What I want to know is what special teams coach Jay Boulware has to say about this

Well, if he wasn't important enough to get his mugshot on the official site, what makes you think he was important enough to draw a scholarship, huh?

See, I'm confused. Do we--Auburn--give a crap about our special teams or not?

I was under the impression we do. I mean, we hired a dedicated special teams coach. We heard all the usual coachspeak about how important special teams are. Surely, surely, we've learned our lesson about that after losing to LSU three times in four years because of special teams cock-ups, right? And there's the old adage about the fastest way to improve a bad team being on special teams, right? And then there's the fact that the most special teams-mad head coach in the country has won two national titles in three years. So I thought we were in agreement on this: we think special teams are really important.

But then, see, today we find out that our very best returning special teams player was told to take a hike. The guy that landed us at 15th nationally in net punting, the guy that was one of the few precious things that actually went right during that godforsaken season, the guy who was the best player on the entire freaking team on more than one Saturday last fall ... that guy isn't worth one of 85 scholarships? Really? I mean, the very fact that Tubby promised him a scholarship makes it kind of the right thing to do, and then on top of that he's already one of the best (if not the best) punters in the league and is only going to get better from here ... and that's still not enough? Look, I know carrying two punters on scholarship is a less-than-ideal situation, but Shoemaker made all of one appearance last season and in that one appearance he cost us the game. There's so much uncertainty about next year's team. Shouldn't we have this one thing to hang our hat on?

I guess not. I guess I'm not really confused. Gene Chizik doesn't give a crap about special teams. There. That's simple enough.

Willis aftershocks

I've never followed professional wrestling, but I believe this is what's known in the business as a "heel turn."

All right, so, Auburn's linebackers coach and this particular class's lead recruiter has joined the coaching staff at Alabama two weeks before Signing Day. This, to use use the technical terminology for such a situation, completely blows.

The JCCW's various responses are as follows:

Remember to say to yourself "It's just a linebackers coach." Take a deep breath. Repeat. Breathe. Repeat. Yes, Willis was a fine coach in many respects and it's more than a little embarrassing for him to sign up with The Enemy just at the moment when Auburn needs him more than ever. That said, it's wasn't very long ago when Auburn had just hired a 5-19 head coach, Patrick Nix was the consensus front-runner for the offensive coordinator's chair, and the school's most prominent alumnus in the sports world had just made himself the correct answer to the SAT analogy "George W. Bush : Kanye West :: Auburn administration : ???". Things not only have been so much worse, they've been so much worse in the very recent past. If Willis's departure is a big stock arrow down, it hardly cancels out all the giant stock arrows of Malzahn and Taylor and Roof all pointing up. Willis was important, but the most important assistants on the staff are always the two coordinators, and Chizik made an outstanding hire with both. Willis or no Willis, Chizik's staff is still going to be one of the best in the league. In the long-term, optimism still makes much, much more logical sense than the alternative.

The recruiting fallout won't be as harsh as you might think. Yeah, Terrence Coleman is suddenly a pretty severe flight risk, but look over the rest of Auburn's commitment list ... how many other defensive recruits is Auburn really going to lose over Willis's departure? Ford is solid. Pilson is solid. Gaston is solid. Roof was already hitting it off with Taylor. Freeman and Fairley are already on campus. So that leaves ... Jonathan Evans. That's it. Certainly Willis's departure won't help with Petey Smith or a handful of other uncommitted recruits, I suppose, but was Willis really about to singlehandedly reel in some superstud that would make the defensive class all on its own? No. If anyone seems capable of doing that at this point, it seems to be Roof.

Now, looking at recruiting in the long-term, what hurts isn't so much that Willis is gone. Chizik has filled his staff with the kind of recruiters who should be able to make up for his absence. It's that he's now recruiting head-to-head against Auburn that's the problem, the destination of his defection that's the issue. Kind of like the proverbial "four-point swing" in hoops where a missed layup on one end leads to a quick two the other way.

That said: it's not like recruiting against Alabama was ever going to be be easy anyway. Either Chizik and crew are up to it or they aren't, and Willis lining up on the other side doesn't dramatically change the equation from where I sit.

Willis's position coaching is a non-issue. Roof has coached linebackers for most of his career, and looking at how much of an impact he has on his team's run defense, I'd wager he's good at it. I'm not worried about our linebackers suddenly forgetting how to tackle, particularly since the linebackers were, frankly, the weakest unit the 2008 Auburn defense had.

OK, that's the sunny side. Here's the darker side: Chizik and most likely Jacobs have to bear some responsibility for this situation. When Chizik issued the blanket firings of Tubby's staff, pretty much everyone responded with some form of "Wow, that sure seems rash." Guess what: it was rash. Clearly, rehire or no rehire, Willis didn't feel any kind of loyalty or connection to his new head coach, and seeing as how Chizik had worked with Willis before and tossed him out with the bathwater all the same, on some level it's hard to blame him. Chizik should have been more cautious.

And while the "Fail Jacobs forced Willis to pay back his severance bonus" HOT RUMOR is still just a rumor for the time being, there's such thick, billowing smoke coming from it I have to think there's fire here. Jacobs already has a history of alienating Auburn's coaches, and it's not difficult at all to see him tactlessly pinching pennies when trying to keep the staff salary books in some kind of balance. I'm hoping we'll find out the severance thing is all talk, but if I had to guess I'd say it's just one more example of Jacobs being--to borrow a phrase--as clumsy as he is stupid*.

However: most of the responsibility falls on Willis alone. As I said yesterday: if you're that unhappy, if your heart's not in it, if you no longer want to be at Auburn any longer ... fine. OK. Man up, admit it, and resign. It would hurt, but we would understand.

But Willis is an alum, a former player, a long-time coach, an Auburn lifer--was it really asking so much that if he had to leave, he leave in a way that damaged Auburn the least? That made it as easy to deal with his departure as possible? Instead, he has done the exact opposite--he has left in a way that damages the school he professed to love the most, that makes it as difficult to deal with his departure as possible.

It's not that he signed on at Alabama. It's really not. If he'd never rejoined Chizik's staff and then jumped at this opportunity, it would sting, and a certain portion of Auburn's fanbase would be up in arms, but I think most of us would simply call it unfortunate and move on. But he didn't do that. He re-committed to Auburn. He joined the staff. He started recruiting again, no doubt bad-mouthing Alabama and his new head coach every step of the way. He sat in Terrence Coleman's living room just a few days ago and told him if he came to Auburn, Coleman could play for him.

In short: James Willis is a liar. He lied to Coleman. He lied to Chizik. He lied to his players. He lied to us. No freaking wonder he's gone to go play for Nick Saban, huh?

Lastly, a nickname. I proposed yesterday that Willis be given a handy nickname from one of the many characters in sci-fi or fantasy who turn traitor in the face of seemingly overwhelming evil. Commenters mentioned Lando Calrissian, or Cypher from the Matrix. Another possibility is Peter "Wormtail" Pettigrew from the Harry Potter series.

I propose we call him "Bad Lando," so as to distinguish him from the real Lando, who ended up being OK. But other suggestions/feedback are welcome.

a p.s. to all those Tide trolls hanging around Auburn sites, this one included, going "hur hur just business hur why are you so mad hur we're just better hur hur hur": If you honestly look at Willis's timing and deception and say that Auburn fans should not be so pissed their hair catches on fire, you have the brains God gave the sea slug. The more likely explanation, of course, is that you are not honestly looking at anything, but simply taking the opportunity to gleefully rub our noses in it under the guise of honest "discussion." Either way: I hope you fall into an open sewer and die.

