Around the SEC - Week 6
Third Saturday in Blogtober —
... Auburn - This was the team LSU was supposed to be playing for the division title. But here we are six weeks in, and Auburn is sitting at 2-2 in the conference and still have to face Georgia, Ole Miss, and Alabama. The offense is terrible, and the offensive coordinator is already washing his hands of it. Do not be surprised to see Auburn shopping for a new OC at the end of the year, though the real blame for this falls squarely on the shoulders of Tommy Tuberville for hiring a man who is known for a specific type of spread offense and absoutely ...
Unverified Voracity Welcomes Other Sports
mgoblog —
... ITYSO. After the Auburn trip I mentioned that Tommy Tuberville was Lloyd Carr and he was trying to turn Tony Franklin into Mike DeBord, but I had no idea how right that was. The always-illuminating Smart Football: ...
Scapegoat
And The Valley Shook —
... , and while that may be a somewhat egotistical name for a blog, in reading him in the past he proves to have a knowledge of football well beyond what I claim for myself. His thesis is, "Auburn is not running the Tony Franklin system." ...
Don't Bet On It!: Around the S.E.C.
Dawg Sports —
... and, evidently, bagged a job offer to coach the Razorbacks while sitting in a duck blind. How is it that he will be the second-smarmiest disloyal careerist in Jordan-Hare Stadium this weekend? I’m guessing that Coach Tuberville hasn’t yet forgotten a certain clandestine meeting in the Bluegrass State that cost the president and athletic director of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute their jobs, which ought to give the Plainsmen a little extra motivation to rout the Hogs. Smarter people than me don’t know what Auburn’s offense is, but I’m pretty sure ...
Blogpoll Draft Ballot Week 5
mgoblog —
... I just can't rank Auburn anymore when their offense is as dysfunctional as Michigan's and they're now a two-loss team separated from four losses by a gift touchdown and the lack of another Mississippi State safety. Read this and prepare to have your opinion of Tommy Tuberville lowered significantly unless you're a 'Bama fan, in which case read it and have your opinion confirmed despite the whole six game win streak thing. ...
What’s Up With Auburn’s Offense?
HeismanPundit.com —
Great read on that very subject by Smart Football today.
It appears that Auburn really isn’t running Tony Franklin ’s offense.
Money quote:
I’m not ready to blame Tommy Tuberville; he’s an extremely smart guy and coach. But I do wonder: why in the world would you bring a guy in who knows one system extremely well but one system only, and then not run what he knows? And even if the pressure was on from the AD or the boosters to go spread, why not pick a twig off ...
Tony Franklin fired at Auburn, cementing 3 to 2 legacy
Dr. Saturday —
... percent) and 112th in third-down conversions (29.7 percent).
And he was just feeling like his old self.
Franklin's high-flying "Spread Eagle" featured prominently in losses to Vanderbilt, the 3-2 epic at Mississippi State, a mostly rancid second half in the process of blowing a double-digit lead at home to LSU, a spectacular parade of punts against Tennessee, a grand total of five offensive touchdowns in the last four games and many, many fascinating sideswipes.
It might be a little sooner than expected, but it's not like we ...
Blame Tuberville, Not Tony Franklin
FanHouse —
... No doubt the Auburn fanbase celebrates at Franklin's demise, but the invaluable Smart Football points out that Tony Franklin never got the opportunity to run his Air Raid offense, which is closer to Texas Tech's spread than the awful melange of whatever Auburn threw out there. Instead, Franklin was forced to use Auburn's ponderous power back on zone stretch plays time and again, to sit Kodi Burns on the bench despite his suitability for the offense, and generally run nothing from his actual playbook. ...
Tony Franklin and African Wildlife: More Alike Than You Think.
Dawg Sports —
... This is the rankest of rank speculation, but it sounds like Franklin was true to his "system" and Tuberville was pushing for changes. As Chris of Smart Football pointed out last week before the Vanderbilt fiasco, what Auburn's been running is not in fact what Franklin's been teaching these last few years, and I doubt that's really his choice. The guy has his system, he's marketed his system, and one has to imagine he'd stay true to the system if given the option. But remember folks: when you argue with your boss, he holds the trump card. ...
Thursday Headlinin': Franklin follows the flood through Tuberville's revolving coordinator doors
Dr. Saturday —
... , and he's not the only one. Tuberville has gone through five offensive coordinators in ten years, including another guy, Al Borges, who was brought in to install a fast-paced, high-octane, West Coast system and left amid ...
Tony Franklin speaks, is somewhat confusing
Dr. Saturday —
... On the other hand, though, Franklin also suggests he was given something of free reign to do what he wanted with the offense, because Tuberville -- far from the meddling underminer of some credible analysis -- barely cultivated a daily relationship with his coordinator: ...
Houses of Usher
mgoblog —
... Expectations are high coming in to 2008, whereupon Auburn implodes spectacularly, has an internal hissy fit, and fires Franklin midseason. A couple weeks before the firing Tommy Tuberville starts saying things that make it clear he's not really on board with this spread noise; Smart Football notes that whatever Franklin is running at Auburn isn't the Tony Franklin System(tm). ...
Auburn climbs back on the 'innovative spread' horse with the Gus Malzahn Experience
Dr. Saturday —
... The striking similarities between Malzahn and Franklin certainly make this a bold hire; "making a splash" might be something of an understatement if Auburn is serious about taking the reigns off this time. A staff and players reared on more "conventional," power-running/play-action offenses apparently rejected the spread transplant under Franklin, and the result was a bunch of middling junk that alienated everyone. A less dramatic overhaul at Tennessee had a similarly disastrous trajectory, complete with the axe falling on an accomplished, ...
Deconstructing: Auburn's Malzahn at the gates, again
Dr. Saturday —
... Gus Malzahn, magus of the up-tempo/no-huddle spread offense, has Auburn's once-moribund attack rolling at a breakneck pace. Through four games, the Tigers look like a completely different team than the dysfunctional unit that led to the midseason ouster of AU's last spread whiz, Tony Franklin, and eventually of his boss, Tommy Tuberville. Given free rein by new head coach Gene Chizik, Malzahn has engineered one of the more remarkable turnarounds for an offense in recent memory, with basically the same players that flailed under Franklin -- including much-maligned quarterback ...
