We continue with this white paper in the profile of a prominent football coach who reached the pinnacle of success only to retreat at a record pace. Here we stop to appreciate the intense competition which eventually overwhelmed him.

Many consider the Auburn-Alabama game the greatest rivalry in college football. They face off every year in what’s come to be known as the Iron Bowl.

Bart Starr the first MVP of the Super Bowl and Joe Namath – also MVP of the Super Bowl after leading the American Conference and the old AFL to its first victory – played in the game.  They both learned what it meant to win it and to lose it.

Apropos of its distinguished history in the 1981 Iron Bowl Bear Bryant broke Amos Alonzo Stagg’s record for most wins by a coach. Fittingly In response one year later Bo Jackson catapulted himself over the top at the one yard line for the touchdown that beat Alabama and broke their 9 year strangle-hold on Auburn in 1982. And started his ascension to what many consider the greatest athlete in sports history. Bo knows greatness.

Appropriately Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton led Auburn to the greatest comeback in Iron Bowl history overcoming a 24-0 deficit in 2010 – on their way to a national title.

It’s no accident that the two teams from the same state have currently produced four national titles in a row – the only state that came make such a claim.  It is no accident that Nick Saban at Alabama is going for the coaches’ all-time record of three national titles in a row, and four in five years. Such intense competition only serves to motivate a team to higher heights.

The rivalry is a 365 day a year proposition for all concerned. Fans of both schools continually wish a pox on their across the state enemy.  A really fine Saturday in October at both schools means a win for your team and a loss for your arch-rival.

But really they need each other to be good — to push each other. That’s what makes the rivalry great.

Ideally fans of both schools should want their opponent to be undefeated until The Game — until the Iron Bowl.  The preeminence of the rivalry demands a worthy opponent – the strongest foe possible. The harder the game the bigger the victory.

Both state schools in Alabama should be hoping they are #1 and #2 the week before the game. You want to beat the best — and you want your best game to be against your arch-rival. Without question the Iron Bowl brings out the best a team has to offer – with few exceptions like 2012.

This is why Auburn will not be down long. Alabama will push them to get better.  (To his credit, Chizik did not leave the barn empty just undisciplined and uncoached.)

Big rival games produce glorious victories, tremendous upsets and unexpected heroes. Wins that last a lifetime and losses that leave a still bitter taste. But Auburn Coach Gene Chizik’s decline was so bad it took the fight out of the rivalry, took the glitter off of it to the point in 2012 it was no contest: 42-0 at the end of the first half as Alabama scored on all six opportunities. The defeat was such a foregone conclusion that the game lacked any of its normal passion. It was as if Alabama were playing a lower level team from another conference. Pity can be an ugly word – which sums up the game.

The lesson for us all: we need to be challenged. Competition brings out our best and in the end is the most fun. Getting the best out of ourselves.

In one sense Saban can thank Chizik for offering such little resistance the last two years, putting teams on the field not worthy of the rivalry. But there’s more to understand about what Chizik was up against— his own worst enemy: himself.  He will continue to show us the unrecognized hurdles that present themselves on the way to attaining peak performance.

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Sympathy for an opponent or bypassing a friend to get to the top can cause subtle retreats and settling for less. It’s easy to give in to the urge to let your neighbor/your brother go first. The loss of just the slightest bit of “victory hunger” – starving for a win – can be all it takes to allow a step back, especially for human beings. (We wonder if John’s brother, Jim, subtly let his older brother outcoach him?) This was one reason the great tennis champion Jimmy Connors would never let himself get close to other players. He knew he couldn’t allow himself to feel sorry for them.

Managing guilt and failure
San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick reveals another side to managing guilt – personal failure. Obviously his own worst critic, he blamed himself for the Super Bowl loss stating, “I made too many mistakes for us to win.” He was referring to his badly thrown second-quarter interception and to his three straight incompletions from the Raven five-yard line at the end of the game. He went on about his perceived errors, “They will stay with me the rest of my life” – which reveals just how harsh we can be over our imperfections. Many a person has failed to overcome their failures. As cornerbacks and relief pitchers in baseball know, “You better have a short memory.” Find a way to accept your failures and move on.

Then we had the missed holding call – by both the back judge and the side judge – on the last 49ers offensive play at the five-yard line, the third of Kaepernick’s incompletions. Replays clearly showed that cornerback Jimmy Smith had his outside arm around receiver Michael Crabtree – and had held his jersey. Former defensive back guru Brother Oliver – one of the greatest defensive coordinators in college football history – commented in a radio interview that it was unquestionably holding, that Smith had simply held the receiver “way too long.” (Perhaps not to appear too harsh Oliver went on to say that the play didn’t determine the outcome but in truth it did – it was the last 49ers pass into the end zone. Everything was riding on that play.)

Football analyst and former defensive back Herm Edwards, the former Jets coach, waived off the hold and said that you don’t get the call at that point in the game, and it was the Super Bowl. But sometimes a referee will step up and make that call – in a big game. Recall just such a final play in the 2002 national championship game between Miami and Ohio State when the referee called holding on a Miami defensive back in the end zone, an infraction which was no more blatant than Smith’s hold. Despite the referees’ usual insistence that they aren’t the ones who make the difference in the game, this referee did because he thought it was the right call, and Ohio State went on to score. Had he left the flag in his pocket, Miami wins.

Fear of criticism
Imagine if either of the two Super Bowl referees had made that holding call against Baltimore. He would have been flooded with criticism and faced a mountain of unjustified guilt, and found himself at the center of controversy. And the replay would have backed him up showing Smith holding Crabtree’s jersey – and the referee would eventually have been admired for his courage. Leaders sometimes have to stand up to make unpopular decisions.

I’m just saying that guilt entered the picture, and a referee passed on standing up. Edwards’ take means there’s an unwritten rule that – toward the end of a game – you can hold longer and you can even grab a jersey. So fear of guilt changes the rules. And as a result peer pressure takes the flag out of the hands of even the finest referees.

Taking your best shot
Then we have 49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman who called for the pistol formation just once in the final four plays after the Ravens had difficulty all day stopping it. Did he not go with the strategy that got him there? Did he fail to take his best shot? Was he like the refs? One thing’s for sure, too often in crucial circumstances people miss taking their best shot.

If you want to know what motivates the human race you can fill in two of the first blanks with “secret guilt” and “fear of success,” and you wouldn’t be too far off too often.

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With all his bravado and fearlessness, his cool under pressure, when all was said and done quarterback Joe Flacco and the Baltimore Ravens caught a huge wave of success phobia displayed by their first playoff opponent, the Denver Broncos and rode it all the way to a win in Super Bowl XLVII. I believe it was the golfer Jack Nicklaus who used to say “More tournaments are lost than are won,” meaning that—in one form or another— a player will often simply give the victory away. Before the Ravens won it, the Broncos— the number-one seed in their conference— lost it. Heavy lies the head that potentially wears the victor’s crown.

Take nothing away from the Ravens and Flacco who took advantage of an opponent’s lapse, but as former all-pro safety Rodney Harrison said about their first playoff win against Denver, “If you’re Denver’s [safety] Rahim Moore, how do you let Jacoby Jones get behind you in that situation?” Specifically with 41 seconds to go and no timeouts with Flacco and the Ravens on their own 30-yard line trailing the Broncos 35-28, how do you get beat on a go route if you’re the last line of defense?  You get beat on an old school-yard play, “Everybody go deep.” Four fly patterns by the four Raven wide receivers straight down the field.