*I'm not sure I'd actually call Jacobs stupid. Consider this auto-redacted. But the line seemed too appropriate not to use.

Well, so much for that whole "sunshine" thing

Just minutes after I got a heads-up about it, Goldberg confirms: James Willis is on his way to Saban's staff to coach linebackers.

James, I gotta be honest with ya buddy ... you're dead to me. Raise or no raise, temporary unemployment or no temporary unemployment, years of loyal productive service or no years of productive service, you don't do this. You don't rejoin Auburn's staff, play the good soldier, and then bolt for Alabama two weeks before Signing Day when our school and our program--your school! Your program!--need you the absolute most. If you were that unhappy about not being immediately retained after the coaching hire, have the grace and integrity to say "No thanks, I'd rather move on" instead of putting a charade for a few weeks. There will be no sympathy, no "Godspeed" or well-wishing from this corner. You don't deserve any.

There are characters in various sci-fi and fantasy films who give up in the face of seemingly overwhelming evil and work with the bad guys because they "don't have any choice" or "what's the use in resisting?" As soon as I work through enough of my disappointment and rage to remember one specifically, Mr. Willis will have a new nickname.

UPDATE: Willis has released a statement, available here:

I'm excited about the opportunity to come and work with Coach Saban at the University of Alabama," Willis said in the statement. "He is one of the best defensive coaches in the game and this is a chance to gain some great experience and learn from the best. You don't get many chances like that in the coaching business. When you combine that opportunity with the history and tradition at Alabama, it was a decision that was best for me personally as well as professionally. I know my wife and the kids are as excited as I am to join Coach Saban's staff."

Look, you want to spin about how wonderful Saban is and how it's a good move for you for a professional and/or development standpoint, fine. But don't feed us that line of horse pucky about their "history" and "tradition" being a huge attraction when you've spent the last 20 of years of your life, no doubt, feeling and saying that that history and tradition adds up (or should add up) to--pardon my French--precisely d*ck.

Let there be Rocker

Unless you've on the causal end of the Internet-browsin' Auburn fan spectrum, you're not hearing this firsthand from me, but: Tracy Rocker is your new defensive line coach.

It's pretty sweet that Chizik's brought back a former Auburn legend and walking memento of the Dye-era defenses like Rocker, but even sweeter is that he's hired a guy who appears to be a damn, damn good coach. Rocker didn't have a hand in recruiting the 2008 Ole Miss defensive line and certainly a big bulk of the credit for the Rebels' stunning success this year up front has to go to the linebackers and DC Tyrone Nix, but still: jumpin' Jehosophat, when the defensive line you take over goes from 92nd in the country yards allowed per-rush to 4th in one season, I think it's safe to say you've done something right. Rocker had a ton of talent to work with in Oxford--Jerry, Hardy, etc.--but they all weren't always healthy and it's not like those same players had set the world on fire the year before. It's a hell of a job he's done there.

Rocker wasn't half-bad during his time at Arkansas, either, as wide-receiver-turned-first-round-draft-pick-at-defensive-end Jamaal Anderson would likely attest. Anderson was one of three Hog defensive linemen drafted after Rocker's final two seasons in Fayetteville, and Jerry will surely make it four-players-in-three with two first-rounders this April. I'm sure that fact won't ever come up while Rocker talks to recruits.

So, yeah, stop me if you've heard this one before, but I think this is a terrific hire. Surprisingly enough, I haven't gotten tired of typing that just yet. Sunshine all the way, baby.

p.s. Goldberg is reporting that John Thompson could be hired away from Bill Curry's georgiastatefootball.com* project to coach Auburn's secondary. So we'd have a former head coach and long, longtime successful SEC defensive coordinator coaching our secondary. As a DC or any kind of lead recruiter I'd be a little wary of Thompson's age and recent struggles at Ole Miss and South Carolina, but as a position coach it's hard to see anything but upside.

*Wait, this is an actual football program? When someone called it a start-up I figured it was some kind of Internet thing.

The Ted Roof file is a fun read

Fist things first

I don't think there's any way to spin Roof's tenure as the Duke head coach as anything other than disaster. I'd agree with ex-ACC beat man Andy Bitter that we shouldn't read too much into it when evaluating his potential as Auburn's defensive coordinator, but not for the reason Bitter puts forth, namely that Duke is "a hopeless situation." It's not a great situation, certainly, but the right coach can at least make headway: See Spurrier, Cutcliffe, etc. 6-45 ain't much headway.

I think the safer assumption is this one: sometimes, there are guys who can be fantastically successful defensive coordinators who for one reason or another just don't have whatever intangible thing you need in your DNA to become a winning head coach.

WAIT! Disregard that last statement. That has nothing to do with it. What I mean to say is that hiring a prominent defensive coordinator as a head coach is the surest path to wild long-term success. Just ask Syracuse!

WAIT! Disregard that last statement as well. The point is that Duke really was a hopeless case, no one will ever win there ever, and you shouldn't try to divine anything from Roof's tenure as head coach there other than that, especially anything about how well other defensive coordinators might perform as head coach. Especially that.

In all seriousness, though, I can't see how what Roof does as a head coach, particularly at Duke--perhaps the single toughest place to recruit in any BCS conference--tells us anything about his potential as a DC Auburn. If anything, it might be a positive, since head coaching experience is still a plus in an assistant, and Roof did manage to recruit enough players to Duke that Cutcliffe had something to work with when he arrived. His record as a head coach just means you shouldn't hire Roof to be a head coach.

The Tech years

After spending most of his early career coaching linebackers (with a one-year stint as Western Carolina's DC), Roof ascended to Georgia Tech's defensive coordinator's chair in 1999. And that first year honestly wasn't so great--the Jackets finished 100th in total defense, 93rd scoring. The following season saw dramatic improvement, however--the Jackets jumped to 70th in total D, based almost entirely off of the 12th-ranked rush defense in the country. This helped make up for a dead-last pass defense, though it's fair to attribute some of that raw yardage to how stingy the rush defense was and that Tech opponents were frequently playing from behind thanks to Joe Hamilton's offense; efficiency-wise, Tech was 86th. And all that passing didn't help opponents get on the scoreboard that often anyway as Tech finished 21st in scoring defense.

2001 saw another huge jump up the total defense rankings for Tech, all the way to 32nd. The pass defense surged to 53rd while the rush D held mostly steady, as did the scoring D. After 2001, you'll recall, George O'Leary tried and failed to leave for Notre Dame and Roof moved onto Duke, where he spent a single year as their defensive coordinator. It ended up being a pretty freaking good year: Duke went from 113th in total defense to 65th, from--get this-- 113th in rushing defense to 28th.

If you're keeping track, that's three consecutive seasons in which Roof's defenses didn't just get better, they got dramatically better. That he occasionally struggled putting together a statistically competent pass defense would be more troubling if Auburn played in the Big 12, but when the most dangerous aerial assault on your 2009 conference schedule appears to be a newly Stafford-less Georgia, that's not much of a worry.

Besides, it's not Auburn's pass defense that needs the help--those guys finished 10th in the country per-play. It's the 72nd-ranked rush defense that needs the attention, and judging by Roof's track record here, not many people would be more qualified to provide it.

