foundation for the rest of their lives.

I told them that Auburn had chosen me and that I had chosen Auburn. I asked them as a team to be loyal to Auburn and to love Auburn. I said that I would also be loyal to Auburn and would love Auburn, and this loyalty and love would be our common ground which would lay the foundation that would serve Auburn for many years to come. 

There is a lot of misinformation out there right now. The media people have their jobs to do and should have our respect for doing those jobs. But unless an individual has served as president of a major university, has been on the board of trustees of a major university, or has been athletic director or head football coach at a major university, it is hard to grasp how the people in these positions make the decisions that affect so many. 

Unless you have walked in their shoes, you cannot begin to understand all that is involved in the process of making these decisions.

In addressing the current situation pertaining to our Athletic Director, Jay Jacobs, and his decision to hire Gene Chizik as our new Head Coach, I applaud all parties involved in the process for allowing Jay Jacobs to do his job.

Nobody is more qualified to make this decision than Jay. He is a true Auburn man to the bone and understands better than anybody the kind of man we need to lead our football program into the future. Gene Chizik is that man.

Because of the years I was involved in football – as a player, an assistant coach, a head coach, and as a part of teams that won championships at every level – I learned something about winning. One thing I am sure of is that I know what it takes to win. Teams where everyone played with the same heartbeat had a chance to win championships; teams that were not able to play like that never reached their full potential.

We don’t need to worry about what is going on around us. We only need to be concerned about what is going on at Auburn. And being the best we can be at Auburn will take care of what is going on around us. We are an Auburn family. Let’s see if we can play with the same heartbeat.

I know winning is important to the Auburn people. But so is character. Jay Jacobs has it and so does Gene Chizik. Now we’ll see if they can win. They are our team. I like it. War Eagle.

Coach Pat Dye

Hey, I got to write something again

While on my well-publicized column break (I know you weep America, I shall return Dec. 30), I found myself in an interesting position today.

With our staff sorta busy covering some news conference or other, I wound up diving into the world of Auburn sports.

The Associated Press Women’s Top 25 was released today. Here it is, in case you’re interested:

College women
The Associated Press
The Women’s Top Twenty Five
The top 25 teams in The Associated Press’ women’s college basketball poll, with first - place votes in parentheses, records through Dec. 14, total points based on 25 points for a first - place vote through one point for a 25th - place vote and previous ranking:
W - L Pts Pvs
1. Connecticut (45) 7 - 0 1,125 1
2. North Carolina 10 - 0 1,076 2
3. Stanford 7 - 1 1,016 3
4. Texas A&M 9 - 0 963 4
5. Texas 9 - 0 928 6
6. Oklahoma 8 - 2 918 5
7. Baylor 9 - 1 797 10
8. Duke 6 - 1 732 11
9. Louisville 9 - 1 724 12
10. Auburn 10 - 0 701 13
11. Tennessee 7 - 2 687 7
12. California 8 - 2 621 9
13. Notre Dame 8 - 1 598 8
14. Rutgers 6 - 2 559 14
15. Maryland 8 - 2 537 15
16. Pittsburgh 7 - 1 479 16
17. Virginia 7 - 2 401 17
18. Ohio St. 7 - 2 370 18
19. Vanderbilt 8 - 2 211 20
20. Florida 10 - 1 194 23
21. Arizona St. 7 - 2 182 22
22. Oklahoma St. 4 - 2 164 24
23. Kansas St. 9 - 0 154 25
24. TCU 8 - 3 120 19
25. Georgia Tech 8 - 2 110 —
Others receiving votes: S. Dakota St. 73, Wisconsin 63, Old Dominion 37, Xavier 27, Marist 14, New Mexico 11, DePaul 10, Purdue 7, South Florida 6, Florida St. 3, Wake Forest 3, Oregon St. 2, Michigan 1, Mississippi St. 1.

As you can see, Auburn is ranked No. 10 after its 10-0 start.

After much searching, I discovered it was AU’s first Top 10 appearance since Jan. 17, 2000 (a pretty long drought for what was once one of the top programs in the country).

So I got my first chance to talk to head coach Nell Fortner, and here is the admittedly short and lame story (Hey, I had to put together a huge section. Sue me.).

