More Cracks Begin To Show In AU Foundation As Dye, Chizik And Barkley Talk About The Tigers, Each Other

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It’s been a long day and quite frankly I’m not interested enough in this to spend much time on it.  Still when you have Pat Dye, Gene Chizik and Charles Barkley all talking about each other and the Auburn football program, it’s worth a mention.  So get ready for a back-and-forth of quotes.

Yesterday, former Tiger coach Pat Dye said on the radio that Auburn’s bad season “is what it is and I don’t see it getting any better.”  Dig this:

“I don’t see us winning one (game), Paul (Finebuam).  It will be a big upset if we win Saturday against Vanderbilt.  Everybody knows that that’s not acceptable…

We’ve got problems that are not solvable on offense.  You’ve got to have a quarterback to win in this league.  Every team that we’ve played, their quarterback has been better than ours.”

Naturally, Chizik was asked to respond to Dye’s summary of the situation.

According to the current Auburn coach — who many believe was aided in landing the AU gig by Dye himself — basically said he didn’t care what the ex-coach said:

“Coach Dye was a tremendous football coach, and I have a lot of respect for Coach Dye, without question.  I can’t spend a lot of time and energy in deliberation on what somebody said, whether it was Coach Dye or whether it was an alumni from 1968 that nobody knows who he or she is. I don’t have an opinion on that because my day, when I walk through the door, consist of my coaches and my players and the direction we’re headed…

What makes college football great, there are going to people on the radio, on TV on the outside, they can say what they want…and that’s great.”

We all know that three’s a party so enter Charles Barkley, the ex-Auburn basketball star turned broadcaster who is defending Chizik:

“I’m never an advocate of saying people should get fired. That’s just not cool. Gene has done a good job but right now, he’s got to find a quarterback. I don’t think you can say they even have a quarterback on their roster right now. But the guy won a national champ two years ago.”

As for Dye’s statements, Barkley weighed in there, too:

“I don’t think he should have said that. I’m going to stick with Auburn no matter what, through good times and bad times, but I’d never say we don’t have a chance.”

I don’t recall Barkley sticking with Auburn when he suggested Chizik was selected over Turner Gill as head coach because he’s white and Gill is black, but what the heck?  It’s Sir Charles and he’s dang entertaining.

He also happens to be a fan of the coach up the road from Auburn:

“I’m a Nick Saban fan.  That guy’s not going anywhere.  We have to look at the big picture.  We’re not going anywhere right now.  Can we compete with him the next six years?

The three saddest days of my life were the day Elvis died, the day Michael Jackson died, and the day Mike Shula got fired.

We’ve had very good teams at Auburn but we’re not Alabama. No disrespect. We’ve got to get a gameplan in place. Nick Saban is a clear and present danger. You’ve got to admire and respect what that guy has done.”

Dye, too, threw a little love in Saban’s direction in talking about how he’s handled the Crimson Tide quarterback position and team:

“Coach Saban makes A.J. McCarron’s job as easy as he can make it and he’s doing a great job. He could probably expand what McCarron’s doing and score 60 points a game but he’s being smart and playing young players and managing the game.”

So…

Dye says he’s not losing faith in Chizik but he sure sounds like it.  Chizik says he doesn’t really care what Dye or anybody else says about him or his team.  Barkley is sticking by Chizik and he thinks Dye was out of bounds to say Auburn might not win another game this year.

Oh, and both Barkley and Dye are flinging praise toward Alabama’s coach.

Think things are going off the rails on the Plains these days?