The Minnesota revival

I know this is going to sound strange, but even saying "Minnesota had the worst defense in the country in 2007"--which they did--somehow understates the soul-crushing vortex of suck that was the Gopher D under Roof's predecessor Everett Withers. The 2007 Gopher defense was the worst BCS-conference defense this decade--check the midseason table here--and very nearly became the worst defense of the decade in all of college football, falling less than a yard short of 2002 Eastern Michigan's "achievement." Consider: the 518.7 yards given up by Minnesota per-game in 2007 was a full 36 yards worse than the worst defense of 2008, at North Texas. And it's not even like the Gophers suffered from accidentally putting Oregon and Texas Tech on the schedule--their nonconference opposition consisted of two MAC teams, I-AA North Dakota State (who just happened to rip off 585 yards of total offense), and Florida Atlantic. In short, Roof didn't just inherit a bad defense when he arrived at Minnesota. He inherited the worst defense imaginable.

No matter. As before, Roof engineered a dramatic overnight improvement. The Gophers surged to 80th in total defense, with Roof's customary eye-popping improvement in rush D--from 114th in 2007 to 69th this year. Pass D? 115th to 94th, still a sizable jump. The Gophers chopped a full 1.1 yards off their per-play average, the biggest improvement of any team ranked 100th or lower in 2007, and better than the turnaround Bo Pelini engineered at Nebraska.

That this sort of thing has happened over and over again on Roof's watch isn't coincidence. It won't happen at Auburn, because Auburn doesn't have nearly so much room for these kinds of improvements and because it's just not going to while the offense is embracing a switch to the Malzahn no-huddle. But Roof knows what he's doing. There's not really any question about that.

Other stuff

If the stats won't convince you, maybe that Tubby reportedly considered Roof for the job that eventually went to Rhoads will. Tubby, as we all know, knew a thing or two about hiring successful defensive coordinators.

And while I don't think it's nearly as important as the schematic chops illustrated above, it's worth asking how well Roof will recruit. The Duke info is useless; it's Duke. But even there, Roof found a few keepers. And it's awfully hard to see him being a detriment to Auburn's recruiting when he's relatively young (45), by all accounts plenty energetic, and hails from (and has recruited) Georgia. It's not a concern, and may even be another positive to add to his resume.

Bottom line

Sure, Chizik is a defensive-minded head coach and has an impeccable record as a defensive coordinator. But a fat lot of good that did him at Iowa St. His defenses a) blew b) got increasingly worse during his tenure. If that's any indication, he couldn't afford to hire any old defensive coordinator (like, say, ISU choice Wayne Bolt), especially after installing an offense that puts as much pressure on its own defense as Malzahn's does. Maybe, maybe, if Chizik takes a greater role in Auburn's D than he the Cyclones' and he'd hired an OC who was interested in chewing clock, he could get away with a lesser hire. But as a partner to Malzahn? No way.

Fortunately, he hasn't made a lesser hire. By virtually every single bit of evidence we have on Roof as a defensive coordinator, Chizik has made yet another outstanding one. It's onwards and upwards once again, folks.

Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows

No, I'm not going to torture you by linking that song* up, but man, you take my very fondest dream of this whole staff hiring process goes--minus Lucy Griffiths as the Kathy Ireland Memorial Placekicking Coach, of course--and multiply it by a hundred, and I'm still not sure the end product would be as mindblowingly awesome as this:



I would have been thrilled to have Taylor as an offensive coordinator. Now, somehow, Gene Chizik has managed to hire Trooper Taylor to coach receivers for Gus freaking Malzahn. Unbefreakinglievable. This is the sort of statement that might come back to haunt me, but I'm going to make it anyway: if Malzahn, Taylor, and Luper stay through the 2011 recruiting class, Auburn is going to have one of the top-10 offenses in the country the following season. There's a lot of work to do, but there's also just too much coaching talent assembled here for this to fail.

How Chizik managed to haul Taylor aboard, I'm still not entirely sure. With Malzahn here, there's no way this isn't a lateral move for Taylor in terms of the coaching flowchart. I'm guessing there's a raise and a new fancy title and that Luper's defection played a big role. I'm also guessing that Taylor's tired of Gundy yelling I'M A MAN whenever he makes his commute in 30 minutes or less or makes a particularly strong cup of coffee in the coaches' offices or finishes off an especially long piss in the men's room. That would get aggravating after a while.

And, somehow, the result is that Trooper Taylor will be recruiting for Auburn over the next two months and coaching at Auburn next fall. Chizik's going to have to put victories up on the scoreboard before all the pessimism is wiped away, but one of the two things I said he'd have to do was assemble a knockout staff. Assuming Teddy Ruxpin isn't actually hired as our DC, that mission is accomplished.

The best part? Instead of eight months of dread, we Auburn fans get to savor eight months of sky-high optimism again. Welcome back, sunshine. Nice to see you again, lollipops. Until the hitting actually starts again, it's all rainbows from here.

*Look, the Simpsons clip is too damn hard to find, so if you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about, here. Don't say you weren't warned.

UPDATE: Garner is staying in Athens, but a) Trooper Taylor and Gus Malzahn, so whatever b) Chizik didn't really seem to have much interest in him, which leads to point c) remember when we were all afraid that Chizik was nothing more than a stooge set up to coach a whole laundry list of Pat Dye favorites hired without his approval by the administration? Here we are, just a few weeks later, and that already seems like the irrational paranoia of an unenlightened time long, long ago, like the Salem with hunts or McCarthy's Red Scare or the hiring of Dennis Franchione. It turns out Pat Dye's been just about as uninvolved as he always claimed he was.

Coaching update

Yes please.

So, your first bit of Auburn coaching news: Oklahoma St. running backs coach Curtis Luper is now Auburn running backs coach Curtis Luper. In your face, Boone Pickens. Why the lateral move? He called Chizik--with who he worked as a grad assistant way back at Stephen F. Austin--"my mentor," so I guess it was just that easy. (Well, that and offering him a huge raise.) No issues with the resume, certainly, given the way Okie St. has run the ball the last couple of years.

But Chizik's efforts to raid Stillwater might have landed an even bigger fish on the hook: he's asked for and received permission to talk to Trooper Taylor. Taylor, I'm sure I don't have to tell you, was seen as one of the SEC's brightest young coaching prospects when he was at Tennessee and Okie St.'s success this year hasn't exactly hurt his stock. If Chizik can get him to Auburn ... I mean, Malzahn's schemes with Taylor's wideouts? The mind reels and the heart leaps. Our Tigers would go from having one of the SEC's most dysfunctional offensive coaching staffs to one of its most dynamic overnight.

The question, of course, is whether Taylor will show up. Having Luper around can't hurt, but we can be frank: this is a lateral move for him at best, and I do mean "at best." At OSU he's a receivers coach-slash-co-OC who doesn't call plays; at Auburn, he will be, at most, a receivers coach-slash-co-OC who doesn't call plays. And now is pretty much the best possible time to be at Stillwater--the bowl game crash-n'-burn and potential pro defections notwithstanding, everyone returns and if Tech, Oklahoma, and Texas come back to earth a bit, there's no real reason State couldn't be what Missouri was in 2007. Or more. Unless Auburn can also offer Taylor a big raise (which they may be able to do) or Taylor and Luper are seriously tight, I can't see why he'd come. And that's not even considering that Randy Shannon and Miami may be offering him the full OC's chair and play-calling position, which certainly seems like Taylor's logical next move.

But hey, at least we've got our foot in the door. And here's the even better news: Gene Chizik has once again shown that, Approved by Pat Dye list be damned, he's going to go out and try to hire the best guys he can. Even if we don't get Taylor, my faith that Chizik will fill out his staff with quality coaches has never been higher. The stock arrow continues to point upward.

