Auburn A.D. (Jay Jacobs) Is Under Intense Criticism For Ducking UCLA

by Nestor on Apr 28, 2009 5:11 AM PDT in Football Comment 9 comments

About couple of weeks ago we noted how Auburn had backed out of negotiations involving a possible college football headlining season opener with UCLA on ESPN (or ABC) to start the 2010 season. The game would have been played in the Atlanta Dome. When Auburn backed out ESPN/ABC tried to set the game up between UCLA and Georgia Tech. However, UCLA then balked (which I don't blame them for) because it would have been essentially a home game for Georgia Tech with no return engagement at the Rose Bowl.

bruinbabe2000 (who currently lives in Alabama) then pointed out how Auburn was taking a lot of heat locally for ducking UCLA by referring to Kevin Scarbinsky's column in the Birmingham News. Kevin took apart all the arguments offered by Auburn AD Jay Jacobs including the one of losing a payday due to giving up a home game:

• Losing the big payday of an eighth home game is no excuse.

Alabama played seven home games in 2008 and will again in 2009. How has that affected the bottom line?

The first thing I noticed Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium was the scoreboard in the south end zone. It was missing. In its place hung the business end of a crane, a tangible sign that another expansion is under way.

By the way, a school official said Alabama earned about $2 million for playing Clemson last year. That's not as much as Alabama or Auburn earns for a home game, but the intangible benefits - see recruiting - are priceless.

Jacobs' explanations for turning down the UCLA game don't carry the same weight as the arguments in favor of playing the Bruins next season rather than waiting until 2012 or 2013, as the AD suggested.

It would give the Auburn players extra motivation throughout the offseason. Ask the Alabama players what that edge did for them last year.

It would put Auburn in the spotlight, and let's face it. Auburn has to go the extra mile to earn national respect. It's not many miles to Atlanta, which offered a national stage in a home-away-from-home setting.

Meanwhile Kevin Donahue over at FanBlogs.com called out the excuses re. scheduling "BS. B freakin S.":

Schedules can be changed - it happens all the time, especially for games that are 17 months out. Virginia Tech pulled the trigger on a schedule change in December - just nine months out - in order to participate in this year's game in Atlanta against the Crimson Tide.

As for having one non-con BCS opponent already... who cares?! You're AUBURN. Lace em up and play. But the Tigers consistently refuse the opportunity and -- until they do -- AU is not going to have the national respect of Tennessee or Alabama, schools that have shown they aren't afraid to line up with anyone.

Perhaps the toughest criticism came from our colleague, Jay Coulter heading up - Track'em Tigers - the Auburn blog of SBN (emphasis added):

The response by Auburn fans over the news that Jacobs passed on the opportunity to play UCLA at the Georgia Dome on national television has been met with mostly outrage - and for good reason. Considering the string of bad press that has come Auburn's way over the past six months, you'd think school officials would jump at the opportunity to be the marquee game to kickoff a football season.

When you play in the SEC with the likes of Florida, Georgia, LSU, Tennessee and Alabama you jump at the chance to get an advantage in exposure. The ineptness of this athletic department becomes more mind-boggling by the minute.

Forget the lame arguments being made by Jacobs for not playing the Bruins. Do you honestly believe that Arkansas State would have a problem rescheduling its game with Auburn for the following season if they were guaranteed nearly $1 million? Why not throw them a bone and offer to play them for two years if they agree to the change?

It hurts to say it, but simply put, Auburn officials wimped out.

You know it is really refreshing to see a football fan from SEC being so honest about scheduling stories instead of starting another stale, boring Pac-10/SEC scheduling debate. I frankly have been refraining from talking up this issue on the home page because I was weary of another one of those nonsensical food fights that doesn't go anywhere. So what Jay said over at Track'em Tigers is really refreshing.

I am bummed out that this matchup was nixed (at least for now). I would have really loved the opportunity to check out Atlanta (a city I have never been to) for this football game.

BTW on a side note while I really hope Auburn rethinks its position wrt to this potential matchup or UCLA extends a serious overture towards Georgia Tech for a home and home matchup. Coming to think of it while UCLA-Auburn would have been a cool matchup, Georgia Tech-UCLA would have been a fun matchup as well between two programs with similar combination of athletic/academic tradition and colorful coaches (who have innovating offensive minds).

I have mentioned here number of times how much fun I had when visiting Tuscaloosa for the UCLA-Alabama game in 2001. That was an amazing experience as a college football fan. I think the experience would have been similar if this matchup between UCLA-Auburn in Georgia would come into fruition. I didn't take the trip to South Bend because I didn't want to waste my time traveling to watch Dorrellian football. By the time 2010-11 rolls around we hould have good football team in place that should be fun to watch. So here is to talks continuing on all fronts and all involved parties exploring the best options possible for a fun matchup involving UCLA enabling all of us to take a road trip we often don't get to.

GO BRUINS.

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Comments

A Shame

That is disappointing. I hope they can work out a deal and make this happen. A national TV game can only be a positive thing for UCLA in 2010. If you’re Auburn you should want us in 2010 cause we’ll really be good in 2011 and beyond.