Flacco spots Moore’s risky behavior
Here’s how Moore did it with a combination of mental lapses which did him in. First he had deep responsibility on speedy wide-out Jones lined up wide right—providing support for cornerback Tony Carter.  When Flacco came to the line of scrimmage and surveyed the scene he saw exactly what he was hoping for— a sign of weakness in the Bronco defense, a sign of retreat if you will. Rahim Moore was leaning in too close to the line of scrimmage unlike the other two safeties in a three-deep defender set. With his two burners out the widest on each side, Flacco would have hoped for the weakness in the defense to be on one of those two guys, receivers who could really make you pay—take it all the way on one play.  Moore presented him with that chink in the Bronco armor.

But Moore didn’t stop with being a little out of position conceding some ground to Jones, he also stared into the backfield far too long after the play started instead of immediately back-pedaling into position. He wasn’t concentrating on his job.  After the snap, when Flacco scanned the field to see which receiver might be open, he wasn’t too surprised to see Jones with a step behind his man and to find that Moore was late coming over for support. That was Flacco’s shot and he took it—from his own 20-yard line.

But pressured by the pass rush of linebacker Von Miller who nearly hit his arm, Flacco had to float the ball on a higher trajectory than usual from his own 25. With the ball hanging in the air for 55 yards all the way to the Bronco 20, Moore comes to the rescue and for some strange reason slowed down. When he finally arrived he mistimed his leap prematurely and awkwardly as the ball dropped into the waiting arms of Jacoby Jones who then waltzed into the end zone.  Overtime, baby—but the Broncos were shortly done.

Even Raven backup quarterback Tyrod Taylor had spotted Moore’s egregious error from the sidelines: “The safety did a bad job tracking the ball. You could see he was out of position.”

A pot full of mental error— the fear of success in review
Let’s go back over Moore’s series of errors:  playing too shallow, slow getting into the play, slowing down as he approached his man, and finally mistiming his jump— leaping too early. His last move suggests that secretly he was anxious which interfered with his judgment, his concentration and lastly his physical speed. To say the play came down to a veritable pot full of mental errors would be an understatement. Even Flacco admitted that he had had “some luck” on his desperation heave. And that “luck” was Moore’s self-sabotage. Why did he choose this moment to self-destruct? Consider the stage was big, too big for him at that moment and he was exiting left.  

Harrison blamed Moore’s lapses on hubris, on Moore forgetting situational— read “team”— football and instead thinking how he could intercept the ball to claim the role of “final hero.” Harrison told Sports Illustrated, “Moore wanted to be the guy who made the interception and won the game. Everybody wants to be the hero.”

The overlooked but familiar idea of success retreat had claimed another victim. Overdoing can be its cover. Read: consciously I want to be a hero but deep down I want to lose—maybe punish myself for being selfish. The bottom line was that Moore’s behavior said, “I didn’t fear losing enough, I feared success if the truth be told.” He did a lot of things to assure he would not succeed.

Peyton Manning’s struggles with success
While Moore’s failure only sent the game into overtime, Peyton Manning had his own struggles with success which then showed up. It wasn’t long before Manning coughed up the game for the Broncos by throwing an interception—the worst pass he had thrown since his crucial interception near the end of Super Bowl XLIV three years ago, an errant toss that also assured his team’s loss back then.

Sometimes people can have their fill of success— or their family’s success— and unconsciously decide  that it’s simply someone else’s turn. Don’t underestimate the fact that Manning was coming back from a serious injury, a concern which can wreak havoc deep in the recesses of our mind when it comes to reaching the pinnacle of success.

And Junior Seau joins the crowd
Rodney Harrison observed how success sabotage— similar to Rashim Moore’s blunder— showed up in Super Bowl XLII. From his safety position with the Patriots at a crucial point late in the game he recognized the mismatch of 6’4” Giant receiver Plaxico Burress on a 5’9” corner Ellis Hobbs in solo coverage.  The defensive coordinator had called an all-out blitz and Harrison was screaming at middle linebacker Junior Seau to check out of the call. But as Harrison said, “Junior being Junior” just wanted to blitz— and Eli Manning just wanted to win. Manning threw an easy 17-yard fade for a touchdown to Burress in the end zone corner.  Seau suffered from the same overdoing hero impulse that apparently haunted Moore— and another player blind to true success bit the dust.

In one last look back, when we realize the phenomenal quick-read ability of a quarterback’s unconscious mind, we can see in the blink of an eye that on the play involving Moore— on which the playoff turned—Flacco would have read Moore’s risky out-of-position body language as a message, “Try me.”  Moore was signaling not only self-centeredness but carelessness and danger, and Flacco was more than willing to oblige him. Without that risk Jones would have never gotten behind him, and the Ravens would never have gotten to the Super Bowl.  You could call it “a game of inches”—a familiar baseball reference—but more often than we realize, the big games turn on the smallest choices.

There’s a lot more to handling the hot potato of success than we ever imagined.

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Already we have seen how Chizik’s inconsistent behavior and lack of discipline underscored the ongoing saga of his final disastrous season in 2012.  To fully appreciate how specifically Chizik predicted his Auburn squad’s dismal performance due to his discipline failures we must return to a previously mentioned speech. Because he delivered this talk to a prominent quarterback club at the peak of his success in September of 2011 (see previous article “A coach retreats from success”), the importance of his statement cannot be overstressed.  At the time his team had barely won its first two games but still boasted the longest winning streak in the country.

He provides a rich story—as his unconscious super intelligence speaks—which we can only fully appreciate in retrospect.

‘Blue’ makes a mess
You won’t believe this story. In a memorable humorous anecdote he told his audience about his kids’ new puppy named Blue. Chizik described how the new dog was peeing and pooping everywhere and that he had announced to the family that he wasn’t going to clean up Blue’s mess.  Remember, these are his thoughts which originated from his own deeper mind quick-reading him in the blink of an eye.

Get the big picture—Chizik was not going to discipline some young family “member.” In other words, he could see deep down that he was not going to bother to discipline his team even when they had accidents and made tons of mistakes.

Indeed the team and its fans would soon be blue exactly like the color of their jerseys. As though to emphasize the point, Chizik unconsciously told a similar story in his book recently released at the time in which he described his kids bringing another family pet to a practice. This dog, too, ended up pooping on the football field.

Chizik was confessing that he would soil Auburn’s long tradition on its own field, that in a nutshell the next two seasons would be “one big accident” and he would unconsciously be dogging it. The story would truly be funny if it weren’t so sad.

You can readily see how the right-brain language of imagery creates the real power in a story versus the weaker literal version from the left brain. After it’s all over Chizik can say “I didn’t meet expectations” (left brain) or he can unconsciously paint the right-brain word picture in the story of the pet puppy, Blue.

How perfectly these two canine capers fit Chizik’s behavior over his last two seasons.  The former disciplinarian became progressively undisciplined himself and failed to discipline his players. Secretly Auburn had a new coach and didn’t know it. Indeed, the second Gene Chizik had appeared.

From that point in September 2011 following his story about Blue, Chizik’s record over the remaining two years would be 9 and 14. Increasingly fans and sportswriters and even his players could see his lack of discipline. Everyone could see it except for Chizik who had a huge blind spot around the messes he continually created.