UPDATE: Evan Woodberry was doing work this morning, providing a terrific on-the-scene report as both Luper and Taylor arrived on the Plains aboard the same plane from Oklahoma. Woodberry got a whole bunch of thrilling quotes from Luper, the most titillating one being this:

Would Luper like to be joined in Auburn by Taylor? "Absolutely. That's why he's on the airplane right here. You'll see how good of a recruiter I am pretty soon, I hope."

Fingers crossed. Also of note: Luper said he'd probably eventually recruit Texas, which on the one hand ... is it really the best strategy for Auburn to go head-to-head with Texas and Oklahoma and the thousand other D-I schools out there? Terry Bowden tried that in Florida once upon a time and it didn't work out so well. On the other hand, Luper has a track record, and if he really can pull Texas athletes out of there and bring them to Auburn, that's going to be a Very Good Thing. And on the third hand, I don't have that much of a clue when it comes to recruiting.

Woodberry also gives us this awesome little slice-of-Auburn-life:

A couple of fans were on hand to greet the two coaches. One yelled "War Eagle" as the coaches left the plane.

A few minutes later, I overhead Luper ask, "What exactly does 'War Eagle' mean?" An Auburn staffer explained that it was both a cheer and a greeting or salutation, and he could simply reply, "War Eagle!" in response.

Both Luper and Taylor took the time to shake hands with the fans, and Luper gave a "War Eagle" yell as he departed.

War Eagle, coach.

Gus Malzahn: the Tony Franklin we got, or the Tony Franklin we wanted?

I'll be perfectly honest: I'm stunned at how widespread the willingness of Auburn fans to lay palm branches down at Gus Malzahn's feet seems to be. Not because he's not deserving (well, metaphorically speaking), but because these are the same Auburn fans who were ready to tar and feather Tony "Spread Man Walking" Franklin before running him out of town on the proverbial rail, and that was three games into the season. They're the same Auburn fans who looked at Mike Leach's 11-1 record in this year's Big 12 and said "Actually, we'd rather wait until you go undefeated, thanks." And now comes Malzahn, with his Franklinesque up-tempo scheme and high school roots, and his Leachesque hatred of the humble punt, and he's greeted with hosannas? Was the Fear of a Patrick Nix Planet really this strong?

So, yeah, I was expecting more comments along the lines of this beauty left in the thread after Sunday's post:

Oh no - this is an absolute disaster. I remember the last time an SEC team hired Malzahn and what happened there. Nobody is left from that debacle at Arkansas.

I thought we were going back to smash-mouth football, but apparently we are simply going to concede the next few years to Bama and everyone else in the country and maybe hire Turner Gill after this HIGH SCHOOL COACH fails to implement the spread at AU once again. Tony Franklin, redux. What is that quote about insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result ? The ONLY silver lining in hiring Chizik was he promised a return to AU football, i.e., not the spread. So what does he do next ? This is it for me. The powers-that-be at AU are absolutely crazy and the whole lot of them needs to be run off....

This opinion is far and away in the minority, though. Charles Goldberg's survey shows more than 88 percent of Auburn fans are behind the hire. Why? Are the surface differences between Tony Franklin, the man who'll forever be known as the decision that destroyed Tommy Tuberville's Auburn coaching career, and Malzahn really that great? Hell, despite his Arkansas episode, Franklin's systems were more proven against SEC competition than the ones Malzahn will run at Auburn will be.

But even if I can't explain why Malzahn is being welcomed with such open arms--maybe it's that his Tulsa numbers are off the freaking chart, as opposed to Franklin's Troy numbers merely being very, very good?--you can definitely consider the JCCW among the cheering throng.

Here's why.

The numbers really are that bonkers. It would be one thing if Malzahn had arrived at Tulsa and only maintained an already-built offensive machine. And, to be fair, Tulsa wasn't bad before Malzahn arrived: 26th in yards-per-play in 2006, 31st in 2005. You also have to take Tulsa's total offense numbers under Malzahn with at least a tiny grain of salt: because Malzahn tries to run so many damn plays in a game, their per-game stats (both offensively and defensively) get inflated.

But yeah, things have still been decisively on the ridiculous side for the Golden Hurricane since he showed up. Third in the nation in '07 in yards-per-play (to go with their easy first in total offense), then a tie with Houston for first this season with a staggering 7.3 yards a play, a mark matched only over the past five years by the likes of Leinart and Bush's USC, White and Slaton's West Virginia, Colt Brennan's stupid year at Hawaii.

Are you more worried about scoring than yardage? That's the sort of thing that gets distorted by field position and defensive touchdowns, but why not: Tulsa went from 37th to 6th and then 2nd this year.

There's also the little matter of Malzahn's (ahem) turbulent season at Arkansas in 2006. Exactly how much credit you want to give Malzahn for an offense that finished 12th in yards-per-play and third in the country in rushing is kind of up to you; given that the offense bore very, very little resemblance to what Malzahn has run at Tulsa, that Houston Nutt and then-QB coach David Lee (who took the Wildcat to Miami, as you probably know) are pretty sharp offensive minds in their own rights, and that that offense had at its disposal perhaps the greatest SEC running back since Bo, I'd pass on putting too much weight on Malzahn's results in Fayetteville. That said: the year before he got there, Arkansas ranked 66th in yards-per-play; the year after he left, the Hogs slipped just a hair, from 12th to 14th. (To be fair, the Hogs' scoring offense improved dramatically. So Arkansas sort of stayed about the same overall.) Whatever you want to say about Malzahn's Hog tenure, you have to admit this: he sure as hell didn't hurt that offense.

The bottom line is that no, we don't have a ton of evidence. But every bit of evidence we do have suggests that when you hire Gus Malzahn, your offense gets much, much better.

His real name is Gustav. Arthur Gustav Malzahn III. Would you want your opponent to have a coach named Gustav? No, no you would not.

Balance. As Jay G. Tate related for you in the Malzahn hire's aftermath, just because Malzahn prefers to spread the field and Tulsa tied for the best mark in D-I in yards-per-passing attempt doesn't mean he's of the Leach/Mumme/Franklin "Airraid" pass-to-set-up-the-run school. The Golden Hurricane had an almost exactly 50-50 run/pass split in 2007 (two more passes than runs) and in 2008 ran 61 percent of the time. For comparison, remember Auburn's 2007 Borges-directed grind-a-thon? 60 percent running. 2006? 62.5 percent running. In other words, the newfangled, basketball-on-grass, no-huddle pointfest Malzahn oversaw at Tulsa this year? Every bit as run-obsessed as the Auburn offenses that Tubby believed so stodgy he had to turn to Franklin.

When Franklin said he was going to pass to set up the run, he wasn't lying. That's how his system worked. When Malzahn says he'll use the run to set up the pass, he's not lying either. And as with Franklin, that makes all the difference when it comes to success. Any shred of balance Franklin had at Troy came from Omar Haugabrook's ability to run with the ball, but Malzahn's genuine commitment to the run means that that 5.43 yards-per-rush--eighth-best in the country this year, one spot ahead of Navy--isn't a mirage that's going to evaporate when he comes to Auburn. He'll find a way to run the ball.

And once he does, that's when he goes deep. Again, no team in the country averaged more per-pass than Tulsa; Malzahn's not interested in dinking-and-dunking. When he passes, he's usually going for the throat. End result: the only team in the country that finished in the top 10 in both total rushing and passing.

Personally, even an all-pass-all-the-time scheme like Leach's (or the Paul Johnson converse) would be fine by me--as long as it worked. But to pull off something like that requires a phenomenal coaching mind, a true savant like Leach or Johnson. For all we know, Malzahn might be that kind of savant; Tulsa's eye-popping numbers suggest he might be. But even if he's just very good, having the option of succeeding either via the air or the run means Malzahn arrives on the Plains with more ability to adapt: adapting to Auburn's personnel, adapting to SEC defenses, adapting to whatever challenges this position winds up offering him. There's a reason Malzahn hit the ground running at Tulsa and never stopped.