Tomorrow I will fly to Richmond, Va., for the week to spend an early Christmas with the in-laws, so blogging will be sporadic at best for the forseeable future (but you could also make the case it’s been sporadic at best for the entirety of its existence). See you all later.

 

Tomorrow’s notes today—the return

OK, there were a lot of things said today. There was plenty not worth writing about. But, filtering through all that babble takes a bunch of time, thus the lack of activity on the blog today.

Here are what I consider to be the newsiest items of the day. The rest that I’ve been hacking away is a bit more featurey, the brunt of which was covered in my first post of the day.

Enjoy.

All Auburn assistants likely done
Gene Chizik refused to go into details when asked multiple times about his coaching staff Monday, but, from all indications, Tommy Tuberville’s longtime crew of assistants’ days on the Plains are over.

All of the nameplates have been removed from beside the doors in the coaches’ hallway at the Auburn Athletic Complex.

Chizik remained ambiguous when asked if any former assistants had a chance to return under him in 2009.

“If I feel like they’re a person who is philosophically from the same realm of what I believe in and I feel like they’re the best fit of what we’re doing—whether it’s this staff or any staff—I’m going to talk to them,” Chizik said. “I’m not discriminating in any way, shape or form.”

In the meantime, Chizik has brought on Auburn administrators Joe Whitt Sr., Phillip Lolley and Jimmy Perry to help with recruiting until his staff comes together. Asked if any of the three could be on his staff, Chizik said he would “evaluate that.”

At Iowa State, he was already in the process of finding a new offensive and defensive coordinator, both of which he demoted. He also fired two assistants.

“I have one goal and that is to bring in the absolute best football coach, the best person, and the best recruiter that can be around these young guys,” Chizik said. “I want all three of those things in one guy.”

Auburn’s wallet will be wide open for Chizik’s staff, athletic director Jay Jacobs said.

“We are going to go out and hire the best coaches we possibly can,” Jacobs said. “Chizik has been given the green light to do whatever is necessary to hire the best coaches. It is the cost of doing business.”

Auburn loses Cotton
Highly touted, four-star recruit quarterback Raymond Cotton (Fort Meade, Md.) has relinquished his commitment to Auburn, according to AuburnSports.com.

The departure of linebackers coach James Willis, who recruited heavily during Auburn’s coaching search, was the “last straw,” Cotton’s father, Raymond Sr., said.

“Coach Willis got let go and Raymond had built a good relationship with him and all of the guys that were down there,” Cotton Sr. said. “None of those guys are there anymore. He’s going to look elsewhere.“

Auburn’s class of 2009 stands at 19 commitments, down from the 26 that stood committed before Tuberville’s resignation.

Jacobs said he considers Chizik to be a relentless recruiter. Chizik agrees.

“I think you’ve got challenges because this league is so visible and the head coaches in this league are so visible,” Chizik said. “If one head coach falls behind the other in terms of not how hard they’re working and how visible they are in the recruiting scene, I think it hurts your university.

“There’s 200 games on every Saturday you can get every one of them. It does matter when that head coach walks into that school. It does matter when that head coach walks into a home. I think it’s, probably over the last 10 years, gotten greater.”

Gogue a no-show
President Dr. Jay Gogue was surprisingly absent from Monday’s press conference.

Jacobs said Gogue was out of town at a meeting.

Barkley mad about Chizik hiring
Auburn alum and former NBA superstar Charles Barkley was outspoken last week in endorsing Buffalo’s Turner Gill as his choice to be the Auburn head coach.

He was even louder when Gill didn’t get the job, saying that race played a major part in Chizik landing the job over Gill, who is black.

“I think race was the No. 1 factor,“ Barkley told ESPN.com. “You can say it’s not about race, but you can’t compare the two resumes and say [Chizik] deserved the job. Out of all the coaches they interviewed, Chizik probably had the worst resume.“

Asked to reply to Barkley’s comments, Jacobs was brief.

“Well,” Jacobs said, “my reaction is I was picking the best fit for Auburn.”

No contact with the old boss
Chizik said he had not been in contact with Tuberville since he was hired Saturday.

“I had a great three years here,” Chizik said. “I was very appreciative of Tommy letting me do my job. That’s what I’ve asked everywhere I’ve been; just let me do my job, and I’ll get that job done. I think I did that here.”