Secret passions involving success
Again he unconsciously blames the culprit success  as the reason for his disregard for discipline and his eventual retreat  into failure. Remember in the same speech he told another story in which, he said it clearly, “success meant destruction.” If you succeeded, your opponent would try and drown you (see previous article “A coach retreats from success”). The unconscious mind, as Chizik demonstrated there, sees the full power behind the killer instinct which competition secretly engenders.

Simultaneously in this story Chizik implied that, in order to win, you had to drown the person trying to drown you. Indirectly Chizik pointed to his own killer instinct which competition mobilized—drown or be drowned.  To win, you must dominate others. It’s a fixed universal idea about intense competition in the deeper mind, what we call an “archetype” of the psyche.

The passionate deeper mind is what it is.

Success goes to his head—“Winning is all about me”
To continue to understand his last two seasons, especially 2012, we turn to another key idea in the back of Gene Chizik’s mind—a concept which explains his central problem. He could not handle success and had to get out of Dodge as secretly as possible without anyone recognizing why. He had to obscure the real story with classic denial. While his failure was painful, there was a much deeper, more painful story and two more truckloads of fear. But he actually shows us how to see past his frequent denials.

In the same quarterback club speech in September 2011 as Chizik reviewed Auburn’s success, he insisted that “it is not about me.” Often to hear unconscious secret confessions we read through denials and pay attention to the key idea particularly when something goes wrong. The message now: Auburn’s success “is all about me.” The natural self-centered way imperfect human beings unconsciously look at life and try to deny it at the same time. Of course we all comprehend how such thinking originates in childhood. We try to fight it but deep down the idea lives on. Chizik’s super-intelligence had thus informed him that indeed he had experienced great success as “all about me”—that success had gone to his head

Furthermore success had seduced him into the self-idealization that he was above such a human foible.

Chizik underscores how success swells our pride and distorts our mind. The question is not can success go to our heads, it’s how much and how to recognize it. Control it. We first must own it and constantly look for its hidden effects.  It’s painful to see our heroes like this—but look we must because nobody is above their own humanity.

Chizik’s story represents the human dilemma in which we all find ourselves and it well illustrates why success can be so difficult to handle.

Yes, we are surrounded by many people who succeed, and don’t forget that not so long ago Chizik himself had been one of those success stories. We are looking at a man who got to the top of the heap. His experience on the way up that hill reveals the secret struggles less-prominent folks have as we all try to get the best out of ourselves. Humility doesn’t come easily.

Constant reinforcement for the ‘big-head’
We wonder could Gene Chizik really deny such thoughts completely—in the vast unconscious mind where we are free to expand our thinking? Think of how often he was reminded that he was the one responsible for the success. He had just won the national championship—and had achieved the greatest comeback in Iron Bowl history. He was the National Coach of the Year.  As he recounted in his book All In, along with the governor and Nick Saban at Alabama he was one of the three most prominent people in the state. And, in an attempt to educate Cam Newton about the pressures of success, he included the two quarterbacks at both schools in his top five.

Constantly catered to, being paid millions of dollars, ever reminded of just how important he was—how could he possibly escape thinking, “You know, it really is all about me?” Yet his strong denial and self-idealization reveals that Chizek suffered serious secret guilt over his ego trip. He will remind of this enormous burden at the end of his self-sabotaging journey in 2012.

A major personal clue – His deep pain
Chizik revealed a personal reason for his vulnerability to a retreat from success in that same key speech in 2011. For the only time I know of, he publicly mentioned how he came from a broken family as did his wife. They both had been severely traumatized by divorce and pledged they would not put their kids through the pain they’d felt after their parents’ separation. Whatever it took, Chizik and his wife would make their marriage work. He was putting down a crucial personal marker of unfinished business. It was a brief glimpse into his life, and he quickly closed the window. Later we will explore what this had to do with his shifting roles from a leader to an absent leader. 

Now we return to the end of the 2012 season and pick up on Chizik’s comments and mindset as his career at Auburn came to a “blue blue” end.
(To be continued.)

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I am utilizing a cutting-edge method for understanding the mind, a method developed from my experience as a psychiatrist and forensic profiler. Again we have discovered how the unconscious mind really works—how it quick-reads ourselves and situations in the blink of an eye, and then tells us about it through stories and key images. I call this the “right-brain” language of the mind, symbolic language. Think “speaking figuratively” instead of literally which I refer to as “left-brain.”

Often someone will appear to be talking about others but is really talking (“right-brain”) about themselves. We are all familiar with this common human tendency. Freud called it projection. Jesus put it more poetically with his idea that the speck we see in our neighbor’s eye can be the log in our own—the pot calling the kettle black.

We have discovered that the quick-read unconscious mind really is a super intelligence. I refer you to Malcolm Gladwell’s best-seller Blink which provides a sterling example of the deeper mind in action—although he missed the specific “right-brain” language, he grasped where intuition comes into play. My earlier book, The Deeper Intelligence, clarifies how the mind speaks and reveals its secrets.

So we listen when Chizik speaks for key stories and images. This takes us back to some fascinating comments and secret predictions he made between the lines at the time his decline was just beginning.  We saw that downward spiral start unwinding through the 2011 season before accelerating through the 2012 season. We will pick up next with one of the most striking messages in his entire confession.

The post A Review: How Gene Chizik reveals secrets about his inner self appeared first on Andrew G. Hodges, M.D..

While we have been focusing on Coach Gene Chizik’s precipitous decline from the top of the football world another success story presents itself from his former chief rival Nick Saban. The situation calls for a brief diversion before completing the Chizik story.

Seven days ago Saban won his third national title in four years and his fourth overall in nine years. It brings to mind a recent conversation I had about him this past October with FSU Coach Jimbo Fisher (previously the offensive coordinator on Saban’s 2003 LSU national title team).

Following a speech by Fisher, who sees sports psychology as an important part of his program, we discussed the unappreciated difficulties in climbing the heights of success — and staying there.  Fisher and I talked over how there was another level to managing success in light of our new understanding of the mind – the discovery of the brilliant quick-read super intelligence which sheds new light on the pressures of success (see article 1). Looking for every advantage he listened intently.

At the time on October 29, 2012, it was virtually a foregone conclusion that Gene Chizik would lose his job at the end of the season – and Fisher was already being mentioned as a possible successor. I pointed out to Jimbo that Chizik would be the third Auburn coach in a row over the last 20 years to follow an undefeated season with an extremely poor season not long down the road and lose his job. (Jimbo had been the quarterback coach at Auburn when Terry Bowden – the first of the three coaches — quit before he was fired in 1998.) Each coach had become dysfunctional and had major blind spots when it came to handling success.

Fisher then asked, “What about the guy on the other side of the state?” He was of course referring to Saban.  He wondered how Saban had protected himself from a major success retreat. At the time I had not really studied Saban and suggested we think about it. Then we discussed how John Wooden—the great UCLA basketball coaching legend (10 NCAA basketball national titles in 12 years) — had avoided success sabotage.

By the end of the season Saban was at the peak of his career having experienced a rare level of success with another national championship in hand. Only one of 5 coaches to win 4 national titles (Bryant, Hayes, Stagg, and Warner).

