A New Day on the Plains

I wrote a couple of posts below concerning Tuberville's tenure at Auburn. Some people loved him. Some people didn't.

I never quite knew where I stood with him. I did not understand the fuss about him when he was hired. He had five years head coaching experience. This was at Ole Miss who he took over when they had been hit with major probation. He did ok. Not great, but not terrible especially considering the circumstances. But, was he the best coach Auburn could have gotten?

He came to Auburn and brought his entire coaching staff in tact. After five years he had two four loss seasons, two five loss seasons, and a six loss season. His overall record was 38-24 (0.613) No conference championships (though he did play for one). Nowhere near any National Championship contention. I was ready for him to go. So were a lot of other people. Some were not.

The powers that be then made Auburn a laughing stock. Instead of firing him or doing something to improve things and generally going about it the right way, they sercretly flew the private jet of a major donor (and Board Member) to Louisville to hire Bobby Petrino just before the Alabama Game. Apparently they were then going to fire Tuberville and announce Petrino. I am glad we did not get Petrino.

However, the best laid plans have a way of failing. The plan leaked out. AU was embarassed. Petrino was embarassed and backed out. The AD got fired. Auburn surprisingly beat Alabama. Tuberville was kept on, given an extension. He promised a National Championship in his tenure. "You can write that down."

Surprises kept coming. After starting out with no seasons in five with less than four losses, in his sixth season he went 13-0, won the SEC, should have been able to play for the National Title. All of a sudden, everyone loves Tubby. He gets a huge extension. Big money. Oh, great great Coach. What then?

They start out the 2005 season losing the Georgia Tech. However, the only other loss in regular season was an OT loss to LSU who was a pretty darn good football team. The season ended on a low note with a bowl loss to Wisconsin.

2006 was a weird year. They were highly rated at one point. The finished a very good 11-2. However, they lost to Arkansas in embarrasing fashion and did not even show up for Georgia.

In 2007 they started out 1-2, losing to South Florida and Mississippi State. They did not show up for Georgia again. They finished 9-4.

2008....well.....don't get me started.

So, really, 2004-2006 were very respectable, even very good years. But, other than those three years, Auburn lost at least four games every single year under Tubby. Sure they won six straight over Bama (a Bama that was down mostly). They kept barely winning over Bama while Bama's bookend wins over Auburn were blowouts. Tubby never had the killer instinct. He never quite got AU over the hump, and was now on the downhill slide. He had a revolving door at the coordinator positions, yet kept basically the same staff in tact for fifteen years. He totally blew the Franklin hire.

Good or bad, love him or hate him, I truly believe it was time for Tommy to go.

"We should get a great coach," I thought. When we hired Gene Chizik, a man with a head coaching record of 5-19, I was speechless.

However, while only time will tell, I am very pleased with what Chizik has done so far. He has hired Gus Malzahn as OC. Gus led Tulsa to be a top 2 offense the last two years. This year they were in the top ten in both rushing AND passing as well as scoring. He has hired what appears to be several assistants on offense that are succesful coaches plus great recruiters. He kept one of the better defensive coaches off of Tuberville's staff who also is a good recruiter. He has hired a potentially very good D Coordinator. The good thing is that between all thee guys they have recruiting connections all over from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and maybe others.

Oh, and the 13-0 season at Auburn? Chizik was the defensive coordinator. He left and went to Texas in 2005 where they went 13-0 and won the National Title. So Dude CAN coach!

It will be very interesting to see how that goes.

Is this what is wrong with the current economy?

Awhile back, I wrote on the dismal state of economic knowledge. This lack of understanding is never more evident than in an economic crisis such as we now have.

Several weeks ago I happened to be watching TV. I believe it was CNN - which I never watch but I was at someone elses home who had it on. Some guy was talking about the current crisis. I very much wish I would have written his name down and took notes so that I could be more specific than I am able to be.

He was talking about how some experts have said this collapse was coming for quite some time. He said, until now, most 'experts' just thought these guys were crazy. Now it turns out they knew what they were talking about.

My immediate thought was that yes, the Autstrian School economists (and those of similar inclinations that may go by various names) have for years explained the business cycles and particularly huge drawn out recessions/depressions such as the one from 1929 to ~1942. These guys have stated again and again how we are going down the same road that led us to that disaster (only it is worse now because more and more of the obstacles on that road have been removed) and the result will be a depression even worse than that.

The problem is the market is not allowed to work. Government intervenes through regulation, through monetary policy, (including now the removal of the gold standard that at least we still had in 1929), Keynseyen (sp??) spending, jerking around interests rates, etc. The Austrians would argue that this government intervention into the natural economy is what causes the huge and drawn out crises.

Sure, in any economic system there will be countless contiunous 'little crises'. If you lose your job, that is a crisis and no type of economic system can guarantee that you will always have a job. However, a planned economy (where the government tries to control the whole economy) leads to economy wide crises. Just read the current headlines to see the result.

So, naturally, I assumed that this was what the CNN reporter was getting at. Planned economy, debased currency, all encompassing economic policy is what got us here. Some experts have said this for years, now it is coming true. The answer is to shrink government and reduce (almost to the point of elimination) its effect on the economy.

But, NOOOOOOO that is not what this guy was saying. He went on, and I paraphrase, but this is a very accurate paraphrase: "One thing we know for sure is that we can no longer just let the free market rule. That is what we have been doing and it has led us into this mess. We must have more regulation and control."

Does this guy live in the same universe that I do? We have had a free market up to now?

This of course was the exact same argument that has been used for eighty years now concerning the Great Depression. We had a free market. It began to crumble. Hoover refused to do anything thinking the free market would work. It crashed. FDR came in and instituted economic policies which led us out of the depression. Hurray for FDR. Hurray for our government saviour. Boo freedom.

However as Murray Rothbard showed conclusively in his book "America's Great Depression" this is not at all accurate. We were hardly a 'free market" in the years leading up to 1929. Hoover increased government intervention drastically (to the point that FDR ran against Hoover's 'big government' philosophy. FDR was clueless what to do. The result? Unemployment was higher in 1938 than it was in 1932 when FDR too over.

I don't know about you, but all that sounds familiar to me. We have not been in a free economy in my lifetime. Bush, in the face of bad economic indicators has tremendously increased government intervention, but is going down in history as a 'do nothing.' Obama is our FDR/Messiah. What will this all look like four, five or six years down the road.

I shudder to think.

However, I can't think for long, I have to go look for a job.