Tuesday, October 27, 2009

SEC Football Blogger

Posted: 27 Oct 2009 04:10 PM PDT

Welcome to the SEC, Gene Chizik

I’ve always been a fan of harsh reactions. I mean, the feeling you get when a team that you decided to leave for dead comes back and stabs your expectations in the jugular? It’s fun to see. This is why I am absolutely delighted as to this Paul Finebaum masterwork.

Do the math. In two consecutive road games, the Tigers have been out of games before the uniforms got dirty, trailing by a total of 65-6. This wasn’t against the Denver Broncos or the New Orleans Saints. Auburn fell behind 34-3 to an Arkansas team fresh off a 35-7 pounding to Alabama. LSU has looked a little better, but it still took a miracle goal line stand to beat Mississippi State.

Can we say lousy coaching?

I say give Gene Chizik a contract extension before someone comes and steals him away. After all, that 10-22 record as a head coach would be tough to turn down. One can only imagine that his agent’s phone is blowing up right now with calls from Louisville and Virginia. One thing is for sure — they don’t want him back at Iowa State. Did you notice over the weekend that his successor won at Nebraska (first time since 1977) and matched Chizik’s two-year total of victories?

Most people expected this to be the team that would be thanking their lucky stars for the existence of Mississippi State. Most people did not this team to do much. If this was a team that didn’t have a schedule that was so frontloaded? Mr. Finebaum would not find himself pulling such a Jay Mariotti.

You have a team that lacked athleticism at wide receiver and has been dinged up with the injuries as the schedule was going to be getting tougher. This wasn’t going to be spectacular for Auburn. I told bossman Jaynes that he needed to slow his expectational roll. Seven wins is still going to be a good year.

But I’m going to read more from this young upstart, Paul Finebaum. I don’t have enough hyperbolic overreaction in my life.