T GAMBLE: A new coach at Auburn? That means another national title chase

It is time again, as a long-time Auburn Tiger, to suffer the indignity of watching my beloved school search for a new coach. If you have ever watched a blindfolded person try to hit a pinata, you’ve seen the Auburn search committee in action. As everyone knows, they fired Gus Malzahn after the Gus bus broke down, somewhere around 2018. Auburn is a firm believer in haste makes waste, so it was 2020 before the ax fell. I happened to like Gus but don’t really bicker with the decision to fire him either.

He had some great things happen in eight years at Auburn. We went to the national title game in 2013 and came within seconds of winning it all. He won the West twice, SEC once, which isn’t easy when ‘Bama is on your side, too. He beat ‘Bama three times during that time, and in 2017 beat two teams ranked No. 1 in the nation in a row, Georgia and then Alabama, and was the only team to beat the national champs that year, again ‘Bama. But he couldn’t beat Georgia much and couldn’t beat ‘Bama and LSU on the road, and he lost games he shouldn’t have. And he lost bowl games, and you know how all that ends.

So now every coach we try to get runs away. I still can’t figure out how, if you’ve been thinking about firing the coach for at least two years, you didn’t have someone already set up once you did fire him, but that’s Auburn. But before all you Dawgs and Gators and Elephants and Tigers get too excited, remember what I am about to tell you.

We could hire Clem Clown as our next coach and still have a great year next year. Who is Clem Clown, you may ask? Well, clearly your mother never let you watch “Circus Parade” growing up. She should be reported to DEFACS for this transgression and sent to a re-education camp for moms who did not let their kids watch “Circus Parade.” It also explains a lot about how you turned out the way you did. Last I heard, Clem was serving 10 to 20 but, as Willie Nelson says, for reasons I’d rather not disclose.

You see history always repeats itself, along with Uncle Joe every Christmas after his 12th Miller Lite. Auburn has a remarkable history. No, not of winning every title but from new coach hires. Let’s go back to when they fired Pat Dye after getting in a little NCAA trouble. Everyone said the world would end for Auburn. They hired Terry Bowden, who was coaching a Podunk college. He promptly won 20 games in a row. 11-0 his first year and started 9-0 the second.

But all good things must come to an end, “same as the Wildwood Weed” … sorry I just had to add a Jim Stafford tune in here somewhere. Bowden’s fortunes dimmed, and he quit mid-season. The team went 3-8, and football as a sport in Auburn was doomed. Except, we hired Tommy Tubberville, who promptly won an SEC championship and then later went 12-0 and finished second in the nation. He did this after the trustees tried the midnight meeting with Arkansas’ coach to hire him away and fire Tubby. That coach later wrecked his motorcycle while tooling around with a female volleyball player that was not his wife. His wife, it is reported, said, “Well, at least it was not with a male volleyball player.”

His fortunes soon turned down, and he was fired. This was for sure the end of football at Auburn, which was at that point ranked right below the equestrian team in attendance. Auburn hired Gene, who in the world is that, Chizik, and he won the national title his first year. Two years later, he managed to go 3-8 and lose every SEC game and off with his head we went. Next came Malzahn. His first year? He went to the national title game and lost in the closing seconds to FSU.

So, history established, we will at least go to the natty next year with Clem Clown. Now three years later we may be paying him a $40 million buy-out, but watch out next year. It’s coming. And remember, you heard it first right here.