Election Day stunner: Tide fan believes Auburn is in trouble

I quite honestly did not want to write yet another post about the Auburn head coaching situation. This one marks like the 345th one of the last three weeks and by the time the book is finally closed on the Season of DEATH, I'm sure I'll have written 345 more. But there are certain times when, as an Auburn Blogger, you hear the clarion call of Tide bias and Auburn-smearing and know you have to stand up and fisk for what is right.

This is one of those times. That post is written by the Fanhouse's Pete Holiday, that noted dispenser of even-handed, rational analysis of all things college football in the state of Alabama. Wait, that's wrong: I meant the slavering Tide zealot who regularly uses the ostensibly neutral-ground Fanhouse platform to, say, talk smack about Auburn fans' CRAZY IDEA that our football team probably should focus on winning its own state before it starts worrying about national titles, a CRAZY IDEA that might just have something to do with which team has actually won said state for most of this decade. (Nevermind the omnipresent irony whenever any Tide fan claiming they don't care about Auburn goes out of their way to build up an [unlinked, you'll notice] Auburn straw man, point at it, and scream "OBSESSED! LOOK HOW OBSESSED!", a maneuver about as convincing as Richard Simmons in Wranglers. Nevermind, of course, that their own idols have stated without much equivocation what they thought of the importance of the Iron Bowl. But I digress.)

This time around, Holiday is asking "Will Fulmer's Departure Force Auburn's Hand?", a question that might actually have some merit if not handled by someone who, metaphorically speaking, is doing the handling simultaneous to clutching the giant ax they're grinding and without opposable thumbs. But let's see what he has to say:

Yesterday, Phil Fulmer became the third BCS conference coach to lose his job during the middle of this season. That leaves the hottest seat in the country the one directly below Tommy Tuberville's rear end.

Well, actually, I'd say the very hottest seat belongs to SDSU's Chuck Long, who's basically a dead man walking at this point. But maybe Holiday is being BCS-specific and obviously Auburn's job does carry a good deal more pressure, so sure, hottest seat in the country. Let's continue.

The question the Auburn trustees certainly must be asking themselves is this: are they going to be at a competitive disadvantage if they wait until the end of the year to fire Tuberville?

The answer is a resounding "yes".

Or, rather, a resounding "possibly." For there to be a competitive disadvantage, Auburn would have to be pursuing an identical two- or maybe three-candidate pool as the other BCS schools and there would have to be a genuinely sharp dropoff in candidate quality from that pool to the next and the other BCS schools would have to be successful in getting their ducks in a row before the end of the season and you're assuming an already-burned once man like Bobby Lowder and the other powers that be are incapable of gauging and/or expressing back-channel interest in other candidates without word leaking out and said candidates would have to be unwilling to wait and see what happens with Auburn's job.

Is all of that possible? Why certainly. But looks to me that's a good several assumptions short of "resounding."

Of course, it's not a guarantee that Coach Tuberville will find himself looking for work come December,

Well, yes, there is the eensy-teensy matter that Tubby might actually hang onto his job, and that to fire him midseason before even giving him the chance to redeem himself against Auburn's two biggest rivals* would be a national disgrace. Since this is a matter that sort of renders the whole "Should they fire him now?" argument completely moot, I'm sure Holiday will spend an appropriate amount of time discussing it ...

but if he is, Auburn will find themselves more than a month behind in their coaching search, and with some heavy competition.

Washington, Clemson, and Tennessee are all in the market right now. That provides a pretty wide range of options for the up-and-coming head coach.

Oh. He's going to gloss over it in the glossiest fashion possible. Nevermind. I will however, agree that our hypothetical "up-and-coming head coach" will have some worthwhile options other than hypothetically coach-hungry Auburn.

At Washington you're a part of a conference that gets a decent amount of respect while also fielding one of the weakest bottoms of the BCS conferences. Granted, you're going to have to play USC every year, but if you put together a nationally competitive team and, many years, the only thing standing between you and a BCS berth is the Trojans.

First off, saying that USC is the only thing that stands between Washington and a BCS bowl berth is like saying that outer space is the only thing that stands between me and my dreams of owning my own luxury apartment complex on the moon. Beyond that: how many candidates are both Washington and Auburn seriously going to look at? The hot names for the U-Dub job are Jim Mora Jr., Gary Pinkel, and current/former USC OCs Steve Sarkisian and Lane Kiffin. (There's also that nutty Mike Leach rumor.) None of these guys would be on Auburn's shortlist.

Over at Clemson you've got a school that is located in the football-crazed southeast, has a middling SEC school on the schedule every year, and finds itself in what is quite possibly the weakest BCS conference in the country. Super-agent Jimmy Sexton even says that Clemson is more attractive than the SEC.

