Most Important Auburn Coach of the Modern Era - 1980s to 2010s

[TucsonTiger 29]

I don't care who follows - what their record - Pat Due is the most important football coach EVER at Auburn - hands down!!!

[mustache eagle 2,460]

not counting Interim Coach Bill Oliver or the end of the Barfield era in 1980.

W/O a doubt Doug Barfield the guy was a genius on defense

Reading > golf.

Oh I read that part but w/o Dougie coaching the way he did we may never have had the good fortune to get Coach Dye.

i dont remember ... what kind of pizazz did dye carry when he was hired.  what was the general opinion of the auburn family regarding a georgia/bama "guy" (at the time).    i dont remember that coaching search

[mustache eagle 2,460]

I don't care who follows - what their record - Pat Due is the most important football coach EVER at Auburn - hands down!!!

is that pronounced dewey???

[triangletiger 1,599]

You didn't specify that it had to be a head coach so I am going with the best WR coach of all time.

Is it just me, or is that little tuft of hair under his bottom lip slightly off-center?

[AuburnKev 15]

The most important coach is the one that is there now I think. That said, I think Pat Dye was the most important coach of the modern era so far. The accomplishments of what Coach Dye did (as others have already pointed out) were many and great. He took Auburn out from Alabama's shadow, and made it a program on equal footing. Bama fans  still say they think of Auburn as little brother, but that is to just needle at us. You know down deep they secretly fear  and respect us, as does the rest of the SEC and country.  Gene Chizik,  needs a few more years to get the acclaim Dye has; but he already has the greatest accomplishment in Auburn history: A BCS Championship. Auburn has had great teams in '83, '93, and 2004 that were not given an opportunity to win the National Championship. Part of that was the lack of media respect around the country. Chizik broke through that barrier, which is a major accomplishment that future great Auburn teams will reap the benefits from. 

[augolf1716 22,108]

not counting Interim Coach Bill Oliver or the end of the Barfield era in 1980.

W/O a doubt Doug Barfield the guy was a genius on defense

Reading > golf.

Oh I read that part but w/o Dougie coaching the way he did we may never have had the good fortune to get Coach Dye.

i dont remember ... what kind of pizazz did dye carry when he was hired.  what was the general opinion of the auburn family regarding a georgia/bama "guy" (at the time).    i dont remember that coaching search

Not a lot of pizazz when Dye was hired but he had a repuation of turning programs around as well as recruiting connections in the southeast. We all knew he was hard as nails and would not take crap from the turds. He respected bear but was not in awe of him. He respected the Auburn traditions and its fans.

[ARSTIGER 0]

It has to be Patrick Fain Dye, and it's not even close!  The man came into a program that had fallen off, and completely accepted mediocrity.  He set the tone for the next three plus decades of Auburn Football.  Instilled a foundation built on hard work and a tough hard-nosed attitude that we can look back on when we've lost our way and say "This is the way it should be done.  We've done it the right way before, and we'll know how to do it the right way again!"  Even to this day that holds true.  I have no doubt that we never would have won the national title in 2010 if Pat Dye was not hired in 1981.  Tuberville's wins and winning percentage weren't too far behind Dye's, but Coach Dye's effect on Auburn Football was much deeper than his own personal wins and losses.  He made Auburn Football what it is today.

[Rednilla 5,449]

You know, this whole conversation gets me to thinking. Dye had two teams that were national championship caliber, 83 and 88. He also won four SEC Championships.

Bowden had an undefeated team in 93, but it was all Dye's recruits. We've talked endlessly about how when Tater Tot ran out of Dye's players he went belly up, and to a great extent that's true.

Tubs should absolutely be respected for the job he did, but it wasn't until Jetgate that he started to pick it up...and I strongly believe that without that plane going to visit Petrino, 2004 never would have happened. Tubs averaged less than eight wins over his first five seasons before Jetgate, then averaged ten and a half over his next four. He won six straight over Bama, which was awesome, but four of those wins were over one of the least successful coaches in UAT history while the turds recovered from probation. So, while I appreciate all Tubby did for us, especially the way he cleaned up the program, it's kinda hard to say how much his success had to do with superior coaching and how much it had to do with being in the right place at the right time.

Chizik will never mean as much to the Auburn program as Dye did because he'll always be sitting on the shoulders of the giant, but he's on a pretty decent track to at least be in the conversation in a few years. He went out and hired a superb staff of guys who know how to coach AND recruit, then proceeded to make national headlines with innovative recruiting ideas like Big Cat Weekend and the Tiger Prowl. He took a team ravaged by attrition, injury, and poor recruiting to 8 wins and a New Year's Day bowl victory, and came within just a few seconds of upsetting the eventual national champs in the Iron Bowl. Then he won a national championship of his own. THEN, after losing a staggering 18 starters and playing with only 19 (out of 55) juniors and seniors on the entire depth chart, he took us to eight wins while going through the toughest schedule in the nation.

