He must have finally visited a brain doctor. His comments are logical and coherent.

…..but they always seem to learn the hard way. When Saban arrived the story was that Tubby owns Saban and recruiting doesn’t matter.

In two years we’ll hear a confession about the futility of the Chizik hire and his dream staff.

… largely because I wanted to address this particular quote:

There are not more than two or three players on the 2009 roster that Alabama really wanted for themselves.

While Auburn currently features a lot of players we never really recruited, that’s nevertheless pure and total BS. In fact, Auburn has a lot of players we pursued very hard and would have loved to have had.

Gabe McKenzie and Tommy Trott were two of the state’s top prospects in 2005, and we pursued both very hard. Antonio Coleman was another guy we wanted in 2005. Montez Billings left the team a few weeks ago, but we recruited him in 2005, too. The ’06 class was absolutely loaded with players we wanted… Michael Goggans, Tim Hawthorne, Jake Ricks, Neil Caudle, and Bart Eddins were just a few. The 2007 class was just as much… Bart Eddins, Nick Fairley, Mike McNeil, Eltoro Freeman, Ryan Williams, Ryan Pugh, and others. Obviously the 2008 and 2009 classes were completely different stories, but nevertheless Auburn still probably has about 25-30 players on their roster that not only had offers to ’Bama, but players who in fact ’Bama recruited very hard.

And on the other hand, for all of Saban’s prowess on the recruiting trails, we have in many ways largely rebuilt ourselves on lightly recruited prospects that we have turned into high-end players. For example…

Glen Coffee was a low three-star recruit who wanted to go to Auburn, but they never offered him and he signed with ‘Bama. Cory Reamer was a two-star safety that grew up an Auburn fan, but again Auburn recruited more highly-touted safeties in the 2004 class than the two-star Reamer. Antoine Caldwell was a two-star offensive lineman out of Montgomery. Drew Davis was another two-star, and our greyshirt offer was the only legitimate BCS conference offer he had. Eryk Anders was a 200 pound nose guard in high school, a one-star prospect, and a kid who was going to walk-on at Ole Miss before we snapped him up. Mike Johnson was a two-star out of Pensacola that no one else gave the time of day. Javier Arenas was a low three-star that only had offers from Florida Atlantic and Florida A&M. Chavis Williams was a two-star out of Dora with one other SEC offer. Darius Hanks was a two-star who was getting pursued hardest by Jacksonville State before we came along. Brad Smelley was a two-star out of a tiny private school that no one else gave the time of day. Kareem Jackson was a two-star coming out of a military academy — and a kid who didn’t get a single offer anywhere coming out of high school — who was heading to Vandy before we came along.

The point of it is that, while Saban has annihilated on the recruiting trails, that’s far from being his sole secret to success. Much to the contrary, much of our rise has been predicated upon taking a bunch of scrubs that no one else wanted, and turning them into high-end players at this level. Saban hasn’t just spanked Tubby and Chizik on the recruiting trails, he has ran circles around them in terms of player development as well.

that Auburn has few players on the roster that Saban wanted, since most of the examples you cited were from Shula’s years, when Alabama was winning the recruiting war with UAB.

After a decade of failure, Alabama officials, alumni and fans came together and said enough. They vowed to do whatever it took to put their program back on top.

Yeah, whatever it took, like making sure our games are fixed with the refs. I’m not saying all the calls against us are total horse crap, but the majority are. And it happens in EVERY one of our games. If you think they are above doing something like that, think again. They are willing to do whatever it takes to make us fail. They are trying to make the state of Alabama like the state of Louisiana, with 1 big school and several little schools. They are trying to be the LSU of this state, and make Auburn the Tulane. Auburn cannot let that happen. Call me crazy for my conspiracy theory, but I’m dead serious.

more, probably. but my main problem with the sunshine-up-the-ass blowing is that it has almost completely obliterated any kind of objective assessment of auburn on the football field. and that’s bad for us all.

there is a certain amount of rallying the troops round the flag after the chizik hire that, let’s be honest, barners were obligated to do. i wasn’t doing backflips over the shula hire but i sure as hell wasn’t actively considering giving up on my team either. after screaming for jay jacobs scalp they calmed down and got behind their team. good for them.

the problem has been that at some point during spring this completely unaccountable optimism about the program began to take root and it was simply impossible to find any auburn fan discussing their team’s prospects in any measure of sanity. lissen, as happy as we were to get saban, there weren’t a hell of a lot of alabama fan’s expecting us to play in the sec championship that first season, or even the second.

and the early season victories not only raised expectations to not just unrealistic but simply fantastical levels for the barners but it also sowed the seeds of their destruction this season. orson over at EDSBS hit the nail on the head when he wrote this today:

Auburn’s defense has been on the field or 575 plays, tied for 113th in the nation in total snaps taken by the defense. The side effect of the espresso-paced Malzahn offense is to lengthen the game for everyone, your defense included… This leads to more opportunities for the opposing team, which leads to fatigue, which leads to Les Miles’ struggling offense breaking out the good knives and going to work despite struggling through most of the season.

Auburn’s defense is tired, and we’d bet even money on them looking more gassed as the season goes on due to the first year of the system and the lack of conditioning. It’s not like Auburn spent the offseason lounging poolside and feasting on gelato, but you can’t really be prepared to take that many snaps unless you’ve seen what switching up-tempo can do to the defense of the team making the switch.

orson then links to the always eloquent and insightful jerry over at war eagle reader who has a great post summing the situation up:

What the paradox of Auburn 2009 ultimately means is that the story of this season isn’t going to be finished until 2010. If Auburn takes dramatic steps forward next year and re-enters the upper echelon of the SEC, then Original Auburn will be the real 2009 Auburn, the true example of Gene Chizik and his staff’s capabilities before the lack of bodies and playmakers caught up to them. If Auburn sputters again, Replacement Auburn will be 2009’s genuine article, the accurate representation of the staff’s failures juxtaposed with the Chizik era’s fraudulent, smoke-and-mirrors debut.

which is pretty much what most observers have thought from the start. at best, chizick is going to need a year to get a system in place and any assessment on the basis of limos and wins against ball state is not going to be realistic.

because the reality of the situation is that throwing out tubbs and bringing in chizik did one thing right off… a team that had finished either first or second in the sec west for eight straight years took it’s first losing season of the decade as an excuse to lurk in the bottom half of the division until at least the end of obama’s current term of office.

and the fact is that by trading a known quantity of a coach for a guy who sported a track record that gave not a single reason to believe that such an assessment was unwarranted makes the odds even longer. given his resume, it seems more likely that chizik will make it to season four or so and get booted for the next guy to rebuild the program. and thus followed by another four years in the wilderness.

and as much as the alabama fan in me rejoices in all this, the fact is the resurgence of the crimson tide as a force in the SEC has less to do with this all coming to pass than you would think. OTS’ argument above concerning the importance of development is wickedly on point. having more five star recruits on your roster improves your chances of having great players, but it’s through development that they are able to bring those skills to game day.

because the real problem is that auburn has no depth. and this is where where chizik has really lost the recruiting battle. the number of four and three star studs they crow about stealing for us do jack for building depth on a squad that desperately needing it. chizik needs a team with enough horses to run a full four quarters with the behemoths of this conference, not an average squad with one or two hotshots that can punch your ticket in the big east or something.