Gene Chizik: Auburn Coach Should Be Fired Following 2012 Season

Gene Chizik's Auburn Tigers fell to 1-5 Saturday with a 41-20 loss to Ole Miss.

With each loss, the Tigers become more irrelevant on the national scene. That's inexcusable for a program with Auburn's tradition, and Chizik must lose his job because of it.

Firing Chizik midseason would just make a bad situation worse. The Tigers' year is already lost, and allowing him to stick around for the remaining games isn't going to do any more harm.

After that, however, it's time for the Tigers to look for another coach.

Chizik is in his fourth season at Auburn. He's 31-14 during that span, with a national championship to his credit.

But look at his championship season. Having Cam Newton running the offense was a supreme advantage for Auburn, which makes you question how much credit Chizik deserves. Obviously, he called the plays, but Newton was a major game-changer.

Outside of that Newton-led season, Chizik is 17-14 at Auburn. For a top-notch program, that's not nearly good enough.

It's not like he hasn't had plenty of talent to coach. According to scout.com, Auburn has had top-20 recruiting classes every year since 2009. The last three of those classes were in the top 10.

Every recruit can't be expected to play up to expectations, but the Tigers are bringing in more talent than many squads that have fared much better on the field.

That falls on Chizik. Whether it be him directly, or his coaching staff, it's his responsibility to develop players at the college level.

The Tigers are a mess on both sides of the ball. They almost lost to Louisiana-Monroe and did lose to Arkansas.

Auburn's passing attack is 112th in the nation. Scoring 15.4 points per game could be partially due to offensive coordinator's Scot Loeffler's pro-style offense, but numbers like that suggest the problems go deeper than that.

Auburn needs to make a change because of its tradition. Allowing losses to pile up for consecutive seasons doesn't reflect well on the program, and someone has to pay for that.

Despite Chizik's 2010 success, his time is up.