09/04 at 05:04 AM

This morning, Auburn fans find themselves in a bit of a quandary.

Gene Chizik and his staff have done so much in one football season that it’s easy to forget that he has, in fact, only logged one year as Auburn’s head coach.

Tiger Prowl, Big Cat Weekend, the surprise 5-0 start, the manic Outback Bowl victory, the arrival of Cameron Newton, the consensus top-five signing class and now a slew of lofty expectations coming all the way from Phil Steele to Kirk Herbstreit.

It’s given fans hope that a new era of Auburn football is in full swing, one that’s hoped will resemble Pat Dye’s and Ralph “Shug” Jordan’s squads more than Terry Bowden’s or Tommy Tuberville’s.

The separation there, as Chizik has been preaching from the start of camp, is the difference between good and great.

There’s just one speed bump Auburn fans have to overcome if they want Chizik’s path to Auburn fame to include a stellar second season.

For this season, at least, Chizik has to be less like Dye and Jordan and more like Nick Saban and Urban Meyer.

Saban ran the table in his second season at Alabama before losing to Florida in the SEC Championship. Meyer went 11-1 in the regular season, beat Arkansas in the SEC Championship and then blew the doors off Ohio State in the BCS National Championship in his second season at Florida.

Dye, meanwhile, went a solid 9-3 in 1982 but didn’t win the SEC, a goal Auburn’s players set for this season long before two-a-days. Jordan went 2-8, not winning a single game against an SEC opponent.

Recent history in this “microwave society,” as Auburn defensive line coach Tracy Rocker likes to call it, has tilted in a direction of “Championship or Bust” expectations for a second-year coach who is still largely coaching players he did not recruit. Just ask Michigan’s Rich Rodriguez, who, after a disappointing second season, is on one of the hottest seats in college football.

Rodriguez knows just how much better it can get after the first year. At West Virginia, Rodriguez went from 3-8 in his debut year to 9-3 in 2002, a whopping six-win improvement. Ohio State’s Jim Tressel and Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops, one year after debuting with respective 7-5 records, ran the table and won the national championship in just the second season with their programs.

Of the seven current SEC coaches who have logged two or more seasons with their respective teams, none lost more games in the second season. The average win increase from Year 1 to Year 2 was 2.57.

These are expectations Chizik and Auburn’s players have no way of escaping, not in this 24-7, social-networking infused media cycle.

One year after dismissing it as “outside noise,” Chizik has taken a slightly different approach to the unavoidable expectations. Consider it a rare acknowledgement of reality from a college football coach.

“It’s flattering that people think we have a chance to be a good football team, and I don’t think anybody’s expectations should be higher than what ours are,” Chizik said. “They need to know the expectation for other people is high as well.”

Over the past month, while the Tigers have faced just themselves in practices and scrimmages, players and coaches have been asked in various ways, shapes and forms why they expect to be better in 2010. No matter who has answered, their explanations have repeatedly come back to three distinct reasons: better chemistry, increased depth and the overall upgrade in talent.

“We feel that we have to work hard because it’s going to get us to that promise land we want to get to and hopefully further more,” linebacker Josh Bynes said. “From the coaches all the way down to the guys on scout team ... We have to go out and showcase everything we have been working for on Saturdays.”

The root of the increased chemistry, an intangible quality, has tangible reasons. Chizik’s staff was the only group in the SEC to remain fully intact from 2009 to 2010.

Auburn’s five fifth-year seniors are the only players who played for the same coordinator in back-to-back seasons. With the arrival of Cameron Newton, the Tigers have still yet to return both the same starting quarterback and offensive coordinator since 2007, and even then, Brandon Cox didn’t exactly have the best job security.

“If you look across the country, not many people were able to do it, but we were,” Chizik said. “There’s a lot of guys on our football team that haven’t had that. That’s why it’s different. We know the players, the players know us.

“We’re trying to really focus on being a great football team right now. I think a lot of those question marks we had at this time last year, both from them as players and us as coaches, I think it’s totally different.”

