Chizik Fired from Auburn

Auburn University's head football coach Gene Chizik was fired yesterday.  So let's take a look at Auburn during Chizik's tenure as the Tigers head football coach using my FBS college football production model.

Chizik was hired for the 2009 season and Auburn finished the regular season at 7-5 and won the Outback Bowl 38-35 in OT over Northwestern to finish the season at 8-5.  During this season, Auburn's best win was over #23 ranked Tennessee Volunteers and their worst loss was to #70 ranked Georgia.  Auburn finished the season (in terms of on-field production) as the #34 ranked team overall and the #16 ranked offense and the #77 ranked defense playing against a strength of schedule of 58.15 which is within one standard deviation of the average strength of schedule for that season.

2010 was Auburn's national championship year, with Auburn going 12-0 in the regular season, winning the SEC championship over South Carolina 56-17 and defeating #3 ranked Oregon in the BCS championship game 22-19, with that game being Auburn's best win.  In terms of production, the Tigers finished #10 ranked overall team and #2 ranked offense and the #61 ranked defense.  Again, Auburn played a strength of schedule that was within one standard deviation of the average FBS strength of schedule.

Last season (2011) was not as good a performance for Auburn, even though the Tigers finished the regular season 7-5 and were bowl eligible and the Tigers defeated the Virginia Cavaliers in the Chick-fil-A bowl 43-24.  In terms of the model, Auburn was the #100 ranked team overall with the #62 ranked offense and the #102 ranked defense, playing against a strength of schedule that again was average for FBS teams.

This season Auburn was bad the whole year.  (I will put the week-by-week production numbers below).  Auburn finished the season at 3-9 and will miss out on a bowl game.  Auburn is currently the #106 ranked team in the nation (with only Kentucky as a worst productive team in the SEC), and Auburn is the #105 ranked offense and the #91 ranked defense - all below average for FBS teams.  Auburn's best win was against #48 ranked Louisianna-Monroe (by 3 points) and their worst loss was to #96 ranked Arkansas Razorbacks by 17 points.  Auburn did play a tougher than average schedule this season even including the November 17th meeting against Alabama A&M.

Not one time this season does the model have Auburn cracking the top 100 teams in terms of production, with their current rank about the best they have done all season.

Week		Offense		Defense		Overall
2		112		101		118
3		102		107		113
4		112		92		110
5		122		58		111
6		122		62		111
7		115		86		114
8		121		69		110
9		104		92		104
10		112		74		107
11		118		83		116
12		111		76		109
13		105		91		106

Analysis of NCAA FBS coaches fired this season:
California's Tedford,
Western Michigan's Cubit,
Tennessee's Dooley,
Kentucky's Phillips,
Idaho's Akey.