Former Auburn coach Gene Chizik will be joining the ALFCA Convention this year as he speaks at The Masters segment of the convention. The Masters, a series of the most experienced and respected coaches of football in our state, takes place on Friday morning and has become one of the most anticipated events of the convention.
Chizik was the head coach at Auburn University from 2009-2012. He led the Tigers to the 2010 National Championship with Cam Newton as quarterback. The Tigers went 14-0 and beat Oregon in the BCS Championship game.
Coach Chizik began his coaching career at Seminole (Fl) High School in 1986 and 1987. He got an opportunity to go to Clemson as a graduate assistant in 1988-89 working under DC Bill Oliver before taking his first full assistant job at Middle Tennessee State in 1990 coaching defensive ends. From there he spent six seasons at Stephen F. Austin coaching linebackers, the last two as defensive coordinator. Chizik then moved on to Central Florida as defensive coordinator and secondary coach from 1998 to 2001. While in Orlando, he often visited the Tampa Bay Bucs staff, where head coach Tony Dungy, defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin and linebackers coach Lovie Smith were doing new things with the 4-3 defense.
In 2002 he took the defensive coordinator job at Auburn under Tommy Tuberville. He coached in three bowl games -the 2003 Capital One Bowl 2004 Music City Bowl, and 2005 Sugar Bowl. His 2004 defensive unit led the country in scoring defense, giving up 11.3 points per game, and the total defense ranked 5th, which is the same ranking the 2003 team recorded. He garnered the 2004 Broyles Award, which is given each year to the top assistant coach in the nation. The 2004 team finished 13–0 that year, won the SEC title, and defeated Virgina Tech in the Sugar Bowl. It placed second in the final AP and Coaches polls.
In 2005, Chizik was hired by Texas to serve as their co-defensive coordinator, assistant head coach, and linebackers coach. During his time at Texas, the team won the 2005 National Championship by defeating USC in the 2006 Rose Bowl. He became the head coach at Iowa State in 2007 and 2008 before taking the Auburn job in December of 2008.
Since leaving Auburn, Coach Chizik served two years as defensive coordinator at North Carolina before spending the last two years as one of ESPN’s best analysts on college football games.