The reasons for Auburn’s late-season swoon in 2009 weren’t by any means tough to decipher. Depth issues across the board were present from the beginning, but the devastation wasn’t felt until fatigue and injuries reached a breaking point, particularly on a defense that gave up more points than any in Tigers history.

At one point, Josh Bynes, Craig Stevens and Neiko Thorpe were playing every meaningful snap. Demond Washington was, too, and he was at a position he never played in his life.

Freshman safety Daren Bates, who didn’t arrive on campus until three days into fall camp, played the vast majority of snaps all season and did so near the end of the year with a torn rotator cuff.

“Yeah, it was wild for a second, but the coaches solved the problem and they fixed it,” Bates said. “That’s their job. They fixed it and made us better and that’s why I think we’re going to be pretty good this year.”

It typically takes two or three signing classes to upgrade personnel at most positions, but Chizik and his staff were able to fill most holes and patch others up with a Band-Aid with the 2010 class.

No team upped its final recruiting rankings more from 2009 to 2010 than Auburn, as the Tigers reeled in the top-ranked players from Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi while also snagging a few top in-state recruits away from Saban and Alabama.

The gems of the class, such as wide receiver Trovon Reed, defensive tackle Jeffrey Whitaker and defensive end Corey Lemonier, are expected to contribute in meaningful ways from the start.

Other, less-touted players, such as H-back Shaun Kitchens and cornerbacks Chris Davis and Johnathon Mincy, should also see the field today before the game gets out of hand.

“Everybody’s expecting the freshman class ... to do a lot of things,” Reed said. “So everybody has a big chip on their shoulder and everybody’s got to play their role.

“Everybody’s been walking around here amped up.”

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SEC Coaches: Year 2

  * Steve Spurrier (South Carolina) — 8-5, 3-5 SEC — The Gamecocks improved by one game overall, but lost two more conference games in the Ole Ball Coach’s second season. Things haven’t gotten much better for the Gamecocks.

  * Houston Nutt (Ole Miss) — 9-4, 4-4 SEC — The Rebels didn’t live up to preseason expectations, but they were able match Nutt’s strong first year. Finished the season strong with a Cotton Bowl victory over Oklahoma State.

  * Nick Saban (Alabama) — 12-2, 8-0 SEC — One year after finishing the season in the Independence Bowl, the Crimson Tide ran the table during the regular season only to lose to Florida in the SEC Championship and Utah in the Sugar Bowl.

  * Urban Meyer (Florida) — 13-1, 7-1 SEC — A four-win improvement got the Gators into the SEC title game and, after disposing of Arkansas, into the BCS National Championship. Florida routed Ohio State for Meyer’s first national title.

  * Mark Richt (Georgia) — 13-1, 7-1 SEC — A five-win improvement put the Bulldogs into the SEC Championship game and the Sugar Bowl. They won them both and finished third in the nation.

  * Bobby Petrino (Arkansas) — 8-5, 3-5 SEC — The Hogs won three more games and returned to bowl play in his second year. Now face the loftiest expectations Arkansas has seen in years.

  * Les Miles (LSU) — 11-2, 6-2 SEC — This was actually considered a disappointment in Baton Rouge, as the Tigers finished second in the West. Ended on a high note with a rout of Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl, won the BCS National Championship with the same record in the following season.

Other notable second-year performances:

  * Tommy Tuberville (Auburn) — 9-4, 6-2 SEC — Led Tigers to the SEC championship game, but lost to Florida and then dropped the Citrus Bowl.

  * Bob Stoops (Oklahoma) — 13-0 — After a five-loss 1999, the Sooners ran the table and dominated opponents from start to finish in their National Championship season.

  * Jim Tressel (Ohio State) — 14-0 — The Buckeyes didn’t exactly blow out and overmatch the opposition like Oklahoma, but they improved by seven wins in Tressel’s second year, which ended with a national championship.

  * Rich Rodriguez (West Virginia) — 9-3 — Mountaineers improved by six wins, going from 1-6 to 6-1 in the Big East.