Now there was one clear way Nick Saban could avoid any further real success, history-making success. He could go to the NFL and coach. Many people would see that as a success but it would be a secret retreat. Under the circumstances it would be a step down not a step up.

Saban has a chance to be the only college coach to win three national titles in a row.  (For the record only one NFL team has won 3 championships in a row—the 1965-67 Green Bay Packers.) In addition he has a chance to surpass Bear Bryant’s all time record of six which would put him ahead of the whole pack.

Going to the NFL Saban wouldn’t have to worry about any of those records—and the unbelievable pressure that goes with them. Far more pressure than any coach appreciates consciously. The newly discovered super intelligence (see article 1) has taught us there is 90% more pressure to success than we realize because there is 90% more to our minds.

But shortly after winning his 2012 title Saban has seemingly passed the test of an NFL retreat. He declared that he has forever “closed the door” on returning to the NFL as a head coach.

It’s not like Saban hasn’t unconsciously retreated to the NFL before. Following his 2003 national title at LSU he became the Miami Dolphin’s head coach for two years. There he learned that he lacked the control he had in the college ranks – not only was parity a problem but so were drafting and salary caps. He could have foreseen these difficulties and perhaps had similar success at LSU that he’s had at Alabama without the interruption. Maybe by now he would have a fifth national title.

Saban himself can see now that building a college football dynasty has certain advantages versus the NFL. He has a better “draft position” every year with his extraordinary recruiting skills at a magnet school for attracting talent with Alabama’s long tradition, and he now has a special connection to the next league up (the NFL) which appeals to players. And he’s not handicapped by money to upgrade facilities and staffing.

Parenthetically, it’s not like great coaches can’t unconsciously retreat as they approach breaking a longstanding record. An NFL and Dallas Cowboy insider told me about former Dallas Cowboy coach Jimmy Johnson’s silly fight and split with owner Jerry Jones. Johnson had a chance to go where no NFL coach had gone—three Super Bowl titles in a row — when he allowed Jones to force him into a retreat and resigned as coach in 1994 after winning it all in 1992 and 1993.

Stay tuned. Nick Saban has passed the first hurdle of success retreat —he’s not going to the NFL. But there will be greater pressures of success to come – beyond anything he now knows.

Already he has provided one clue about success pressure: he tells us that Alabama will be the unique target of each opponent next year. In so doing he has pointed us to the Auburn-Alabama rivalry. Nobody will target Alabama more than arch-rival Auburn.

While Auburn appears down and done for a while don’t count them out when it comes to playing Alabama. Unexpectedly they came completely out of the blue in 2010 to win it all, the last team to break the Tide’s streak.

Before we return to the rest of the story on Gene Chizik’s self-induced decline, we will take a look at the special competition between Auburn and Alabama in a game that’s known as the Iron Bowl. Chizik’s 2010 victory there helped usher him rapidly down the slippery slope of success.

The post Can Nick Saban stand this much success? appeared first on Andrew G. Hodges, M.D..

One last quarterback undermined – another boundary violation
The crucial point in such micromanaging came game in the fifth game of the year when Chizik pulled starting quarterback Kiehl Frazier at halftime with Auburn trailing Arkansas by just 7-0.  Frazier was starting to get his mojo back, throwing with the most authority of the year. He had been nurtured back from the Mississippi State disaster in the second game to help win an overtime contest against a surprisingly strong Louisiana Monroe team.  And the week before suiting up against Arkansas Frazier had nearly engineered a remarkable upset of LSU at Auburn. If he hadn’t slightly overthrown a third down pass to an open receiver (McCalebb) inside the ten yard line late in the 4^th quarter the Tigers easily could have prevailed in a 12-10 loss.

Most knowledgeable fans were shocked by Chizik’s strange decision to pull Frazier against Arkansas. (One popular blogger vehemently opposed the move calling it one of the most foolish decisions he could recall.) In truth it was déjà vu 2011. Again Chizik pulls the team leader — in whom Auburn was greatly invested — sending the message, “You have no leader. “ Yet again Chizik violated a clear boundary by stepping in and – in essence — saying to Frazier, “Let me take over, I don’t trust you.”

At that moment Chizik failed to recognize that a quarterback must be allowed to make mistakes — as an individual — and must be trusted as much as humanly possible to overcome those mistakes so that he demonstrates to the team, “I am the leader, the strong individual you can follow.” A coach must trust the process of a quarterback truly coming into himself.  He must give his quarterback the secure commitment that he needs to eventually relax and flourish. The coach must respect the “sanctity” of the role and honor the strong boundaries by letting his quarterback remain firmly planted so that he can grow into a real leader.

This is especially true of a young quarterback such as Frazier who had a devastating beginning and was just starting to overcome it. He was the quarterback the coaches had chosen to lead the team from the beginning. To jerk him out of that role without a really strong reason sent a powerful shock wave through the entire team.

Back-up quarterback Clint Mosley entered the Arkansas game in the second half and was his same immobile self.  Once again he promptly demonstrated he wasn’t the answer as he led Auburn to a debilitating second-half defeat by Arkansas — followed by three more consecutive losses against Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, and Texas  A & M.

The Arkansas game at home was the crucial point in the season, the time to really turn things around following a great but losing battle with LSU. Instead, Chizik chooses this propitious moment to undermine his quarterback and himself – and guarantee his secret self-sabotaging vision of total collapse. Like quarterback Barrett Trotter the previous year, Frazier would never get a real chance to perform again the rest of the regular season. After just four and a half games, he’s finished as quarterback.

At the heart of Chizik’s micromanaging was a boundary problem. It was as if he announced, “I must take control, you can’t do the job.” Secretly such excessive control reflects weakness and uncertainty in himself as well as in leaders he has chosen.  At such key moments he could not stay within his boundaries as an individual and allow others to be individuals. Deep down he was modeling a weak individual and leader – and the players saw it.

Freshman Sammie Coates pegs the coach for lack of leadership
Following the Arkansas loss, freshman wide receiver Sammie Coates shocked everybody when he publicly appealed to older players to provide team leadership. He said, “We don’t have the leadership to win.” And added, “They [coaches] put it on the older guys, but they aren’t showing much…Everybody’s talking about they want to win, but they aren’t showing they want to win.” Then he specifically criticized the quarterbacks, “They talk, but they don’t…explain things enough.”

Coates nailed it. “I want to see one of the quarterbacks step up and lead,” he said. “The leadership has to come from people in main roles.”

The young receiver was unconsciously acting as a proxy for the entire team, players who could sense that the real senior leadership missing was that of the head coach. Deep down Coates saw that changing quarterbacks meant no quarterback, no leader. He mentioned “things not being explained” by the quarterback suggesting Chizik’s decision to change quarterbacks was inexplicably bad.

In the back of his mind Chizik had played a final self-sabotaging ace at just the right moment. He waited until the season hung in the balance and then he suddenly and publicly undercut his leader. If anybody saw Frazier’s potential it was the talented receiver Coates.  He had caught a long touchdown pass and dropped two other well thrown long passes from Frazier in the preceding two weeks – and he picked right up on Chizik’s self-defeating plan.

There’s “no leadership,” the freshman said. “They aren’t showing they want to win.” Chizik was not showing up, and this young player knew it. The coach was communicating that he really didn’t want to win, that unconsciously he wanted to lose. As hard as that possibility can be to believe, Coates implies exactly that. Think about it.

