Hey all,

I realize I haven’t written in awhile, and I’m trying to get better at that – please forgive me.

Anyhow, lets get to the task at hand. So anytime someone recognizes me on the street, they always want to talk about either Alabama or Auburn. Certainly Understandable.

But the OVERWHEALMING topic they want to talk about is Gene Chizik. What do I think of Gene Chizik? Does Gene Chizik have the power to recruit strongly in the SEC? Should Gene Chizik have been hired over Turner Gill? Etc, etc…

OK, so here’s my take.

Personally, I didn’t like the Chizik hire. Auburn had a huge chance here to land a big name, and with Nick Saban at Alabama, the university certainly needed to LOOK like they could make a splash. Instead, they hired a guy totally off the radar screen.

Sure it was known that he interviewed for the gig, but I don’t think a lot of us in the know thought he would get the job. I mean, here’s a guy that was 2-10 last year. He didn’t even win a game in the Big 12! And his recruiting classes with the Cyclones? Not very impressive. According to Rivals they were ranked 60th, 62nd, and 76th. That’s about as far away from “splashy” as you can get.

In addition, they took a huge hit in the national media for not hiring the African-American front-runner Turner Gill of Buffalo.

Now part of it was their fault, and part of it wasn’t.

For hiring a guy that no one on the national scene has heard of - they deserve it.

But for all this racial stuff everyone is talking about…Well, I’m not so sure.

Look, I’m not naïve. Do I think race played a factor in Turner Gill not getting hired? Yes, especially with all the old, rich, white guys that make up the majority of the university’s boosters. There’s no doubt that Athletic Director Jay Jacobs is a pawn to them in many respects.

Now, with that being said, the race argument is totally bogus.

Let me give you an example, on ESPN’s Outside the Lines: First Report (OTL), this issue was discussed extensively on a couple different episodes. The one that caught my eye featured Josh Moon of the Montgomery Advertiser, popular sports radio personality Paul Finebaum, and ESPN.com columnist Jemele Hill (who is not tapped into SEC football at all, but I digress).

Now all three came to the apparently obvious conclusion that this hire was all about race, with their main argument being a comparison of resumes. Looking at it that way, it doesn’t seem to make any sense that Chizik would be hired over Gill. But upon further review, compare Chizik’s resume to that of other major candidates mentioned for the job - Mike Leach of Texas Tech, Gary Patterson of TCU, or Chris Petersen at Boise State – all of whom are white. And all their resumes seem to clearly trump Chizik’s.

So, as I said, I think race played a role. And it’s awful that it did. But you can’t use the resume comparison. Auburn just made a bad hire.

I think….?