Maybe the town of Auburn is a step up from Oxford, MS. Maybe his SO who is from Florida thinks she would rather live in Alabama than Mississippi. Then again, maybe he is staying at Ole Miss. Stay tuned for further details.
Auburn has a beautiful campus, but I never heard that as an honest reason for a coach signing there.
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Ole Miss has a beautiful campus as do about all of the SEC schools not from Texas. Tennesseeâs campus is pretty enough, but not beautiful.
HmmâŠI wonder what school that could be?
Well, letâs just say I donât think either of the Texas schools that are either in the SEC or going to be in the SEC are pretty.
IF Kiffin gets along with this guy, he can have anything he wants at Auburn.
If he cant then stay far away from the job.
For decades it was also the CEO of Colonial Bank until they went under 10+ years ago. AU business school named after his parents.
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From what I understand, YellaFella isnât even their biggest booster â just their loudest.
Ole Miss is a good gig. Auburn has a higher ceiling, but a lot more heartburn of high expectations.
Who knows where Lane is at this point of his life? Maybe even he doesnât know.
I have a feeling I know where Kiffin will be after Mississippiâs game with Mississippi State. On the first private jet to Auburn, AL.
Carnival Baker routine? Please explain.
Hopefully this is not something related to his time as an NFL HOF safety.
As for Auburnâs coaching choices, there is a reason why they continue to come up a day late and a dollar short. Besides the fact that the school is literally in the middle of nowhere, they can never get decent players without paying for them.
Also, not sure where you get the idea that Auburn has deep pockets, but the schoolâs endowment is smaller than ours and they can count very few billionaires or even large scale millionaires among its alumni. Unless you mean Charles Barkley and Bo Jackson, both of whom want Prime Time as coach.
Yeah this dude apparently is a lot of talk. He was riding high for a few years but apparently is no longer even a billionaire.
I guess the still have that guy who founded Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, but considering how often Wikipedia asks for donations, I donât get the sense they are drowning in money.
One of the biggest perks of Auburn is its a 90 minute drive to Atlanta a city that much like Houston is loaded with talent.
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Very loud. Very good at getting attention. Auburn already has attention, though.
Endowments are not athletic expenditures, otherwise Rice would be a powerhouse. Auburn has one of the largest athletic budgets in the country, especially on a per-athlete basis. They put 90,000 fans in the stadium every Saturday, at relatively high prices â most of them arenât alumni, and that money doesnât just vanish into thin air. Their basketball arena, in fact, is named after a Rice alumnus who happens to be a huge Auburn fan.
Auburn cares a lot about sports, and throws ungodly sums at it.
Yeah agreed, but it has not seemed to have been much help to them in the last 20 years. They have one national title, which was brought to them courtesy of Cam Newton, who clearly was acquired via a bidding war (rumor is $1M cash to his Dad was the asking price). By the way, I am fine with that, but point is, that is what Auburn has always had to do to get the sorts of players they need to compete with Bama.
I understand the endowment is not necessarily used for sports, but it is a good proxy for the amount of money available from existing alums.
If your schools endowment is small, that says 2 things:
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Your alumni have money/assets, but donât care to give.
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Your alumni care, but donât have any money/assets to give.
Now, it is true that Auburn has been getting SEC money for the last two decades, but as most will tell you, that money is split two dozen ways; shared with Womenâs sports under Title IX and the other sports that donât bring in the money.
My understanding from speaking with some Auburn alumni here in the Atlanta Metro is that one reason they kept Harsin around was due to the money; they could not come up with the money for a buyout last season, so they waited this season since it would drop.
Finally, I have never met a successful person who is not a self-promoter. I mean, if you are trying to build a brand, you need promotion. Unless you are Bama, Michigan, USC, UT, OSU or ND, every school in Big Time College Football needs promotion.
If Auburn goes with Kiffin, he will be gone in three seasons, mark my words. And how much you want to bet that Bama makes a run at Prime Time when Saban retires.
As the Chinese say, we live in interesting times.
I think itâs important in this discussion to disambiguate alumni and fans here. Auburn has a lot more of the latter than the former, which explains the why they spend so disproportionately on athletics relative to their endowment. Theyâre not exactly Harvard, but they have tons of fans that live and die by Auburn athletics. Those fans care about beating Bama, not about churning out Engineering degrees, and they spend their money accordingly. Itâs a dynamic that basically every large land grant school in the South faces.
And regarding Auburn having paid Cam â every school loosely approaching competitiveness pays players. Iâd bet donuts to dollars UH does. Auburn wasnât the only school in a bidding war for Cam Newton. Tennessee was giving players McDonaldâs bags full of cash and still wasnât very good. Nearly every school in the SWC paid players in the 70s, 80s, and 90s; it would be delusional to think that 30 years later, with vastly more exposure and revenue for college football, all of that has dried up and college sports have gone clean. Auburnâs history as a program doesnât look terribly different from Georgiaâs or Clemsonâs.
To be clear, I donât think youâre wrong about Kiffin. There are red flags all over his resume, and theyâre probably about to give him Jimbo Fisher money. If I were Auburnâs AD, Iâd rather hire Hugh Freeze or Matt Rhule, especially at their relative prices. At least the memes will be spicy for as long as heâs there, though.
Everything Iâve heard is that when (if?) Saban retires, thereâs one name on the list, and itâs Dabo Swinney. Barring some very substantial developments in the immediate future, Iâd be shocked to see Bama even give Deion a courtesy interview.
Sucks for that Jaxson Dart kid
Transferred from USC because of coaching changes. Now has to deal with another potential coaching change
Its still all in the unofficial visits. Using 3d parties to get as many Top 300 types on campus as possible. As many times as possible.
The $100 handshakes have become $1000 gift cards, etc.
I imagine he is headed w Kiffin to AU if he gets the job.
What point are you making here, exactly? That he didnât produce some of the best years of Cougar football in just two seasons, or that the requirement was for him to go undefeated?
It was one great year. The 9-3 year had some nice wins, but losing to Navy and getting rolled by SMUâŠâŠopposite of great.
One year. Thatâs it.
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