Player morale on the Auburn team really started to slide after the Arkansas debacle. The momentum that had been recaptured with a win followed by a nail-biting loss to LSU was now merely a memory.

Players reflect coach
Players had reflected on the loss of discipline with off-the-field issues. Three arrests for alcohol-related activities and one suspension for drugs are the ones that we know about.

Then came Chizik’s shocking capitulation of leadership.  Auburn hired an outside security firm to do bed-checks nightly with all players having an 11 p.m. weeknight curfew. He was confessing that, lacking discipline, the players had no fear of him. Player resentment grew.  Chizik had violated other rules of success: no fear of his authority, delegating it to an outside power and in the process micromanaging — treating his players like children just as he did his coaches.

The players were reading Chizik like a book. Undisciplined and in a retreat from his power, his team became undisciplined and retreated from its potential greatness. Gene Chizik became a self-destructive leader and his players reflected it on field. The team made repeated mental errors often by older players which we can also read as a request – send us a coach.

Many Chizik decisions said, “I don’t trust you.” He built “I don’t trust” into the team and they started not trusting one another.

Chizik’s behavior really said, “I don’t care.” Inside sources reported that several players no longer cared and desperately wanted coaching changes. As sportswriter Phillip Marshall later reported, one player’s parent had warned, “If something doesn’t change, the exodus of players leaving this program will be a national story.”

Such attitudes were angrily reflecting Chizik’s disguised passive-aggressive anger. He had taken a well-respected, historic gridiron program and for a season destroyed it – and his reputation with it. We don’t think of the controlled Chizik as angry, but he was. Such destruction reeks of disguised anger.

Losses by huge scores emphasize the message
As the 2012 season progressed Auburn lost — for the second year in a row — by huge margins to its last three major opponents, Texas A & M, Georgia and Alabama. As the season drew to a close in November, the Tigers failed to score at all against chief rivals Georgia and Alabama.

Finally defensive coordinator Jeff VanGorder couldn’t contain himself after the Georgia loss and spoke up about the “obvious problem” – a lack of strength by the players. But his deeper, more accurate message was that the head coach lacked strength.  VanGorder saw John Wooden’s coaches’ points rule in action: big losses reflect a lack of leadership (see previous blog: “Why Gene Chizik went from good to great – to awful”). “Out of respect,” VanGorder declined to elaborate further.

True freshman quarterback says it all
With four games left in the season true freshman Jonathan Wallace emerged as the starter at quarterback. The immobile, injury-prone Mosley was indeed hurt again as was Frazier who still could have played. Wallace showed promise but was clearly in over his head in the SEC. If you had known in January that, through mismanagement, Auburn would be down to its fourth quarterback – and a true freshman at that — you could have predicted the season’s awful outcome.

The truth was Chizik’s best and most experienced quarterback – Barrett Trotter — was back in Birmingham helping coach high-school football. Chizik had unconsciously created a huge deficit at the most important position on the team – and continued to do so.

Inside the Auburn Tigers magazine columnist Mark Murphy was puzzled by Auburn’s decline from eight wins to three wins between 2011 and 2012. But he also provided more of an answer than he even realized, “Despite all of the other things going on, if the quarterback play had even been close to average the Tigers would have had excellent chances to beat” six opponents (Clemson, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Arkansas and Vandy). Trotter had already established he would have at least been “close to average” (6 and 2 as a starter). Even though Chizik had limited his growth somewhat in 2011, it’s highly likely that in 2012 Trotter would have been a solid, average, experienced SEC quarterback in his second season. He would’ve been a player who knows how to win. He would have paid all his dues.

Chizik’s destructive quarterback decisions reflect Chizik the failed coach. At season’s end he reportedly recognized that changing his spread offense had been a mistake and that he planned on returning to it. If he had simply stayed with the spread offense and kept his senior quarterback on the team, Chizik would still have a job.

Starting a true freshman quarterback spoke volumes and well fit Chizik symbolically. He coached as if he were coaching his first game back in high school. It was that bad.

The plan to retreat
But understand that was his deeper plan – to retreat.  His grand offensive plan produced the worst offense in the SEC, and Auburn finished the 2012 season ranked 115th in total offense (down from No. 21 in 2009 and No. 7 in 2010). At the end, hard-working, soft-spoken freshman quarterback Jonathan Wallace told a friend regarding Chizik’s leaving, “It’s time.”

How bad was Chizik? It is simply unbelievable.

His chaotic confusing behavior produced a losing team on the brink of mutiny – nearly an even bigger national story – a team who basically quit in the end. And he did all this with enough talented players but made sure he again undermined his chosen quarterback. You don’t have a season like this without planning it – unconsciously.

How do you go from being the best assistant coach that Mack Brown ever had at Texas, a head coach who won a national title and then fall off a cliff? You don’t do it without a plan, a plan secretly controlled by blind spot emotions and the need to retreat.

Former player Liston Eddins – whose son, Bart, played for Chizik in 2010 – commented about the 2012 season, “You just scratch your head. When one thing gets fixed for a little while, something else breaks down…I’ve never watched a team where everybody is scratching their head so much when they appear to be oozing with talent.”

But it all comes back to the leader showing up. Chizik behaved like he was an unproven coach and he was. He had never proved he could handle success as the head guy. All those credentials and past performances as an assistant did him no good. He had never been up there to those heights all by himself and alone. And it was just too high for him. He’s not the first and he won’t be the last.

Still, he has more to explain about why success was so difficult for him. He has must to teach people about managing success – if we listen.

The post The 2012 Season Disaster: Chizik Retreats Part 3 appeared first on Andrew G. Hodges, M.D..

More success guilt at Auburn
Turning to Auburn he now was taking over a job by his former boss Tommy Tuberville who had hired him originally – never an easy task. His boss’s misfortunate had turned out for his gain.

As soon as he got to Auburn once again he had to fire almost all the coaches. These were men that he had previously worked with as defensive coordinator whose families depended upon their job. Several coaches were bitter and one coach he had known for 20 years on the staff still remains angry at him. Wherever he turned Chizik was taking things away from people he cared about — their most basic emotional needs: a surrogate father, a boss, jobs and a head coach in whom the school had greatly invested. It was as though he had stolen from them what they depended on and truly needed – and done so by breaking promises.

And it was all because of what he had wanted, his seeming sudden desire to be a head coach someplace else. He was seen as unappreciative because he had not achieved enough Iowa State gratitude to have in the bank when he chose to leave for a better job.

In fact Chiziik was so guilty he had taken his name out of consideration after his Auburn interview. He was certain he wasn’t going to be chosen by Auburn AD Jay Jacobs and he was feeling guilty for all the heat he was taking at ISU — when word got out about the secret job interview. Understand a fear can be a secret unconscious wish motivated by guilt:  “I fear I won’t get the job” can reflect “I shouldn’t get the job because of my broken promises.”

Chizik’s situation was extremely unusual. He had received a quick unexpected job offer after he had barely settled in to his new job – and had a poor record. Now he was returning to his old school which he had left not long ago (5 years prior) and suddenly having to fire former colleagues and friends. It was a set-up for unbelievable guilt.