Ludicrous speed. That's the term the brilliant Chris Brown coined for the pace of Malzahn's Tulsa offense in this must-read Smart Football post on Auburn's new hire. Remember how Tubby said he wanted Oklahoma's offense? As Brown points out, the two teams that in 2008 ran the most plays and played at the fastest pace were Oklahoma and Tulsa. Total offense, sure, but both of those teams also finished in top five in the country in yards-per-play. Coincidence? I doubt it.

Also, do you think this just might be a selling point with skill position recruits? Come to Auburn, and you won't only play for a good offense--you'll play for an offense that is designed to give you more opportunities than any other offense in football, every game, of touching the ball.

Also also: as Brown illustrates, because Malzahn's version of the Spread Eagle won't be all that schematically complex, the adjustment period shouldn't be quite so rough as it might be with some other alleged *cough*Jonathan Clawson*cough* gurus.

The negatives might not be as negative as you might think. Let's review the common complaints:

Malzahn's offense won't work in the SEC. Why, exactly, is never explained, of course. The same reasons Mumme's offense* and Meyer's offense weren't going to work, I'm sure, or that Paul Johnson's offense was never going to work in the ACC. You'll hear that even if the novelty has some effect, that in Year 2 the defenses will adjust. This, of course, assumes that the guy creative enough to come up with this and who at the very least had a hand in the creation of the Wildcat is incapable of making adjustments himself.

The offense didn't work against real competition. Riiiiight. 528 yards against Arkansas, a better per-play average against the Hogs than anyone but Florida or Alabama ... a clear failure. The relatively anemic ECU output of 24 points and 399 yards? Still good for 28 first downs and 100 more yards than ECU managed. 2007? 5.5 a play against Oklahoma, 8.5 in a 55-47 win over 11-2 BYU, 6.5 in the 63-7 annihilation of Bowling Green in their bowl game. No, over two seasons, Malzahn's Golden Hurricane haven't been quite as good stepping up against non-C-USA competition as they are in bludgeoning the weak sisters of their home league. But that doesn't mean they've failed, exactly, either.

Chizik won't let him be Malzahn, just as Tubby never let Franklin be Franklin. Uh, Malzahn is now very likely Chizik's only hope of turning the steaming, fetid pile that is the current Auburn offense into something competent before the ax falls on his own neck and the neck of the man who hired him. Hamstringing him in any fashion seems the very essence of stupidity--particularly since if Chizik is indeed attempting to build the SEC's version Oklahoma, meddling is the very opposite of what Stoops did with Leach/Mangino/Wilson. (Not to mention that if Chizik's experience at Iowa St. is any indication, he needs to spend a lot more time worrying about his defense than his offense.) Also: there is no misguided loyalty to Steve Ensminger et al to get in Chizik's way. I will be very, very surprised if what we see at Jordan-Hare this fall isn't something awful close to what Tulsa's doing right now.

Malzahn's teams turn it over too damn much, and between that and the supercharged pace, they hurt the defense. Well ... there might be something to this. Tulsa has finished 97th and 92nd in turnover margin under Malzahn, and it was the Golden Hurricane's TOs and general wastefulness in the red zone cost them the Arkansas and East Carolina games (the laterr of which featured an incredible 7 Tulsa TOs). Whether you want to blame the turnovers or the pace, with Malzahn in tow Tulsa finished 100th in scoring defense in 2007 and 84th this year. Yards-per-play? Back-to-back 93rd-place finishes after finishing 37th in '06.

But ... that downturn in defense also coincides with Steve Kragthorpe's departure from Tulsa. Is it really due to Malzahn's arrival, or to the AgroKrag and his staff's departure? There's no way to tell. Are Tulsa's turnover margins--2008's would have been +4 if not for meltdowns against Houston and ECU--really due to the Hurricane's lightning pace and more plays, or could we assume that with both teams having so many possessions in each game, that it might just be bad luck that will even itself out over time? Again, I don't think two seasons is enough to know for sure.

Yes, it's a worry. But only a worry--I'd much rather my defensive-minded head coach go out and find the best offensive coach he can and worry about figuring out the defense myself. That's the way Pete Carroll's approached it, the way Bob Stoops has approached it. It looks for all the world to me that's the way Gene Chizik has approached it, and even if the results aren't quite so spectacular, there's not enough reasons here to think there shouldn't be offensive results.

He's a good coach. This is the bottom line. Good, smart coaches find a way to succeed. Bad, misguided coaches find a way to fail. Everything we've seen of Malzahn has to suggest that he is, in fact, a good coach, right?

Of course, in the wake of last year's Chick-Fil-A Bowl, I've said the exact same thing about Tony Franklin. Is he really a bad coach and Malzahn really a good one? Nah. I think they're both good coaches. But one got suckered into a series of mistakes and dug himself a hole "his" staff and situation wouldn't let him out of. Malzahn won't face that situation. His balance means he'll have more slack to make mistakes. His statistics suggest he's an even better coach than Franklin was.

So in some ways, yes, he is the second coming of Franklin. But it's my best guess--biased as it is--that this Franklin is going to come to a very different end on the Plains than the first one. This Franklin is going to be the one we wanted, the one we were promised all along.

*Remember, Mumme's offense was never the problem; it put up points like mad. He just never got the defense figured out. I like Chizik's odds a lot better than Mumme's if everything offensive winds up equal. At least, I think I do.

In Tubby news ...

Even before he hooked up with a trucking company, Nall had experience in transporting expensive cargo.

"Mutual"? We touched on Jay Tate's interview with Hugh Nall yesterday, but Tate's full story for the paper had a few more tidbits worth taking a look at. For me, this is the money quote:

"It's a tough business competing against Alabama, Georgia, LSU and Tennessee and everyone else in the league. Everybody has to be on the same team and thinking the same way for you to even have a chance. Tommy realized that wasn't going to happen. It probably was more of a mutual thing." (emphasis added--ed.)

This is someone who's about as close to the situation as you're going to get who doesn't have an ax to grind--well, actually, Nall does have an ax to grind, as we'll see in a sec--stating that it wasn't 100 percent the administration's decision nor 100 percent Tubby's decision. As I've stated repeatedly: the truth is somewhere in the middle. It probably was more of a mutual thing. As Tate writes in the story, the 100 minutes in which Tubby went from expecting to return to leaving the program for good aren't going to be understood any time soon.

However: I'm still not arguing that the administration should be blindly let off the hook, certainly not if this is the truth:

His contract -- and those of all Tigers assistants -- are predicated on Tuberville's employment with the program. Once he leaves, the school no longer is obligated to any coach lacking a multiyear deal. Administrators offered each assistant a 1-month contract to help bide time while Jacobs searches for a new coach.

Nall rejected the offer. He didn't like the terms.

"They wanted me to agree to give them a month, then they told me I couldn't pursue another job," Nall said. "They wanted to know why I didn't want to keep recruiting these kids. I told them that I'm not an employee there anymore. They didn't have to wait on me -- my locker was cleaned out and my stuff was packed up and out of there by the time we met the next morning."

Asking the Auburn coaches to continue recruiting certainly isn't out of order--several assistants have continued doing just that, of course--but demanding that Nall couldn't pursue another job? Why? Love him or hate him, Nall's given Auburn 10 years of service. We couldn't have let him make a few phone calls or spend a day or two looking into what he's going to do next while he's pounding the recruiting trail? Especially when the recruiting class hangs by a thread already? And now Nall is long gone, the opportunity to have him help keep the class together--for whatever that's worth--is lost. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, dumbasses.

