*Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not necessarily the views of College and Magnolia contributors
It has been a turbulent year and a half for Auburn football fans. Since November 5th, 2010 our football program has gone through what equates to a full body cavity search by NCAA investigators, a mediocre football season where we were titled one hit wonders, lost both of our coordinators and once again get labeled as a "sinking ship." Here's my advice: Suck it up. Trust Gene Chizik and staff until he gives us a reason not to trust him. Auburn fans (me included) sometimes make these situations harder on themselves than they should be.
I will be the first to admit that in the back of my mind, I was worried that our championship would be taken away. After Auburn was cleared by the NCAA I realized that I just need to sit back, cheer hard, and trust the people that are running the program.
A lot of us fans claim to be experts about how a major football program should be run. I am not questioning the right of fans to ask questions about the state of the program but I do take issue when some people know without a shadow of a doubt who the right person to hire is or what defense should be run or what the players need to be working on during practice.
During the latest coordinator search, message boards and Twitter were filled with opinions of people who have never set foot on a football field above the high school level, much less as a coach. A lot of people are absolutely sure that Auburn made the worst hire and have already chalked up a losing season next year.
Did Coach Chizik make the right hire? I don't know. No one will know until we have a large enough sample size to judge from. One thing I do know for sure is that Coach Chizik hired one of the best recruiting and coaching staffs in the country when he became Auburn's head coach. I have no reason to expect anything different with this latest round of hires.
It is quite often that Auburn gets labeled as "little brother" to schools like Alabama or UGA. It is a stigma that we fans helped to create, I believe. As soon as a positive or negative event occurs, Auburn fans are quick to make comparison to Alabama or LSU or UGA. Who cares what those schools did? Worry about Auburn. Let them point and make fun and we'll just beat them on the field. The hiring of Chizik is a perfect example. I'm sure Jay Jacobs wasn't thinking about what those schools or those fans would think about when he hired Coach Chizik. Jacobs was worried about what was best for Auburn and nothing else. Why can't we adopt that philosophy as fans? I think it would help us all sleep a little better at night.