As I was thinking about this a little more tonight at dinner with my family, I had some realizations. Chizik and the Auburn AD can believe that it was ISU all they want to. And as far as getting BCS bowl caliber teams year in and year out, yes, ISU is probably the toughest place in the country to sell that at. In all honesty though, half of our losses this year, imo were not because of lack of talent on our team. Really, a lot of it was poor coaching and the inablity to get our team ready to play on the road. I saw nothing out of A&M, Kansas, UNLV, CU, KState or even Nebraska that told me we shouldn't have been able to beat any one of them. Or at the very least, two of them. Believe me, I'm not saying we should have won every one of those games, merely that it wasn't talent on the field that was our biggest issue there. I am beginning to look on the bright side of this and say to myself, in the long run, we will be better off without Chizik. We can try to find a coach that will come here and give us a few more years that 2 to get us back to winning games. As I see it, Chizik took what he could while he could. Because he knew he didn't have what it takes to actually coach a team to a victory. He needs top notch 5 star talent to be able to compete. Auburn, I believe will soon figure this out. My prediction, Chizik will be gone, in disgrace from Auburn within 3 years.
I hate to say it, blame it on the Defensive Coordinator all we want, Chizik was supposed to be a Defensive Guru. Our team this year was probably one of the worst Defensive teams I have ever seen at ISU. Blame that on talent and the inability to sell ISU all you want Gene, in the end, you are the head coach, it was your job to keep things in line and you didn't. You might be able to sell white wash and excuses to Auburn, but I think soon people will find out what you are really made of. And now, you won't be doing that at lowly ISU, you'll be doing it at a national powerhouse. Instead of trying to build tradition, you'll be tearing it down. Good luck sir, you are going to need it.
As for ISU, don't worry, we'll be all right. We're used to taking heart ache and bouncing right back from it. I just hope we get to meet and beat you on the field before Auburn figures out the mistake they made.