No help here. Contrary to what Charles Goldberg declares at the top of this post reproducing Tubby's letter of resignation to Jacobs isn't going to come close to ending the firing vs. resigning "speculation" tug-of-war. I mean, does it get any more contradictory than this?

After long consideration, I have decided to resign. I understand that, notwithstanding my resignation, the University will make a total payment of $5,083,334 as outlined in Section 21 of my contract.

No, no it doesn't. This is the debate in a perfect nutshell, Tubby writing I have resigned in one sentence and in the next writing, essentially, I have been fired. Until Tubby actually decides to speak, we're not getting any closer to resolving this thing, and I doubt Tubby's going to speak any time soon. $5.08 million will buy a lot of silence.

Because I forgot to mention it in the last post. Offensively, Auburn's an out-and-out rebuilding project, but Tubby's at leas left the cupboard stocked elsewhere: Durst, Pybus, and Thorpe were selected to the SEC All-Freshman team. And here's where he make another testament to Tubby's eye for talent: Durst was a walk-on who'd never punted competitively in his life, Pybus and Thorpe lightly-regarded prospects who nobody expected on Signing Day to even see the field as freshmen, much less make the SEC's All-Freshman team. I hope you've already raised your glass to Tubby a couple of times since he left; it's time again.

Good Morning, Auburn

Wake up, Auburn! It's about 8 a.m. CST Thursday morning. Do you know who your head coach is?

Before moving on to the business of the day--profiling Auburn's alleged and maybe-not-as-alleged coaching candidates--obviously we need to wrap up some of the news and reaction from yesterday. And because I can't think of any organizing principle for this, here, have a list:

1. When the story broke, the knee-jerk reaction I expected from the nation's punditry and the majority of Auburn fans--to the former's ignorant shame and the latter's loyal credit, as unfair as that seems--was that Jay Jacobs and the Auburn Board were about to wind up the butt end of a thousand stupid, impatient, ungrateful, meddling bumblers-type portrayals. To date that's pretty much been the case.

As I essentially said yesterday, I think that's unfair at this point, seeing as how if the Auburn admin and Tubby came to an impasse over what to do with his current staff, it's not like Jacobs and the Board would have had a lot of options. Leaving things status quo after Auburn's worst season in 10 years was never an option.

But in trying to cut that criticism off at the pass, I don't think I emphasized enough yesterday how much this outcome truly saddens and disappoints me, because it did. I liked Tubby. I think he did a phenomenal job. I think we are all in agreement on this: He deserved better.

Yesterday I wrote "If this was ultimately the administration's decision, I won't endorse it. But I can respect it for being forward-looking enough to see the handwriting on the wall," which prompted the following comment from reader Charlie I completely cosign with:

I disagree a lot with this, because Auburn already has an image problem regarding loyalty to a coach. It makes the school less appealing to potential hires and it will make people quicker to jump when another opportunity arises (not just in football -- across the athletic department).

Let's say Tuberville has lost his fire, and he's not the same coach he was before, and next season is a six or seven win mediocrity, and then he gets fired. Would that be so much worse?

No, it certainly would not. You give me a choice right now between Tubby coaching his way to 6-6 next year and the current fracture within the Auburn family and scalding media portrayals outside, and I take the former every single time. As I've said before: regardless of how 2009 might have turned out, giving Tubby a chance to do better was the right thing to do.

Assuming that the weeklong peace talks were not just a fait accompli intended to gauge Tubby's willingness to accepting a reduced buyout, I can accept what happened yesterday. But let me make clear: I'm not happy about it. Tubby was a good man and a good coach. It should not have ended like this.

2. All that said, I've seen an awful lot of comparisons between the current situation and 2003's, and I think I need to state this as plainly as I can:

2008 MAKES 2003 LOOK LIKE 2004.

I went back into the NCAA's stats database to build on my earlier look on Auburn's yearly net yards-per-play (offensive yards-per-play minus defensive yards-per-play allowed), so I can now give you Tubby's entire tenure laid out in easily digestible statistical form:

1999: -.6 (4.40/4.99)
2000: +.5 (5.25/4.72)
2001: +.04 (5.33/5.29)
2002: +1.1 (5.84/4.78)
2003: +1.1 (5.66/4.66)
2004: +1.6 (6.4/4.8)
2005: +1.0 (6.0/5.0)
2006: +0.6 (5.5/4.9)
2007: +0.3 (4.8/4.5)
2008: -0.2 (4.6/4.8)

In other words: this is not like bouncing back from 2003 at all. This is like going forward from 1999, like starting the rebuilding process all over again. When you hear media critics haranguing Auburn for deciding to "start from scratch," remember: Auburn would be starting from scratch in 2009 regardless of who's the head coach.

3. The most important bit of reporting the guys on the Auburn beat can produce over the next couple of days, in my oh-so-humble-opinion, will be a complete report on what happened in those meetings between Tubby and the Jays ... so I'm a little surprised we seem to get our first taste of it on page 2 of an article detailing the reaction from the "Auburn family":

Auburn trustee Paul Spina said Tuberville and Auburn officials had reached an agreement for him to remain as head coach on Monday, but that by Wednesday it was Tuberville who had changed his mind.

"He met with (Athletics Director) Jay Jacobs on Monday and said he (Tuberville) wanted to start over and fix it, and they talked about who he could go after for assistant coaches," Spina said. "Then he went home (Tuesday), and called Jay and said, `Let's have lunch.' They weren't supposed to meet until after lunch.

"But at lunch, Tommy said he'd talked with (his wife) Suzanne and she wanted him to get out of the business. And Tommy said, `If Auburn will take care of me, that's what I'd like to do.'"

Spina said it was at that point that Jacobs and Auburn President Jay Gogue agreed to work out a satisfactory resignation package for Tuberville.

"These are Tommy Tuberville's terms," said Terry Henley, a former Auburn running back. "His and his family's terms. He wants to stay in Auburn."

If this is true--and while Spina and Henley obviously might have an agenda, it would take some serious cojones to lie this bald-facedly--a lot of the barbs sent Jacobs' (and Gogue's) way over the last 24 hours by Auburn fans need to be retracted. I'm afraid I can't share Jay's anger with the Auburn admin; I wish it had worked out differently, but I'm just not convinced at all Auburn's leadership is deserving of this kind of animosity. (Unless, of course, they hire Petrino, at which point: open season.)

4. Seriously, spare me the crocodile tears.

5. The recruiting class is going to shatter. But coaching transitions are hell on that front whether they happen today, next year, or the year after.

6. One thing that hasn't changed though all of this, courtesy of the Pigskin Pathos:



Lowder still blows.

The JCCW starts breaking down the candidates to become Auburn's next head coach soon.

Tubby out

Goldberg, like so.

How in the hell did it come to this, this soon? How?

First of many UPDATES, 5:44: the OA-News reports that Tubby resigned rather than having been fired outright, which would seem to lend credence to the "Either your assistants go or you go with them" thread of belief. Jay G. Tate now also reporting that he's gone.

More knee-jerk reaction coming soon now that we've got multiple-source confirmation.

UPDATE 6:15: OK, so, the JCCW's instantaneous reactions to finding out--holy crap, man--that Tommy Tuberville will no longer be Auburn's football coach:

1. First, despite the fact that there will be time for eulogies later, a massive thanks to Tubby for what he's done for Auburn. I have serious doubts that anyone, anyone would have put together the kind of 10-year run at Auburn he's had. Make no mistake: Auburn is a difficult job, and perfect or not Tubby performed it as well as it could have reasonably been performed.

