Two pieces of less-than-thrilling news this morning for Auburn fans:
One. The battle to be Auburn’s starting quarterback in 2010 has seen its first shot fired … by Tyrik Rollison, into his foot*:
Auburn freshman quarterback Tyrik Rollison, who is being redshirted this season, has been suspended for violation of team rules, announced head coach Gene Chizik in a press release Thursday.
The length of the suspension will, presumably, be taken day-by-day and be lifted when Rollison has done the things he needs to do to be an Auburn Man … or something along those lines, no doubt.
Auburn’s got 15 practices between now and the bowl game; if you’ll remember, it took Chris Todd barely more than half of that to claim the starting job away from Burns and Caudle last fall. So if Rollison misses all 15 of those while Caudle continues to sharpen up, well, the road back into contention is going to be long and winding (assuming Rollison does eventually come back to the fold at all). With all the things that were already in his favor–5th-year senior, big arm, adequate mobility, promising showings in the second half of the year–you had to peg Caudle as the early front-runner. Now? It’s not even worth debating. Far, far from a done deal, certainly, but the odds are now firmly in Caudle’s favor … aren’t they?
As for Rollison, the Eric Smith saga has shown that it’s plenty possible to work your way back into the Chiznick’s good graces after suspension … but you could also nearly fill out a starting 11 of players who Chizik’s given the boot, who’ll also tell you how possible it is to never see the light of day again. This is bad, bad news for him.
(And while I really don’t want to start a bunch of aimless speculating over Rollison’s character or off-field activities, I do think it begs the question: we assumed the grades issue was the reason Auburn had to beat out only the likes of Kansas St. and Baylor for his services. Was there more to it than that? This makes you wonder.)
Two. We all knew from the moment reports from Big Cat Weekend started trickling out that Auburn would wind up reporting some secondary violations, and we found out this morning precisely what those were and what punishments Auburn served for them. For the long-form version and the documents themselves, check out Woodbery, while Tate has the “what you need to know” slant. (It’s worth clicking over to Tate just for his pitch-perfect post title.)
To tidy it up even further, the punishments essentially amounted to:
1. Trooper had some restrictions placed on his recruiting
2. Auburn had some restrictions placed on their recruiting of the players involved.
Taylor’s limitations might have hurt Auburn in ways we can’t quite quantify, but as for No. 2 there, let’s look at each of those six players and see how badly this hurt the Tiger’s efforts:
Jessel Curry: Committed to Auburn that weekend and as been steadfastly committed ever since
Khairi Fortt: LB Was a Penn St. lean even before he came to Big Cat and eventually committed to the Lions; always a long shot for Auburn and plays a position Auburn’s filled nicely
Trovon Reed: Committed to Auburn last month
Eric Mack: Committed to Carolina during season but has wavered and at the very least continues to seriously consider Auburn
Lache Seastrunk: Auburn universally considered one of three finalists along with USC and LSU for one of country’s top prospects
Marcus Lattimore: Replace “USC and LSU” with “South Carolina and a couple other teams” and it’s the same story as with Seastrunk.
So, how much has Auburn actually suffered for their Big Cat transgressions? Not that much. That part of the story, at least, seems like it’s a bit overplayed.
What’s not is that Auburn’s coaches had to know that little impromptu pep rally was against NCAA rules and six of them (six!) still showed up and played along. If the staff thought that it wouldn’t make any waves, that the punishments would be negligible, that they could flaunt the rules just a tiny bit and that the ends would justify the means just this once … well, I still wouldn’t be happy with it. But I’d deal. (For the record: I think Slive was fully justified in ramping up the sanctions this go-round. The way Auburn publicly thumbed its nose at the rule book, he had to come down harder than he normally would for secondary stuff.)
If something like this happens again, though, I’m going to be seriously disappointed. Silly rules or not, “secondary” violations or not, manageable punishments or not, rules are rules. And Auburn should play by them. You don’t have to know a whole lot about our program’s history to know how much Auburn has suffered for adopting a laissez-faire attitude towards NCAA compliance, and even if this doesn’t seem like such a big deal this time, the attitude shown towards the NCAA rulebook at Big Cat is already on the troubling side. I strongly suspect we’ve already seen the first and last “Big Cat Weekend,” but any more examples like this in the future will go far past “troubling.”
*Not literally.
Photo via al.com.
Ir: Tyrik, don’t you want this sweet QB job?
Ignignot: He said no Ir, with his foot
Forget the 6 that were there. The most important figurehead of our proud university and the most liked, AUBIE, should have known better. What would a “big cat weekend” be without the Big Cat, you ask? The blame sies solely at the big feet of the Big Cat, Aubie.
Jerry, you misspelled “pitch-perfect”.
Here… I can help. When it comes to Pound-o’-Pork Tate, you should spell it “snarky-and-ridiculous”.
HTH. HAND.
And another thing… deserved or not, I don’t see how an Auburn fan can ignore continued double standard from the SEC Office comparing the “ramping up” of the punishment on Auburn by Commissioner Weasel Slive as opposed to the free and easy attitude by that same Office and Weasel when it comes to extra benefits provided bammer players (selling text books, free fishing trips, free laptops) which bammer has admitted to. I don’t remember the hammer hitting bammer on those from the Head Weasel. But if a coach is present while some recruits are getting their names announced? HORRORS!
