Auburn Football: Is Auburn a Sinking Ship Everyone's Wanting to Abandon?

Larry Burton (Syndicated Writer) No matter how you spin it, when you have an offensive coordinator leave to take a job in Podunk, Arkansas for a crossroad school few people have ever heard of and take a half-million dollar pay cut to boot, that looks bad for Auburn.

When your defensive coordinator leaves to take a job at a lesser program, you have to wonder.

When some of you top committed recruits flip and abandon that commitment, you have to wonder.

When over 20 players Gene Chizik signed since coming to Auburn aren't there anymore—and we're not talking about players who graduated or left early for the NFL—you have to wonder.

When your top running back has message boards lit up that he might be leaving, that makes you wonder.

There are problems at Auburn.

The Tigers quickly went from a 7-5 season to an undefeated perfect storm of a season and all too quickly back to another 7-5 season.

Auburn is mired back in the more mediocrity than it was when it made the change from Tuberville to Chizik, and one has to wonder if the change was for the better.

The last five years Tuberville was at Auburn, he had a 47-18 record. Chizik's last five years of coaching has resulted in a 24-29 record.

One doesn't have to insinuate and make claims against Auburn.

One just has to look at the things going on at Auburn and make his or her own decisions.

And the conclusions made may have more to do with the school one pulls for than the incidents themselves.

But one thing is clear and apparent, no matter which team you pull for. Auburn is a team in trouble and coming to a crossroads this next season.

Where the Tigers go is anyone's guess.

But one thing is clear. This is Chizik's show now. With Malzahn gone, there is no question which coach is driving the bus, and Chizik's time in the sun from winning a national title may have been the shortest honeymoon in college football.

Anyone who thinks Chizik isn't on a quickly warming seat does not understand football.

Auburn appears to be a sinking ship, so will Chizik go down with it or sail them back to calmer waters and more victories?

That is the question to be answered next year, but we may get a glimmer of it in the upcoming bowl game with Virginia.