2. Assuming that Will Muschamp is indeed committed to remaining Mack Brown's understudy, the JCCW's preferred shortlist reads like so, in no particular order for the time being: Mike Leach, Paul Johnson, Brian Kelly, Charlie Strong/Dan Mullen.

3. If Bobby Petrino is hired as Auburn's coach, I will keep a bucket beside my couch during all Auburn games the way you kept one beside your bed when you were sick as a kid, and between each quarter I will induce vomiting into the bucket as a commemoration for Auburn's decision to hire him. Petrino is obviously a terrific coach, but he will care nothing for Auburn and nothing the Auburn admin could do would crap all over Tubby's memory and dignity by replacing him with this mercenary. UPDATE, FWIW Petrino's agent says he's "not a candidate." I know, I know, it's Petrino, but I think even he might balk at abandoning one SEC West job for another after a single season. HT to GSB, who also provides a potentially relevant quote from Barnhart on Leach.

4. Prepare yourself, Auburn fans, for an onslaught of negative press the likes of which we haven't seen since 2003. Remember two things:

First, we still don't know the details. If Tubby walked away in response to a demand that he fire his current staff members, that's on Tubby. Said demand is a perfectly reasonable one for the Auburn admin to make. Keeping an offensive coaching staff as unproductive as the current one has been for the previous three seasons would mean putting Tubby's personal loyalty above his loyalty to the program and the institution. We don't know that's what happened, but we also don't know that Tubby was shoved out, either. We will have to wait.

Second, even if this move was the wrong one from a standpoint of fairness or "doing right" by Tubby, it's the right one from the standpoint of what's best for Auburn's football program. This program was in the kind of decline it would have taken a miracle OC hire to pull itself out of, and frankly none of the names I've seen bandied about were going to be that miracle.

If this was ultimately the administration's decision, I won't endorse it. But I can respect it for being forward-looking enough to see the handwriting on the wall. Need more convincing? Read Jay Coulter's account of one Auburn recruits' experience and tell me if a coach with Tubby's current energy level is still the optimum choice for a program that shares a state with a Saban-coached team.

I won't argue this the right thing for Auburn, but it probably is the best thing for Auburn.

UPDATE, 6:22: From the Track'Em comment thread, a name I honestly hadn't thought about but that makes some logical sense, especially if Papa Bowden is bound-and-determined to beat out JoePa: Jimbo Fisher.

UPDATE, 7:24: I can tell already, I'm going to end up a broken record on this over the next several weeks (or months, or years), but: this was NOT a case of Auburn having "one bad year." Statistically, the 2006 team was in no way an 11-2 team and represented a substantial step down from the 2005 quality team. 2007 was another dramatic step down, this time with the losses to accompany it. And the 2008 record is not a fluke: Auburn is tied for 107th in the country in offensive yards-per-play and was a missed Miss. St. field goal and a botched Tennessee handoff from going winless in the SEC.

Again: I wish Tubby had remained in charge another year, or possibly longer. But the Season of DEATH wasn't a random slip-up. It's the culmination of a host of problems within the program that have produced a consistent three-year decline. If during these meetings with Jacobs, Tubby wasn't willing to address those problems, Auburn is better off having moved on.

All right, the "breaking developments" phase seems to have passed, so unless something huge happens, the JCCW will be back tomorrow to start breaking down the coaching search and perhaps write the Tubby eulogy if I'm feeling up to it (probably not). 'Night.

For the record ...

... regarding the rumor swirl:

1. Remember that the TV report out of Arkansas last year that Tubby had taken the Hog job had more credibility than any source that's yet reported Tubby's out today.

2. The word on the ground is that the assistants are not cleaning out their desks or generally acting fired.

3. Jacobs didn't expect a resolution until the end of the week; why would he and Tubby have suddenly accelerated that timetable?

I've sure as hell been wrong before, but the guess here is that nothing gets decided/resolved either way until late tomorrow afternoon at the earliest and probably not until later than that.

UPDATE, and not one that reflects well on the position above: K-Scar is reporting Auburn's started sending out feelers to Leach and Petrino should talks break down with Tubby (or, I suppose, if they've already broken down and all that's left is the shoutin').

Honestly, if the breakdown is a genuine possibility--and if wasn't before, I feel pretty certain in saying it is now--I don't have a huge problem with someone at Auburn trying to take the first step towards making a replacement hire. The sooner the process starts, the better, and let's make clear right now there's a big difference between some associate of the AD at Auburn giving some associate of Leach's a ring and asking if Leach would talk to us vs., well, Jetgate. But for God's sake keep it quiet and if you can't keep it quiet, don't do it at all. Tubby doesn't deserve this. Never has. Never will.

Should I comment on the two two names mentioned? My feelings on Leach you can guess by scrolling down, but I don't want a mercenary like Petrino anywhere near Auburn's football team. We're not that desperate. At least, I hope we're not.

Still hoping all this gets put behind us and Tubby gets his mulligan. Looking less likely by the hour, though. This sucks.

Sounds of silence

Hello offseason darkness my old friend ... we've come to talk with you again ...

Sounds of Silence. So not only have the meetings between Tubby and the Jays we mostly assumed to be formality produced no meaningful resolution so far, Jacobs isn't expecting them to before the end of the week.

And cue the annual offseason increase in Auburn fans' prescription anti-heartburn medication dosage ... now! I'm not even sure Jacobs said things were going "well" as Woodberry claims in the story above: a transcript from Tate and a couple of other places suggests Jacobs didn't even go that far.

So ... yeah, things are still kinda up in the air and will be for the next couple of days, it seems. But I dunno, I can't bring my teeth to gnash over it just yet, despite the many smart people who suggest I should. For two reasons, I would say:

1. We just don't know what's happening between the Jays and Tuberville. It may be them making demands of Tuberville he's balking at accepting. It may be demands from Tuberville they're balking at accepting. These are proud, intelligent men who have come to some sort of sticking point, and forgive me if I'm not surprised it takes more than a few hours of chatter for men like these to come to a compromise.

The point: there's not enough evidence out there at this stage to assume the Auburn admin is one-sidedly determining Tubby's fate and letting him twist in the wind in the meantime. There'll still be time for outrage later, so I'm waiting 'til we have a clearer picture of the facts.

2. Let's say it takes until next, say, Monday or Tuesday to get things ironed out. Is there really any lasting fall-out? Uh-oh, we know that Tubby doesn't have the unconditional support of the Auburn admin and that 2009 is a make-or-break year. Somehow, I think most people have come to that conclusion already. The delay might have hurt the efforts to keep the class of 2009 intact if it came after a bowl game, but this is till the first week of December: whatever damage is done on that front Tubby should have time to repair.

So I guess I'm alone in this, but I'd much rather Tubby and the administration take their time and come to a reasoned, clear understanding of each other rather than rush into a decision either way. When you've endured a Season of DEATH, nothing's going to come easy, this included.

I'm with Auburntron: while we're waiting, we should probably just be discussing space beer.

FWIW. The HOT RUMOR in my inbox which is a RUMOR and not fact but rather RUMOR is that Tubby is being asked by the Board to return ... but under various harsh conditions, such as the current staff getting pitched overboard with the pursestrings simultaneously tightened to the point that replacing them adequately would be a hellacious task. Or that Tubby makes Atlanta in 2009 or he gets an automatic canning. The result? Mexican standoff. Remember: this is RUMOR.

The New OC: what are we looking for?