CRN has the team on the rise and most anyone with an interest in college football (read: recruits) will be watching. I’m sure CRN can take the anyone/anywhere approach that Pat Hill adopted at Fresno St. I know “WE ARE UCLA” but lets be honest we’ve had some down years since Drew Olson left (and before that to be even more honest).

by BruinWannabe on Apr 28, 2009 8:21 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I went to the Auburn LSU game last year

This was, by far, my favorite scene from the trip:

While tailgating in Auburn is incredible, tailgating in Atlanta is crap. The Tennessee game will be AWESOME tailgating, wish I wasn’t studying abroad in Hong Kong this Fall, oh well.

by TheTJCummingsEra on Apr 28, 2009 8:53 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I would understand why Auburn wouldn't want to play at UCLA

But this is a neutral site much closer to them and one-time deal for a national TV game to start the season.

It makes no sense to turn that down unless they’re scared of us.

by gilbert on Apr 28, 2009 10:31 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

It makes perfect sense

They don’t want to be the Tennessee of 2010…

I like chicken, I like liver, meow mix meow mix please deliver…

But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.

by tasser10 on Apr 28, 2009 10:58 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Except Tennessee was at the Rose Bowl

Seeing how close that game was, I have a feeling UT would’ve beat us at home.

Not playing us in Atlanta? That’s even more of a chicken.

by gilbert on Apr 28, 2009 1:27 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

take any game

If you are willing to play Auburn here you may as well play Ga Tech. I have lived in Atlanta for 14 years now and despite the fact the game would be in Tech’s backyard it would be as much a home game for Auburn as Tech at the Dome. I think Auburn is a more glamorous matchup and UCLA probably decided that is was worth it to play essentially a road game against a high profile Auburn program than an up and down ACC program. I would bet they would entertain that trip for Georgia, LSU, Florida, Tenn, Alabama or any of the top flight SEC schools in essentially a road game at the Dome. But would not for say Maryland, Ga Tech, Virginia.. of the ACC schools despite the fact they are down I think UCLA wouldn’t mind taking on Florida St or Miami there. I think the choice has everything to do with stature.

by Penny2i on Apr 28, 2009 2:27 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

You're absolutely right about Georgia Tech

The fact that it’s in Atlanta wouldn’t make it a Yellow Jacket home game at all. Atlanta is an indifferent sports town at best and Georgia Tech only recently re-expanded its stadium after taking seats out a few years ago (a la Stanford). For years, the Georgia Tech athletic administration refused to allow aerial shots of Grant Field during the Georgia-Georgia Tech game because it was obvious from the patches of red and yellow in the stands that the visiting Bulldog fans outnumbered the hometown Yellow Jacket fans. Bobby Dodd Stadium only seats 55,000 and they can’t fill that consistently.

Also, don’t buy the hype that Georgia Tech is adhering to the same high academic standards as U.C.L.A. In 2005, the N.C.A.A. handed down sanctions against Georgia Tech because the Yellow Jackets fielded multiple academically ineligible athletes (including 1999 Heisman Trophy runner-up Joe Hamilton) in several sports over a period of at least seven years. (Due to statute of limitations issues, the N.C.A.A. investigation only went back that far; there was no particular reason to believe Georgia Tech’s transgressions stopped there.)

In terms of academic standards for athletes, Georgia Tech is the second-best Division I-A program in the state. The Bulldogs have produced a region-leading eleven National Football Foundation Post-Graduate Scholars; Georgia Tech hasn’t produced even as many as the three it would have taken to get the Yellow Jackets ranked in the top 16 among Southern schools.

Georgia Tech’s football program has produced seven N.C.A.A. Post-Graduate Scholars, barely half as many as the thirteen produced by Georgia. Finally, Georgia ranks fifth nationally and first regionally with 52 N.C.A.A. Post-Graduate Scholars in all sports; Georgia Tech has fewer than thirteen and isn’t ranked in the top ten in the South. All told, Georgia leads the region with 47 football academic award recipients (including 1984 N.C.A.A. Top Six Award winner Terry Hoage, 1998 Top Eight Award winner Matt Stinchcomb, and 2002 Top Eight Award winner Jon Stinchcomb) to Georgia Tech’s fifth-place 27.

A Georgia Tech-U.C.L.A. matchup might make for a good game, particularly with the Pepper Rodgers storyline such a contest would generate, but don’t sell yourselves short. Georgia Tech wouldn’t fill up half of the Georgia Dome the way Auburn or any other current S.E.C. school would, and, while the Georgia Institute of Technology is a fine institution academically for non-athletes, Yellow Jacket athletes are not meeting the academic standards demanded of U.C.L.A. student-athletes. Georgia Tech is trading on a reputation deservedly established under Bobby Dodd which has no present-day relevance to the way the athletic program is run at The Flats.

For the record, there apparently is some talk of Georgia re-arranging the Bulldogs’ scheduled trip to play Colorado at Boulder in 2010 so that the Red and Black can take on the Bruins in the Georgia Dome. That would be a de facto Georgia home game, and, while I strongly favor a home-and-home series between Georgia and U.C.L.A. (which seems realistic, given Georgia’s recent trip to Arizona State and upcoming trips to Colorado and Oregon), I oppose having the Bulldogs and the Bruins meet in the Dome, for reasons stated here.

In any event, I wish you good luck with your efforts to schedule a game in the Georgia Dome. If you get to Atlanta, please let me know and I’ll try to let you know what to see and what to avoid.

Go 'Dawgs!

by T Kyle King on Apr 29, 2009 4:23 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'm disappointed by Auburn's decision

Even though I probably won’t be living in Alabama in September 2010 (Mr. BB will probably be starting internship in summer 2010, so we’ll probably be moving at that time). I would have liked to have had a friendly competition with my co-workers who are Auburn fans and alums.

by bruinbabe2000 on Apr 28, 2009 8:06 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs