As of Wednesday afternoon, the Twitters were abuzz with the rumor that Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn was now the "clear favorite" as the next head coach at North Carolina. Rumors of Malzahn leaving Auburn to run his own show have been swirling, as rumors tend to only swirl, not blow in a straight line, for quite some time now, dating back to Vanderbilt's attempts to hire him last December.
Earlier this week, Gene Chizik was asked about the existence of a contingency plan if Malzahn does take a head coaching job at another school. Chizik said that he did have a list of replacements in mind, as he would with any coach on his staff (except Trooper Taylor, for he is forever bound to Chizik as long as he remains head coach at Auburn; unless John Blake is available, then Trooper is free to go), but nothing is firmly set.
While I have not been able to slip into Chizik's office and make a copy of his contingency plan, mostly because it's a total pain in the ass to get to Auburn (your two options are 280 or going through Montgomery, which is a nice way of making sure no one will ever go there unless there is a football game), but, using back channels and intuition, I've scraped together a list of replacements for Malzahn that Chizik has in mind.
1. Houston Nutt (he's available and needs the work)
2. Trooper Taylor (surely someone who has been a position coach for 17 years is FINALLY worthy of a coordinator's spot, right?)
4. Pat Dye
5. Convince Paul Rhoads to take the Auburn job and let Chizik take the Iowa State job back
6. The entire Auburn Family (could result in play selection difficulty)
7. God
8. Pappy Price (hates Alabama and has to hate El Paso by now)
9. A good Auburn man (no one outside of Auburn has any idea what this means)
10. Chris Todd
11. Cecil Newton (surely he's not still banned from the Auburn program for allegedly doing nothing wrong in his interactions with Auburn coaches, right?)
12. Terry Bowden (at least tell him to stop sending his resume in)
13. 29th caller to local radio station who shouts "All In!"
14. Dr. James Andrews (he's already there for medical reasons, might as well get a little more for your money)
15. Any of the fired head basketball coaches still owed money by the school
16. Cam Newton's bagman (could wear cloak at all times to conceal identity)
17. Mark Mangino (to end the discrimination against large-bodied coaches)
18. Stan White (if only so the world never has to hear him on the radio again)
19. The eagle that flies into windows
20. Ted Roof (he's spent two entire seasons watching successful offenses)
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