An added unexpected burden: early success
Now add to this burden sudden success beyond belief at his new job with phenomenal prestige and financial reward. From an inadequate 5-19 job performance he suddenly has built a 22-5 record earning him “The National Coach of the Year.” Surely all the wounded Iowa State people Chizik left behind experienced colossal rage over his success. We can almost read their thoughts, “Anybody but Chizik deserves that award.  A curse on his future.”

Early success itself in a career can be a massive burden to handle. Many prominent people have testified to this reality. (Song writer Randy Newman once said he had that he had never seen anyone in the music business have early success without it “shaking them to their core.”) But add enormous personal resentment to the equation and the burden of early success triples. Such guilt which Chizik experienced can linger deep in our unconscious — that huge emotional closet where we naturally tend to bury such traumas.

Now as we continue forward observing Chizik’s behavior into the 2012 season he reminds us of an Indian tribe where the bravest of the brave were traditionally awarded medals after a big victory. Then after enjoying the recognition for a few weeks, the honored braves returned the medals to the tribe. Chizik is in the process of giving his medals back.

Two murders confirm danger of success
First we must appreciate another pre-season pressure which only expedited that process and confirmed Gene Chiziik’s deepest fear regarding the consequences of success – again a fear hidden in his unconscious emotional closet. Another surreal moment occurs on June 9, 2012, when two Auburn players are shot and killed at an afternoon pool party and a third one is wounded. The gunman was an outsider visiting from Montgomery and the tragedy would have confirmed the message that success brings destruction – that people hunt down the biggest and most successful.

The wounded player, Eric Mack, a starting guard was so disturbed with a PTSD syndrome that he was psychologically unable to play that season. Believe that the entire team and the coach were deeply affected by this – again unconsciously – while consciously they mostly buried the matter. Finally in the 11^th game of the year wide receiver Trovon Reed wears the number of one of the deceased players – subtly announcing the toll the murder took on the team.  Don’t underestimate the drag on the season of this powerful emotional event.

Continuing  violation of rules of discipline
Everybody knows the rules of success deep down. Chizik continued to let discipline slide: classroom attendance, coaching accountability, uneven discipline with certain players excused from workouts, and again strength coach Kevin Yohall is undermined. Practices were not physical enough. The message louder by the moment remains, “I do not want my team to be strong – especially mentally disciplined. “

Offensive coordinator Scott Loefller reportedly has conflicts with certain offensive coaches who didn’t support his plan. Chizik allows the lack of unity to further undermine the team — and continues to micromanage the offense at times.

At one point Chizik suspended trouble-maker DeAngelo Benton for drug use and then allowed him to return to the team – which players saw as disruptive. Benton had been drinking with the players prior to the robbery a year ago and had reportedly antagonized the shooter who killed the Auburn players by threatening his life.

Consciously Chizik would make daily efforts to coach and talk about discipline but was undermining himself continually.

Discipline means setting strong boundaries
Discipline entails establishing levels of individual responsibility. Setting boundaries in relationships is an important way to achieve discipline. It communicates to the player who he is as an individual — and who the coach is.  A coach must build strong individuals – holding each player accountable – and then mold them into a team of strong individuals each of whom chooses to put the team first.  It is an exquisite balance.  Regarding DeAngelo Benton for example, it appears he was never held fully accountable as an individual and had trouble minding his own business, often encouraging others to join him out of bounds.

Chizik had similar boundary problems of his own. While he strived to create a strong sense of team – of family, as he called it — he failed to set clear boundaries of individual responsibility, a failure which undermined his other efforts. His tendency became worse with success. We can view many of Chizik’s problems with success as boundary problems. (Later we will look at his background described in his book All In to see how these problems developed.)

The dressing-room blind spot
One change in Chizik epitomizes his sudden blind spots around setting boundaries. In the successful 2010 season he brought order to a chaotic dressing room with items scattered everywhere. Each player was given a large plastic garbage bag in which to place their extra items and keep in their lockers. Every player having his own storage bag for his own items communicated strong boundaries and individuality. It was a perfect example of creating strong individuals and simultaneously a strong team where everybody cooperated, and everybody was treated the same. Strong individuals make up a strong team.

By 2012, the locker room had returned to its former chaotic state – suggesting success had created tremendous conflict and chaos inside Gene Chizik.

Chizik continued his micromanaging as another sign of his lack of discipline. He sent administrative coach Wayne Bolt into defensive coordinator Jeff  VanGorder’s meetings to report back to him. At one point VanGorder kicked Bolt out of his meeting for good, sending Chizik a message that he was violating the rules of strong management.

Next we will examine another micromanaging decision which contributed to Chizik’s downfall in 2012.

The post The 2012 Season Disaster: Chizik Retreats Part 2 appeared first on Andrew G. Hodges, M.D..

Chizik predicts season disaster
Two games into the 2012 season Gene Chizik saw the total collapse of his Auburn team coming. He described between the lines how the season would unfold with eerie precision. Unconsciously he recognizes his blind spots which will soon become more apparent to everyone.

He knew he had violated the laws of success last season but now he had really picked up the pace. His team had opened  0-2.

Auburn had lost the first game to Clemson in a close battle and his new quarterback Kiehl Frazier, struggling somewhat, had played a decent game. But the following week at Mississippi State the wheels came off in the second half and Frazier had as bad a day as a quarterback can have with three interceptions and two fumbles along with multiple sacks. Auburn’s offense was virtually non-existent and the defense wore down in the second half but was inadequate in a 27-10 defeat.  Chizik apologizes to the fans for his team’s pathetic performance.

Two days later he delivered his annual speech in Birmingham to the Monday Morning Quarterback Club. Three things stood out to me. He announced that he was the best speaker of the year so far since he was the first. He knew he wasn’t the worst speaker yet. The idea of going from “the best to the worst” speaker/coach was on his mind (most speakers are coaches).  He then noted how “wins and losses” tell you exactly what kind of team you have. And he reflected that Auburn was now in “uncharted waters” with two unexpected losses.

Once more his deeper brilliant quick-read unconscious mind has read him like a book. This super intelligence can secretly look into the future with amazing accuracy because it grasps our deepest motives. His key ideas reveal that hidden story — and continue to reflect that deep down Chizik is reading his disturbing personal reaction to his phenomenal success.

He has just announced between the lines that he will go from being the best coach to the worst coach of the year, and that by year end Auburn’s won-loss record will clearly define that reality. He will lead Auburn into “uncharted waters” of losing unlike anything in their long and glorious history.  And he nailed it as all these things came true — proving the unconscious super intelligence can be a phenomenal prophet.

From ‘best to worst’ on his mind
We have to be struck by Chizik’s prominent idea from “best to worst.” Once more he underscores his secret (unconscious) downhill journey from the best to the worst —reminding us that success for him as a head coach was truly “uncharted waters.” It fit perfectly his key idea from a year ago at the same quarterback club when he underscored the dangers of success — and then demonstrated that unknowingly he was a coach in retreat in the 2011 season due to this nagging terror.

Remember losing had not been “uncharted waters” for the 5-19 former Iowa State head coach.  Unbridled off-the-charts success in the Auburn dream season of 2010 had been the true “uncharted waters” for Chizik who was now in over his head.

And he had other precise immediate reasons to make that self-judgment of a success retreat. The week of the Mississippi State game he had demonstrated blatant denial when an academic advisor told him a starting player (who would later lose his job) hadn’t been going to class­—and Chizik refused to belief it. But deep down he knew the absolute rule: such denial violates the laws of success. Fail to discipline your team and you lose. This one denial over a player’s academics was symbolic of his numerous denials when it came to discipline.

