Auburn Football: Gene Chizik Era, Recruits Galore
The excitement has turned into a touchable, larger than life entity on the plains in Auburn, AL. While most fans were content and satisfied with the progress made with the 2009 football team, the party has only begun.
Head Coach Gene Chizik has brought excitement to the plains that I have never witnessed in my 40 or so years of following my Tigers.
It is absolutely ironic that it should happen to Auburn this year.
I was in a warehouse in the Birmingham AL area, calling on a friend. A radio talk show played in the background with disgruntled Alabama fans calling in to complain about a celebration held at their stadium for the BCS Championship. They seemed to want a parade or something.
My friend immediately started asking me about the Auburn recruiting class. You must understand, this man had just returned from Pasadena two days before. He had just witnessed the latest Alabama National Title, live!
I answered his questions as best I could. You could see his eyes light up when I described some of the recruits headed to the plains this year.
It was obvious that he had focused on his homework very well.
There are Auburn Tiger hats and shirts flying off the store racks. Yes, I did mean Auburn, not Alabama. Why is this happening?
It certainly is not due to the outstanding effort of the Auburn basketball team.
There are window writings with the simple message: February 3, 2010.
Now for those of you who do not know, Feb.3 is "National Signing Day." This is the day the NCAA allows recruits to sign on the dotted line and fully commit to the team and university of their choice for college football.
Why are Auburn fans across the nation so excited about this particular day? It is widely assumed that Auburn will out sign Alabama on this national signing day.
Yes—that is right—Auburn will get a recruiting class that is higher rated than Alabama's in a year when they won the BCS National Championship.
It was just a few short weeks ago, when all of the news media was full of information about how the national championship, Heisman, most All-Americans from a single team, and several other awards were going to boost Alabama recruiting.
Most of the guru's were telling us how it would be years before Auburn closed the talent gap.
The truth is, that the gap was not that wide to begin with.
It was news Auburn fans took in stride. Then, the commitments started coming in. We are not talking about minor commitments either: We are talking about young men flocking to the plains to win championships.
This Auburn recruiting class could very easily end up with the top recruits from four states as well as the No. 2 recruit from a fifth.
This is what has the excitement growing on the plains.
While nothing is final until the paper is inked, National Signing Day is looking to be a national holiday for Auburn fans. They will be watching and listening for each recruit as they sign their commitment to come to the plains.
Auburn fans will listen as the best running backs, quarterbacks, receivers, offensive linemen, tight ends, line backers, corners, safeties, defensive ends, defensive tackles, punt returners, kick returners, kickers and punters that Coach Chizik and his staff could find in the nation sign to Auburn University.
It will easily be the highest rated recruiting class in the history of Auburn since they started keeping records of such things. It will be one of—if not the highest rated recruiting class ever—for any university in the state of Alabama.
It could wind up being the highest rated class in the entire nation this year. It will certainly be in the top three.
Florida has a record-breaking recruiting class this year that is ranked No.1. Auburn's recruiting class will challenge this record-breaking class. This is why the excitement has taken a life of its own down on the plains of Auburn.
If you would like to keep up with all of the recruits that sign with Auburn on "National Signing Day," full coverage will be available on this Web site free of charge.
If you want the free coverage you need to sign up and register before Feb. 3. The servers will be loaded that day and it might be difficult.
I suggest all Auburn fans consider traveling to the plains for the spring A-Day game April 17. A good turnout will show how much the fans appreciate the efforts put into recruiting by the coaching staff.
It will also be a chance to see some of the new freshmen display their considerable skills before the season begins on Sept. 4 against Arkansas State.
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