re: Why can't Auburn maintain success.

Jacobs, according to Auburn people I know who are pretty well connected inside Tigers Unlimited, is just a total disaster in terms of management. He runs the thing like the old coach AD's of the 1980's ran the departments, except for the departments now are 10x bigger and 10x richer than they were then. You can't have a guy who doesn't know how to run a Fortune 1000 company running your athletic department.

In terms of coaching hires, he has been pretty hit or miss. The Chizik thing won a national title, but any objective review of that hire was that it was terrible (at the time, and then in the longrun). His baseball hires have been awful (I think Thompson was a great hire, though). Everyone from Oklahoma openly discussed what a dickhead Galloway was, and they basically willingly let him go, but Jacobs was so obtuse he ignored that. The Malzahn hire was a risk, but even if it falls apart this year I don't think that was an awful hire.

He has also made some great hires. Meyers has taken Auburn from a middle of the pack SEC softball program to an elite one in what, 3 years? Butch Thompson was a very good hire. Pearl is going to end up being a very good hire wins and losses wise, and he has already infused energy into a basketball program that hasn't had energy, outside of short spurts, ever.