Two Tubby thoughts

1. Remember this picture?



It was taken after last year's Iron Bowl, and is the best possible argument to the idea (left in my comments recently) that Tubby only pretends to care about beating Alabama as much as Auburn's fans do because it's the easiest way for him to win over the rabble. It's possible (if unlikely, in my opinion) he'd celebrate by holding up his fingers just to please the crowd. It's not possible, however, he would leap on to his offensive line coach's back with a look of unbridled, boyish joy to please the crowd. The crowd isn't involved here. This is between Tubby, and Hugh Nall, and the Iron Bowl, and when I think about the impossibility of ever seeing the coachbot on the far side of the state caught in a snapshot like this, it makes me more hopeful than ever Tommy Tuberville's tenure at Auburn won't end in this season's cataclysm of frustration and defeat.

But this picture is about more than Tubby's joy in beating Alabama, of course. It's about sharing that joy with his friend. Yep, "friend": as if the countless anecdotes and years upon years spent coaching side-by-side weren't enough to convince you, it's right here in all its unmistakable living color glory. If you are the head football coach of a major Division I college football team, after a major, season-ending victory it would be reasonable to shake the hands of your assistants for a job well done, or pat them on the pack, or even offer a warm hug. But forgive me for being pretty gosh-darned certain you don't take a flying leap onto his back like a 15-year-old whose high school baseball team just won Districts unless the ties run a little bit deeper than head coach/assistant coach.

The question before Auburn fans as we ponder a potentially bowl less offseason and the changes it would demand is this: are those ties too deep? It's a little sad that so many Auburn fans have savaged Tubby in recent weeks for showing the all-too-human qualities of loyalty, trust, commitment, etc. towards his long-time assistants. Yes, true, an offensive staff and a head coach that together earn the colloquialism of "barbecue buddies" risk the head coach becoming unable to evaluate the staff's efforts clearly or act in the program's best interests where their roles are concerned. But barbecue buddies are more likely to have each other's back, more likely to "hold the rope" and keep the entire team afloat for their buddies' sake, more likely to see recruiting trips and yet another two-a-day practice in the August sun and a late-night film session as a chance to work together with people they like and trust, rather than some lonely drudgery. Tubby's friendship with his staff is not, in and of itself, the problem.

The problem arrives, of course, when that friendship comes before the team. And I don't have many qualms about saying it did this offseason. Dumb jerk or misunderstood savant or whatever, Tony Franklin should have been able to bring in his own assistants. Expecting position coaches who have never worked in a spread environment to fully and successfully teach spread techniques (and at the behest of a coordinator who has since made no secret of his willingness to be abrasive when it suits him) seems, in retrospect, like the sort of idea that was doomed to folly from the beginning. It's only logical to expect a change as dramatic as shifting from Al Borges' I to Franklin's spread to require an equally dramatic change in the approach of the staff. And now, after 2008, it's quite safe to label offensive ineptitude the norm for Tubby's Auburn tenure rather than the exception. If the need for a top-to-bottom overhaul of Auburn's entire offensive approach wasn't obvious after 2007, it is now. The downward spiral has to be reversed. All the stops have to be pulled out.

Will Collier has never pulled any punches when it comes to those stops equaling the termination of Nall, Steve Ensminger, and Greg Knox, and unsurprisingly, he didn't pull any after the West Virginia game, either:

For whatever it's worth, I do think Tommy Tuberville has earned a mulligan and ought to get a chance to repair all the damage done this year, but I would instantly reverse that statement if he were to once again insist on retaining Hugh Nall, Steve Ensminger, or Greg Knox on staff after Thanksgiving weekend. They have failed, repeatedly, and they've got to go. Period. It's time to have some actual professionals in those slots instead of guys who are still collecting high-dollar checks purely because of their personal friendships with the head coach.

I can't bring myself to feeling comfortable calling for firings, but I don't have a problem saying this: whoever Auburn's next offensive coordinator happens to be, he should have the right to put together whatever offensive staff he likes. If he wants to keep Eddie Gran, great. If he wants to keep Nall, I'd be surprised, but I could live with that. (If he wants to keep Ensminger and Knox, I'd pretty much just be confused, to be perfectly honest with you.) But that should be up to him. No demands from Tubby. The cleanest slate possible, because that slate is where Auburn's offense has to start after this year's disaster. If that means that this offensive staff moves on, so be it.

And finally, this is the far-and-away biggest reason I wonder if we really might be watching the final games of the Tommy Tuberville era at Auburn. Despite the I'm-not-going-anywhere stump speech, if after a 5-7 or 6-6 season Tubby is forced to choose--as he should be--between 1. a make-or-break season under Bobby Lowder's microscope battling it out against Saban, Miles, Richt, etc. alongside unfamiliar offensive faces operating in unfamiliar offensive ways or 2. a well-cushioned bought-out landing at the 9,000-square foot house where he can host all the barbecues he wants and never have to face telling the same guy whose back he once nearly hopped clear over he no longer has a place on Auburn's football team ... I would still expect him to take option No. 1. He is, as they say, a competitor, and he won't like the idea of leaving on this note any better than I do. But if he did elect to walk out of door No. 2, well, I'll be disappointed. But I'll have had bigger shocks before.

2.



Does it really matter if TSIB's report that Fulmer is already toast is accurate or not? Whether he's lost his job now or he loses it at season's end, he's lost it. 6-6 with the season's highlight victory coming at South Carolina is the best-case scenario, and even that's on the rosy side. And it's not enough. He's done.

Which is another reason why it doesn't make a lot of sense for Auburn to part ways with Tubby now unless, as Will suggests, his loyalty to his assistants forces the issue. Yes, there are some good coaching candidates out there. But there will be next year, too. There always are. Trying to outmneuver and outbid two Southeastern programs of approximately equal stature to Auburn for this particular year's crop when in 2009 there's no Bowden-Fulmer wobblers and Jacobs might very well have his pick of the coaching litter--noting here I sincerely, obviously hope it doesn't come to that--seems the acme of foolishness.

There's all sorts of reasons now isn't the time to fire Tommy Tuberville. This is just one more.