The fact that his starting center and offensive line stalwart had been arrested the week before the game for public intoxication was also another reminder of how team discipline had slipped.

While Chizik was consciously in denial in the back of his mind he could see exactly what key alumni had warned about — his loss of control. He knew he was in trouble and his implied message was, “I am in retreat. I am going to continue a self-sabotage like you won’t believe. You saw it last year—this year it will be worse than anyone can believe.”

Loss in 2^nd game points to bad decisions before 2012 season
Two immediate losses would take him back to his key self-sabotaging decisions and denials at the very beginning of planning the 2012 season. By now these decisions were already in place. Foremost was that his quarterback Frazier was communicating he was not yet an SEC quarterback—and had been thrust into the starting role too early.

We review Chizik’s mental mistakes — blind spots – which set the tone for a team which would have a propensity for mental mistakes the entire season.

Quarterback blind spot–deja vu
Immediately after the 2011 season Chizik returns to his earlier quarterback blind spot when he removed starter Barrett Trotter in the seventh game that year (again with the team leading).  He goes into more denial after Trotter has just demonstrated with his outstanding play in the Chick- Fil-A bowl game on December 31, 2011 that he is now an experienced quarterback (6-2 record in games). On top of that Trotter had responded to Chizik’s efforts to undermine his confidence (benching him and not including him in the pre-bowl game plan with no reps in practice) by demonstrating an “in-your-face coach” competence .

Yet Chizik doesn’t encourage him to stay for his senior year (and also eligible for another medical hardship year). Trotter who was understandably miffed over being mistreated and ignored has graduated but surely could have been persuaded to stay. Was Chizik consciously too proud to admit he had made a mistake in benching Trotter earlier? He should have been on his hands and knees begging Trotter to reconsider.

Instead Chizik goes into the 2012 season with only two quarterbacks to go through spring training. Again the most important position on the team. He has a young sophomore Kiehl Frazier, a former spread quarterback who had a “deer in the headlights look” in 2011, and limited Clint Mosley who would shortly injure his elbow. (Forget an early entrance freshman with a history of behavior problems —  Zeke Pike — who was quickly dismissed after a series of misbehaviors including public intoxication.)

On top of this Chizik decided to change from a spread offense to a traditional power running game to keep up with the Jones (Alabama, LSU, Florida and his old school Texas). He brings in a new offensive coordinator (Scott Loeffler) but has left him handicapped with precious little experience at quarterback and none at running a traditional offense. Chizik has rolled the dice on offense big time.

He also changed defensive coordinators bringing in NFL stalwart Jeff VanGorder who has a major limitation in not being used to defending the spread—but clearly a capable coach who would be handicapped by Chizik’s lack of discipline.

Two key off season events
Two other off season events in 2012 stand out directly linked to the pressure of success.  The first occurred on May 21, 2012 at the annual Fellowship of Christian Athletes banquet in Birmingham where Chizik describes a spring mission trip with several players to a poverty-stricken foreign country. He stresses how little these foreigners had in comparison to what he and the players had. He hints at guilt over having so much — read having such great attention-getting success.  His concern for the poor is admirable, but Chizik suggests also that he continues to deal with buried success guilt. How much success he had had while others didn’t.  ( We can deal with two issues at a time—immediate conscious issues and deeper buried matters.)

There are at least three components to success guilt — here we see the first. Success means we have what others lack – and want. (It’s reminiscent of parents telling kids, “Clean your plate, think of all the starving people in Africa.”) Later in his story Chizik will point to two other powerful deeper reasons for guilt.

A setup for sky-high guilt
A quick look back at Chizik’s 2011 book All In revealed enormous heart-wrenching guilt over recent events which surrounded his hiring only 2 short years before at Auburn. Unmistakably Chizik points to success guilt because the Auburn job was clearly a step up, a huge promotion and a tremendous personal success – his life-long dream fulfilled. The Iowa State administrators – AD Jamie Pollard and President Geoffrey – who had been totally supportive of him despite his 5-19 record  were now  furious at him, refusing even to meet with him after his decision to leave following two short years on the job. In a press conference Pollard called Chizik’s character into question for the secretive way he handled the Auburn interview process. The players were equally angry with him for leaving. He had abandoned players to whom he had promised (along with their parents) that he would coach for four years. Chizik felt like a father walking out on his kids for no good reason.

He compared having to inform the agitated people at Iowa State of his departure to feeling as though he had cheated on a spouse. To top it off his move meant the sudden loss of a job to most of his staff at Christmas time.  He had suddenly abandoned coaches and their families who depended on him for their livelihood — men whom he had convinced to join his staff far away in Iowa. Several of these were lifelong friends. Some still carry grudges. Overnight he was hated in the Ames, Iowa community that once idealized him.

Chizik described how these emotional issues packed into two days took two years off his life. He suggests a thought deep down that some people wanted to take his life from him – punish him severely — like “he had taken theirs.” We must appreciate the burden of guilt to understand his precipitous decline at Auburn.

On his flight out of Ames boarding the Auburn plane with the big AU on the side, two fans got in the ultimate parting shot holding up a sign that read “Roll Tide” —the slogan of Auburn’s arch-rival Alabama.  But Chizik surprisingly had more guilt waiting on him when he got to Auburn as we shall see.

The post The 2012 Season Disaster: Chizik Retreats Part 1 appeared first on Andrew G. Hodges, M.D..

Infamous bank-robber Willie Sutton was once asked why he targeted banks.  “Because that’s where the money is,” he answered.

So why do we look deeper into the mind of Gene Chizik in light of his team’s unmatched calamitous decline? Because that’s where the real answers are.  There lays the power of hidden motivation — why success itself totally blind-sided him.   

Success carries with it powerful threats. If you believed unconsciously that success was dangerous, you would act accordingly. If this deeper quick-read mind had a major vote, you would do the “Success Two-Step”—a step forward as though you really did want to succeed, followed by a big disguised step backward, a blind spot step.

You would continue the same dance without ever really recognizing it until it was too late.

Coach ‘no show,’ team ‘no show’
First, another prominent coach highlights just how clearly Chizik’s players were accurately reading his messages of retreat. Former Georgia Coach Vince Dooley — whom I once interviewed and who also won a national championship — told an unforgettable story at the same Birmingham quarterback club that Chizik later addressed.

One Sunday following a Saturday football game Dooley experienced a painful attack of angina. He had an emergency stent put in place and survived the procedure with no damage to his heart. But what about his team’s next game? He was told he could coach the following Saturday only if he simply “made an appearance” and avoided all excitement. As Dooley put it, “I made an appearance the following game in the first half—and my team made an appearance.”  The Bulldogs appeared, all right, but that was the extent of it. They were lackluster and on the verge of losing.

At that point Dooley said he showed up, told his team exactly what he thought of their effort, and as a result his Georgia team showed up in the second half and won. He highlights that players read coaches for guidance at an unbelievable depth, never missing a thing.

Coaches’ points determine wins and losses
Along the same line comments by the late UCLA basketball coach John Wooden also shine a bright light on Gene Chizik. Wooden noted that when games were won by twenty points, those were players’ points, but when games were won by one or two points, those were coaches’ points. He also suggested that when games are lost consistently by thirty points to major opponents those are coaches’ points as well—and over his last two seasons Chizik would often lose by huge margins.