My god, sometimes I think Auburn doesn’t really need bammer as an enemy… we have plenty of self-described Auburn fans and alums that are ready and willing to bend over and accept whatever damage any of our enemies choose to give us.
tiger7, I don’t care about what Alabama does or doesn’t do away from the football field, don’t care what punishments they do or don’t get. I care that Auburn’s coaches broke rules, and very likely broke rules knowing they were breaking rules at the time. End of story.
Did anyone else get a call from Chizik today? That was kinda cool…
Phillip, do tell.
Coach Chizik gave me a shout today also. I thought it was great. We are moving in the right direction.
Pre-recorded message, I wanted to clarify.
I want a call from Chizik…what did it say?
Well, what did the pre-message say?
…and somewhere in Auburn, Clint Mosely laughs while rubbing his hands together.
It was a recorded message thanking all auburn fans for the support, the official bowl announcement sunday and where to purchase tickets for the bowl. Say what you want but Tuberville never called…
A little perspective is in order before the heavy recriminations, I think. Wasn’t Montez Robinson a former unofficial committment who went to UGA after Tubbs “resigned?” He’s been arrested twice in the last week. Of course, he probably considers himself analogous to a jay walker relative to the usual armed robbery suspects at UT and UAT.
It would be nice if there were zero negative stories, to be sure. But if the worst news at Auburn is a violation of team rules and letting recruits roll Toomer’s while we announce their presence while the rest of the SEC players are posting bonds, I’ll just Chizik’s efforts a comparative success, thank you very much.
Seriously the Chiznick called my wife today. My wife. The Vandy grad in a sea of Auburn fans, related by blood and marriage. The Chiz calls her. Not me.
http://auburn.nu/board/display.pl?page=1&thrd=1&mess=843528&full=1
“JUDGE Chizik’s efforts a comparative success,” that is.
Well, Jerry, since Auburn is a long-time member of THE SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE, I would think that Auburn fans might be the least little bit concerned about disparate treatment within THE SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE.
Either that or you can just sit around and criticize Auburn. After all, it’s what more Auburn “fans” than I like to think or believe think is the thing to do.
Not to step in on Auburn matters (I prefer to read), but I will say that uhhh…. Bama sent this straight to the NCAA, so it was really not something the SEC had full control over at that point. It’s the NCAA’s decision on that matter, not Slive’s.
Take it easy, tiger7. What Jerry is trying to say is that Auburn won’t have to worry about fair treatment from the SEC when the coaches break the rules if the coaches never break the rules in the first place. They knowingly took part in events that were worthy of a secondary violation. That is an action that deserves criticism, fan or not.
*events that are considered a secondary violation, rather. That reads a little better.
Yep, David… you are right. Auburn’s coaches “knowingly” did it.
But $aban always used to “accidentally” bump into recruits. And the guy providing fishing trips and laptop computers to bammer football players NEVER KNEW WHO THEY WERE. And the SEC and Weasel Slive’s response? OK! Nothing to see here! Everyone return to what you were doing!
See how that works?
And, if left unchecked and unrecognized, we may well return to the good ol’ days of “Everytime bammer gets caught cheating, Auburn gets placed on probation”. You old enough to remember those days? I do. What fun they were!
(Dear sweet lord.)
Honestly… It made a splash.
It got us fired up about recruiting for the first time in forever. It got us to love this coaching staff even more than already, before a single snap of the ball. And I bet it left an impression on all of the recruits.
We took the punishment. Now it’s over.
Of course there are things we could’ve changed… No Aubie, no announcing (at least not with a megaphone or whatever), and maybe not SIX coaches there…
But, I mean, I’m not upset about this. At all. We deserve what we got and we got what we got. I don’t suggest we ever do it again, but I’m not upset.
As for Tyrik, the Facebook message I’ve seen from him wasn’t all that pessimistic. We’ll see.
Here is Tyrik’s apparent Facebook message (as quoted multiple times on al.com Gold Mine comments);
“To the Auburn faithful, I’m sorry. I will get this issue corrected. I want all yall to know I expect more of myself and things will turn around. WAR EAGLE!!!”
JH
Aubie thinks you hit a nerve. Do not open the door if you do not want to see inside.
No, tiger, I’m not old enough to remember those days, but I do know people who have seen them. I understand completely what you’re getting at, and I hope those days don’t return, and I agree that Auburn got a raw deal from all of this. That being said, my point remains–I hope that the coaching staff we have at Auburn doesn’t give Slive and the SEC any more reasons to sniff around the Plains. Whether or not they’ll find a reason to do it anyway is beyond the coaches’ control.
I don’t want you to misunderstand me, though, I agree that Alabama still gets away with murder in the SEC’s and the NCAA’s eyes, especially with the issues you mentioned, and with the textbook scheme filtering through their entire athletic department and nothing real being done about it, and with the rumors that were flying around about the car dealerships here in Gadsden not even being investigated. I agree with that wholeheartedly.