I hardly think "Is South Carolina on the schedule, or not?" will be one of the first questions asked by a prospective head coach when deciding where to play his trade, but eh, I'm not going to take issue with the rest of this. Assuming the salaries were similar, I could see a candidate deciding he'd rather try to fill the power vacuum at the top of the ACC than tangle with Saban, Miles, and Richt on a yearly basis.

Tennessee is a lot like Auburn in terms of what they have there right now, with a few big differences. For starters, the new head coach in Knoxville isn't going to have to deal with Bobby Lowder or the rest of the band of meddling trustees and boosters on the Plains.

An obstacle so daunting Auburn's gone through three head coaches--three! Why, it's like they don't even get the nameplate screwed onto the office door before they have to buy a new one!--in the past 28 years. (Or five in 58 years, if you prefer the longview.)

Maybe the environment is a little more stable in Knoxville, but there's also been talk Fat Phil was on his way out since the day they stuck his crystal football in the trophy case. The difference from the JCCW's (admittedly partisan) viewpoint is negligible.

The Volunteers support a richer football tradition than the Tigers do.

Spoken like the truest of Tide fans. Georgia has truckloads more tradition than Florida; over the past 20 years that tradition has gotten them a boatload of losses and a bag of potato chips.

All that matters is what's the better job now. There are reasons to think Tennessee's the better job: wider fan support; perhaps more cash and better facilities; probably--all things being equal--a little more natural recruiting pull. "A richer football tradition" is not one of them.

Both teams are in the SEC and play both Alabama and Georgia every year, which could either be looked at as a good thing or a bad thing. The SEC might also be one of the most stratified conferences in the country and the normally robust conference has definitely seen some better days top-to-bottom.

These facts explain why Tennessee would be a better coaching destination than Auburn ... how?

You can compare an Auburn opening to any one of these jobs and come up with some good reasons to head to the Loveliest Little Village,

I don't know if "Little" is supposed to be some kind of subtle diss at Auburn or just a screw-up. If it's the former, well, yes, Auburn is not a very big city, how clever to point it out; if it's the latter, it's just "Loveliest Village," thanks. (Also thanks for the brief stab at balance. It is, actually, appreciated.)

but does Auburn hold up to all three of them? And if it does, will it be a big enough difference to offset the weeks/months advantage the Huskies, Tigers, and Volunteers will have in their coaching search?

Eh, maybe not. If all the conditions I listed above that added up to a resounding "possibly" are met, then yes, Auburn's coaching search, should it be necessary, could suffer for having begun after the season. But Auburn's simply not going to be in any kind of position to fire Tubby before he faces Alabama. Surely this fact has to be acknowledged somehow?

Is Auburn facing a situation where they need to decide right now whether to fire Tuberville or wait until next year?

Or, instead of acknowledging it, it can be totally ignored in favor of portraying the situation in the exact opposite light.

With their head coach getting his recruiting lunch eaten all over the conference, can the Tigers afford to wait until next year?

OK, this "recruiting lunch" thing is an outright falsehood. Auburn currently has the top class in the conference according to Scout and the fifth-best according to Rivals. Yes, with all the early commitments those rankings are much more likely to fall than rise. Yes, the firing of Franklin and the increasing Tubby rumors mean that many of those commitments are on shaky ground that will only be firmed up with a top-notch coordinator hire. But for the time being Auburn's 2009 class is both well-regarded and holding together. Only a 'Bama fan could call it a failure with a straight face.

Of course, it's likely that only a 'Bama fan would write this particular post in the first place. The bottom line of Holiday's argument is that Auburn could be making a mistake by not firing Tuberville immediately. Nevermind that doing so would be grossly unfair to both Tubby and the current Auburn players. Nevermind that it would only enhance the coach-unfriendly reputation Holiday acknowledges already exists. Nevermind that Auburn would be making this mockery out of common sense and fairness in the name of blindly pursuing a pool of candidates that's no better than 50/50 to run dry before the end of the year. Nevermind all of that--Auburn's hand is forced!

Please.

Look, I think it's more than fair to discuss what kind of an impact Fulmer's dismissal might have on both Auburn's decision and, should that decision be to release Tubby, Auburn's eventual coaching search. Hell, I did just that myself last week. But that impact is simply that it makes Tubby's dismissal at season's end that much more of a gamble, and maybe that much less likely. It is, no question, one more complication in a situation already very, very complicated.

But that's it. It does not make Auburn's "decision" to evaluate him after this year a mistake, because there's no "decision" to be made right now at all. For Holiday to suggest that not only is there a choice to be made but that Auburn's making the wrong one is to--once again--build an orange-and-blue straw man solely for the purpose of knocking it down.

*FWIW, I think the timing of Fulmer's firing was fine; he's been on the precipice forever and with only the likes of Vandy and Kentucky left on the schedule, there was no way back for him this time. Obviously, Tubby's case is more than a little different.