When we put Chizik’s 2011 season under the microscope we find numerous retreats enabled by his own decisions. Those detrimental decisions are exactly the kind of choices made by men who’re secretly afraid of winning.

Chizik slows down the offense – and the quarterback
His most obvious retreat occurred when he demanded offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn slow down the “Gus Bus”—his fast-paced offense—to protect the defense. He made this demand over Malzahn’s extreme objection. It guaranteed Malzahn—the highest-paid coordinator in college football at $1.3 million a year—would leave Auburn. Malzahn was so determined to escape Chizik’s sinking ship, he took a $500,000 pay cut to take the Arkansas State head coaching job.

Chizik’s rationale that his defense needed protection because it was young suggests his real message, his deeper message about himself, “I am young when it comes to success and need protection because it’s so dangerous,” as he told us (see previous blog).

Simultaneously he delivered a related secret message: “I’m slowing down my offense, my power, the real strength of my team.”

Soon Chizik would repeat the same message when he suddenly changed quarterbacks in the second half of the Florida game at mid-season with his team leading. At halftime his starter, Barrett Trotter, had thrown just seven passes and completed two. But one of them had been a thing of beauty which put Auburn ahead, a perfectly placed touchdown pass between two leaping defenders. On top of that he had a pass dropped inside the 20-yard line virtually guaranteeing at least a field goal just before halftime. The same quarterback had led Auburn to a 4 and 2 record including a gutty win on the road as an underdog at South Carolina two weeks before and hadn’t yet played a truly bad game. Trotter appeared rattled at times—rifling the ball without his usual touch—but this was his first year as a starter in the tough SEC.

It goes unsaid that quarterback is the most important position on the team. As the player who runs the offense, calls the plays and takes the snaps, the quarterback is clearly an extension of the coach. He’s the coach on the field, and changing leaders sends a powerful message to the team— “I no longer believe in your leader.” If we read deeper, the coach’s message can be seen as, “I am no longer your leader” if the decision doesn’t pay off—and it clearly didn’t. Of all positions to change, a coach must be most careful with the quarterback.

Micromanaging the quarterback – more retreat
Chizik indicated he had already made the decision before the Florida game. During practices that week, he had told back-up quarterback Clint Mosley to be ready. Auburn had lost to Arkansas on the road the week before, but Trotter played reasonably well despite the fact that his only experienced wide receiver was injured. The game was closer than the score.

I suspect the quarterback change was largely another Chizik micromanaging decision—and that Malzahn covered for him.

As it happened, Mosley played fairly well in the second half if you overlook the dropped “pick 6” near-interception the new quarterback threw to the wide-open Florida safety. That rookie mistake could have lost the game.  While Auburn went on to win, Mosley proved significantly immobile and prone to throwing interceptions. In short, he was not the answer.

It was in the last game—the Chick Fil-A Bowl against Virginia—when the forgotten Trotter (5 and 2 as a starter at the time) finally stated his unmistakable case. He came off the bench after Mosley sprained his ankle on the first series after throwing another sure interception which was dropped on Auburn’s own 13 yard line. Now Trotter, relaxed with the pressure of being Cam Newton’s successor off his back, confidently ran Malzahn’s offense to perfection leading Auburn to an eventual runaway victory. Trotter’s vastly superior mobility was apparent.

He demonstrated after his sabbatical that he had gone through the learning curve and all he had needed was a sideline break to gain perspective. All in all, Auburn was 6 and 2 when he played—and by now Trotter was an experienced SEC quarterback who had weathered a difficult season. The striking message from Trotter in the bowl game was “I figured it out.” Keep that in mind because it comes into play in a huge way the next season.

More micromanaging – the defense
When it came to the defense in 2011, Chizik continued to micromanage. He ordered defensive coordinator Ted Roof to simplify the defense, and would change game plans in the middle of the week. Micromanaging undermined his coaches and reflected a lack of discipline and trust. In the end it undermined Chizik’s own role. Strong leaders build strong associates, but Chizik was weakening his coordinators and thus weakening himself.

Such management also reflects a boundary problem in relationships—addictive type behavior. It’s as though the boss, the coach, is saying, “I must cling to you, control you and not let you be an individual.” No boundaries means no discipline deep down, self-sabotage and  passive-aggressive anger.

Chizik’s surrogate coach
Chizik had also given executive associate athletics director Tim Jackson too much power to deal with players and coaches. He and Jackson had become a team. Jackson would later describe  athletic director Jay Jacobs as the CEO, himself as the GM, and Chizik as the coach.  That says it all.  And Chizik again reflects a boundary problem in defining himself as “the leader.” The players would have again sensed an absent leader, a leader who wasn’t sure he was the leader.

Chizik also seemingly undermined staff unity by allowing coaches to quarrel unnecessarily to the point of supposed bitter disputes—when decisions by Chizik could have settled arguments. Another hint of an absent leader.

Team lacks mental toughness
A significant realization came in the LSU game when the LSU fullback described Auburn as the least physical team they had played—something Auburn had never been accused of in its long history. He accused Auburn players of backing down (and they clearly weren’t good tacklers). That opponent’s deeper mind was also pointing out that, just as the players weren’t mentally tough, neither was their leader. Was he picking up on something even the Auburn players didn’t realize? Surely it echoed what former player Heath Evans noted (see previous blog).

In the back of their mind the players could read the retreat modeled by Chizik’s decision-making: slowing down the offense, pushing Gus Malzahn aside, changing his QB, pushing coach Ted Roof aside and running a vanilla defense. He also failed to model a clear leader role either in himself or his associates.

One behavioral tip-off which spoke volumes was Chizik’s reported habit of arriving late to team meetings —and apparently his staff followed suit. We all know the meaning of promptness in organizations. In that light a starting player told me he overslept once as a freshman in 2010 and was late to strength coach Yox’s early morning workout. Yox’s punishment got his attention, and after that the player set three alarm clocks every day—living in fear of missing another workout. But Chizik didn’t hold himself to the same rules, just another subtle way of not showing up.

Chizik’s team makes appearances – but doesn’t show up
Auburn would lose big in the last half of the season suffering massacres at LSU and Georgia, and bowing to Alabama at home 42-14 without scoring an offensive touchdown except on a kickoff return. Chizik’s micromanaging would become so pronounced that—frustrated with the ineptness of the offense—he took over the play-calling in the last quarter of the Alabama game, the ultimate insult to Gus Malzahn.  Chizik’s desperate move produced zero points.

We remember John Wooden’s wisdom about coaches’ points and the scores of games reflecting a coach—and here we had a team reflecting a coach who was losing control. In too many ways Chizik had just made an appearance as a coach, had not really shown up and thus neither had his team. Key alums were warned at the end of the season that Chizik was slipping. But nobody in their wildest imagination could have envisioned what was to unfold in 2012.

The 2011 season ended on a note of optimism with the bowl victory following the crushing losses to major conference rivals. His defense had been young and supporters were looking for better days ahead.  But when we pick up with the key decisions Chizik made at the end of the 2011 season and the beginning of 2012, they will still reflect a coach in retreat. We continue to look at a post-national championship Chizik. And he will tell us that deep down more than anyone he saw it all coming.

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