Attention Chip Kelly: if you're really that desperate to leave Oregon, the Plains are much, much nicer this time of year than upstate New York. Trust me on that one.

Media speculation on the identity of the applicants for Auburn's vacant offensive coordinator position whose resumes currently sit on Tommy Tuberville's desk has been curiously limited. Well, not that curious, I guess--when there's speculation to be made about who's actually going to be making the hire at OC, speculating on the hire itself probably seems like putting the cart before the horse. The only name that's seemed to consistently bubble up through the Internet murk was Missouri's Dave Christensen, but that was always a pipe dream (much like the gentleman pictured above, who I pictured anyway because it's such a fun pipe dream) and I'm fairly sure the whole "taking the Wyoming head coaching position" has him ruled out for good.

That's not to say, of course, the process has been completely out of mind. A while back, the Register's Evan Woodberry wrote a column about the coming hire that, sure enough, passed on naming any potential candidates but listed a number of pieces of "advice" for Tubby as he goes about naming the next OC. While it doesn't get us any closer to knowing who Auburn's next OC will be, it's a useful piece to look at when discussing what kind of coordinator Tubby might hire.

So let's look at it. Starting a few paragraphs into it ...

In the days since Franklin's firing, Tuberville has pledged allegiance to the spread. Then he's wavered a bit and said Auburn's offense would be "multiple." Then he's watered down the definition of the spread so thoroughly that virtually any offense on any team in America could be considered the spread. Tuberville even said that Auburn was running the spread 50 percent of the time last year under Al Borges.

Tuberville is a defensive coach and he's clearly less comfortable when discussing the offensive side of the football.

A first step might be to define what we call a given offense: it might be true that Borges had the field spread most of the time in 2007, but when your base set has the quarterback under center, you're not running a "spread offense" like Leach's or Rodriguez's or Franklin's that has the QB in the shotgun almost exclusively. What I'm guessing Tubby means when he says "multiple" is what Auburn ran in 2007 or Georgia's running now: mostly I or ace stuff with the ability to spread it out when need be (or, in Georgia's case, on every snap as soon as you fall behind).

And apparently, after the career-threatening trauma of hiring Tony Franklin, the tea leaves would seem to indicate that Tubby's not going to hire someone who prefers running a straight spread offense. Trying to say "well, even when we had Al Borges, we ran the spread" is 99 percent likely to be code for "I'm hiring someone sort of like Borges and will sell him someone with experience installing a spread, amongst other things." Whether this is a good thing or not ... we'll get to that in a sec.

Some more unsolicited advice:

-- Don't hire a spread guru. Don't hire a West Coast guru. Don't hire any coach who routinely has the word "guru" appear after his name in newspaper articles. In fact, don't hire a coach with any sort of overriding ideology at all.

Auburn can't afford a dogmatic approach in 2009. First-year coaches get plenty of patience and understanding when they attempt to implement a new offense. Eleventh-year coaches don't. Tuberville needs a coordinator who can quickly assess Auburn's strengths and weaknesses and build an offense that gives Auburn the best chance of immediate success.

Well, this is good as far as it goes. I agree that whoever Tubby hires has to get immediate results, and hiring someone who has both a unique system and ideology and a difficult time teaching his methods to players and other staff members--that description remind you of anyone?--probably isn't the best choice.

At the same time, do you know why certain coaches have that "guru" designation affixed to their names? It's generally because they've been successful and are just-plain good coaches. Norm Chow's worn the "guru" label for a decade not necessarily because his offenses are revolutionary (though I believe his work way back at BYU was) but primarily because he gets results. Personally, I'd be plenty happy if Norm Chow somehow showed up on the plains. And as Paul Johnson has shown, even highly unusual offenses can work in a short timeframe if the coaching is sound enough.

The point: just because a coach has a specific type of offense or a specific skill set or reputation doesn't mean Tubby should rule him out. He just has to be able to get results.

-- If you need to throw the word "spread" around to appease recruits who have been sold that system, that's fine. But in the end, no one really cares what the offense is called as long as it works.

Um ... I'm pretty sure if Tubby hires a coordinator who operates a run-first, power-based, play-action scheme, guys like Cotton and Lutzenkirchen and maybe a few others are going to bolt no matter how successful that offense is or how Tubby and New OC refer to it. Ask Mitch Mustain and Damian Williams how they felt about Houston Nutt saying he'd run one thing and then sticking to an offense that was pretty much the opposite. If that type of coordinator has to be hired, fine, but let's keep truth in our advertising, please--and given how important this recruiting class is, why not try to find someone who can do the job and who'll keep the kiddos interested?

-- Dismiss the idea that the new offensive coordinator will be a savior, or that he will single-handedly cure all that ails Auburn on offense. Borges was almost bemused at his sudden popularity in 2004, telling reporters that it was more about the "Jimmies and Joes" than "X's and O's." Sure enough, Auburn's offense declined with the loss of three first-round picks. Imagine that! ... Players win games. The best coaches put them in a position to succeed, then get out of the way.

Um, sure. Long-term, yes, this is correct, the Jimmies and Joes are more important--thus requiring a coach who can recruit--but this doesn't change the fact that the new guy will have to be some form of offensive savior, because the Jimmies and Joes on offense look like they're going to need a lot of saving. Lowering the public expectations would be a nice gesture for the new guy, but it doesn't change the fact that at this point it's either Produce Results or Die.

-- Don't worry about hiring someone nobody's heard of. Big names are going to be skittish about this gig for obvious reasons, but that doesn't mean there aren't dozens of excellent coaches who wouldn't kill for the pay and prestige of a coordinator position in the SEC. Don't worry about making a splash. Worry about winning games.

I can almost cosign on this. Woodberry's point here, and above, that Tubby doesn't have the luxury of hiring necessarily the "best" coordinator if that coordinator is going to need time to get his system up to speed is a good one. If big-name coordinator A has a track record of needing half a season before things start clicking and smaller-name coordinator B has a track record of having his guys off-and-running from Week 1, B has to be the choice even if A might be the better long-term fit.

But again, the needs of this particular recruiting class come into play. There's a certain kind of antsiness out there already. If Tubby wants to have any legitimate shot of retaining his job past 2009, the class has to hold together. A big-name hire would probably go a certain amount of the way towards alleviating the class's (valid, at this point) concerns. All other things being equal, there is a certain value to the new hire's visibility.

That said? A diamond in the rough is fine if they're able to sell the new recruits (and to a much lesser extent, the fans) on what he's, um, selling. He does, in fact, need to make a splash of some kind. This program could sure as hell use a splash. But whether he makes it in person on in the headlines doesn't much matter.

So where does that leave us? I would say with the following criteria, ranked in order of importance:

1. Day 1 results. Whether by some kind of trademark scheme, comprehensively effectively teaching, or some combination of the two, the guy has to move the ball from the 2009 opening kickoff, or Tubby is toast.

2. Salesmanship. A guy who can convince future big-time offensive recruits to come to Auburn is essential. A guy who can convince the current offensive recruits to come to Auburn is even more essential.

3. Scheme, preferably a spread. If Auburn could find a guy who brought a unique approach along with the possibility of not taking a long time to switch Auburn over to said approach, that would be swell. And if that approach was something spread-based to appease and appeal to recruits, that would be even sweller. Also, I would like a pony.

4. Splashiness. If Tubs somehow manages to hire someone with all of the above qualities, if he has a recognizable name, well, that won't hurt.

So that's what I would say Auburn ought to be in the hunt for. Tomorrow I'll look at some of my hypothetical candidates and a few names that have been bandied about and how they match said criteria.