He has consistently been bringing in excellent recruiting classes loaded from top to bottom with talent. The only coaching replacement he's hired that was not widely considered a home run was one of our own, Mike Pelton, and in spite of the D-Line's struggle this past season (kinda hard to lose three starters and not have some drop off), from all appearances he seems to be doing a pretty good job, too, especially in recruiting (Dee Liner apparently thinks a great deal of his future position coach).

So, no, there isn't any question about who the most important coach has been in the last couple of decades...but if the roles were reversed between Dye and Chizik, I'd be willing to bet the results would be fairly similar.

[lca4081345162963 0]

Tubs should absolutely be respected for the job he did, but it wasn't until Jetgate that he started to pick it up...and I strongly believe that without that plane going to visit Petrino, 2004 never would have happened. Tubs averaged less than eight wins over his first five seasons before Jetgate, then averaged ten and a half over his next four. He won six straight over Bama, which was awesome, but four of those wins were over one of the least successful coaches in UAT history while the turds recovered from probation. So, while I appreciate all Tubby did for us, especially the way he cleaned up the program, it's kinda hard to say how much his success had to do with superior coaching and how much it had to do with being in the right place at the right time.

I think Tubs showed alot of promise in 2000 when he won the West. Granted it took some losses by MSU to get there but he at least made it. I think 2001 was the only year where Tubby really just didnt have it. There were some epic collapses that year that shouldn't have happened. I know 2003 was rough too but I'm not sure Tubs ever believed that the offense would crumble the way that it did under Nallsminger. 2002 was a relatively strong year, with the exception of the Arkansas game - which still haunts me.

Ryan

[4AUsince62 10]

Tubs should absolutely be respected for the job he did, but it wasn't until Jetgate that he started to pick it up...and I strongly believe that without that plane going to visit Petrino, 2004 never would have happened. Tubs averaged less than eight wins over his first five seasons before Jetgate, then averaged ten and a half over his next four. He won six straight over Bama, which was awesome, but four of those wins were over one of the least successful coaches in UAT history while the turds recovered from probation. So, while I appreciate all Tubby did for us, especially the way he cleaned up the program, it's kinda hard to say how much his success had to do with superior coaching and how much it had to do with being in the right place at the right time.

I think Tubs showed alot of promise in 2000 when he won the West. Granted it took some losses by MSU to get there but he at least made it. I think 2001 was the only year where Tubby really just didnt have it. There were some epic collapses that year that shouldn't have happened. I know 2003 was rough too but I'm not sure Tubs ever believed that the offense would crumble the way that it did under Nallsminger. 2002 was a relatively strong year, with the exception of the Arkansas game - which still haunts me.

Ryan

I think one of the biggest things that hurt CTT and Auburn in 2001 would be Heath Evans and Rudi Johnson going pro early, that was a combination that was difficult to replace.

[Rednilla 5,449]

Tubs should absolutely be respected for the job he did, but it wasn't until Jetgate that he started to pick it up...and I strongly believe that without that plane going to visit Petrino, 2004 never would have happened. Tubs averaged less than eight wins over his first five seasons before Jetgate, then averaged ten and a half over his next four. He won six straight over Bama, which was awesome, but four of those wins were over one of the least successful coaches in UAT history while the turds recovered from probation. So, while I appreciate all Tubby did for us, especially the way he cleaned up the program, it's kinda hard to say how much his success had to do with superior coaching and how much it had to do with being in the right place at the right time.

I think Tubs showed alot of promise in 2000 when he won the West. Granted it took some losses by MSU to get there but he at least made it. I think 2001 was the only year where Tubby really just didnt have it. There were some epic collapses that year that shouldn't have happened. I know 2003 was rough too but I'm not sure Tubs ever believed that the offense would crumble the way that it did under Nallsminger. 2002 was a relatively strong year, with the exception of the Arkansas game - which still haunts me.

Ryan

I think one of the biggest things that hurt CTT and Auburn in 2001 would be Heath Evans and Rudi Johnson going pro early, that was a combination that was difficult to replace.

Although it should be noted that Auburn did not begin pursuit of Carnell Williams until Rudi announced that he was going pro. Coaches told him that they weren't going to recruit him because he's the type of player who should be on the field as a true freshman, and they were going to push Rudi for the Heisman so there wouldn't be the room for both Caddy and Ronnie Brown (who redshirted the year that Rudi took us to the SEC Championship).

But yeah, those two leaving early certainly had something to do with the struggles in 01. And I'm not saying that Tubs did a poor job of coaching even then. It's just that Dye and Chizik have done better. xCTT won the SEC West in his second year on the job. Dye beat Bama for the first time in a decade during his second year on the job and should have won a national championship to go along with the SEC championship during his third. Chizik went undefeated to a national championship his second year.