Auburn Hires Gene Chizik

Auburn has hired Gene Chizik as its head football coach, The Birmingham News and Rivals.com are both reporting.

Chizik was Iowa State's head coach the last two seasons. The Cyclones were 5-19 under Chizik. Iowa State finished 2-10 (0-8 in the Big 12) in 2008.

Chizik was Auburn's defensive coordinator from 2002-2004. He served as Texas' defensive coordinator the two years after that.

Chizik replaces Tommy Tuberville as the Tigers' head coach.

Auburn has also interviewed Tulsa coach Todd Graham, Ball State coach Brady Hoke, Louisiana Tech's Derek Dooley, Buffalo coach Turner Gill, Georgia assistant Rodney Garner and University of Miami offensive coordinator Patrick Nix, The Birmingham News reports.

Gene Chizik (born December 28, 1961 in Clearwater, Florida) is the current head football coach at Iowa State University, and is now named head football coach at Auburn University. Chizik played linebacker for the University of Florida during the 1981 season, competing in the Peach Bowl. He graduated from Florida in 1985.

He began his coaching career at Seminole High School (Pinellas County, Florida), serving as their defensive coordinator and inside linebacker coach from 1986–1988. He then became a graduate assistant at Clemson from 1988–1989, working with the outside linebackers. During his time at Clemson he coached in the 1988 Citrus Bowl and the 1989 Gator Bowl.

His initial full-time coaching job was as the defensive ends coach at Middle Tennessee State University. He served in this capacity from 1990-1991. His next assignment was at Stephen F. Austin, serving as their linebackers coach from 1992-1995. He was then promoted to the defensive coordinator role, which he held from 1996-1997. He then served as the defensive coordinator and secondary coach for Central Florida from 1998-2001.

While at Central Florida in Orlando, Chizik frequently visited practice sessions of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers studying the Bucs' defensive scheme, the so-called ‘Tampa 2’, developed by then-Bucs head coach Tony Dungy, defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin and linebackers coach Lovie Smith. Chizik later employed a very similar scheme at Auburn, where he served again as the defensive coordinator and secondary coach from 2002-04. During this time, he had some of the greatest successes of his career to date. He coached in three bowl games, the 2003 Capital One Bowl, 2004 Music City Bowl, and 2005 Sugar Bowl. He won the 2004 Broyles Award, which is given each year to the top assistant coach in the nation. His 2004 Auburn Tigers football team finished 13-0 that year, won the SEC, was ranked second in the nation, and played in a BCS bowl.

In 2005 he was hired by Texas Longhorns to serve as their co-defensive coordinator, assistant head coach, and linebackers coach. During his time with the Texas Longhorns, the team won the 2005 NCAA Division I-A national football championship by defeating USC in the 2006 Rose Bowl.

In November 2006, Chizik was hired to replace outgoing coach Dan McCarney as head football coach of Iowa State University. Chizik's current contract with ISU was a six-year deal worth a guaranteed $6.75 million. With incentives, the total could have been more than $10 million. I wonder how Auburn will compare?

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