Auburn’s Franklin willing to take his lumps

By Robert Rousseau  |   Wednesday, October 01, 2008  |  Comments( 3 )

Auburn Tigers
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These days, you have to wonder if our society's ability and willingness to teach responsibility is lacking. This is just as true in sports as anywhere else. There have been so many cases of coaches, players and sports officials not taking the blame for their mistakes or transgressions that it’s not even worth it to include a list -- we’d forget far too much. That’s why it’s nice when someone steps up and says that a problem is his fault.

Such is the case when it comes to Auburn offensive coordinator Tony Franklin. Auburn’s new spread offense has looked terrible this year, and Franklin knows whom to blame.

“Honestly, I just don’t think I’ve done a very good job of coaching it,” Franklin said on Sunday. “I mean, hell, it’s pretty obvious that these guys don’t look well-coached. And that’s me. . . The finger’s pointing at me and it deserves to be. I’ve done a crappy job coaching football.”

Of course, the fact that Auburn is currently ranked 90th out of a possible 119 teams in total offense and 97th in passing can’t solely be blamed on Franklin. Linemen have to block, receivers have to get open and quarterbacks need to deliver the ball. Then there’s the running game.

Still, it’s rather reassuring to see a coach take the blame as he has for a poor team effort. In fact, if admitting the problem is a part of the cure, then Franklin has already taken a step in the right direction.

“There’s the Tony Franklin offense that I’ve run most of my adult life . . . but this is definitely not that,” he said. “It’s not the Tony Franklin offense; it’s the Auburn offense. . . It’s these players’ offense and it’s my job to find out what they can do.”

When the question of what Franklin needs to do better gets brought up, however, the answer is difficult to come by. Did he do enough with the club to get it ready in the preseason? Doesn’t matter now, though it is known that Franklin’s previous initial efforts with Troy didn’t bear much fruit until the second half of his first season there. So, the issue could still have a lot to do with time, something that simply can’t be rushed. But when he talks about the Auburn offense and the Tony Franklin offense, one begins to think about the players he has versus those he plays against. SEC players are very athletic, much more so than the majority of those that Troy went up against. Does Franklin need more athletic players out on the football field?

Does he need Kodi Burns?

This week will no doubt go a long way toward answering that question. The fact is that if you’re going to have a spread offense, you need to pass the ball well. Right now the team isn’t doing that.

But at least Auburn doesn’t have a lot of finger-pointing going on. When the leadership points squarely at himself, it’s hard for players to go pointing elsewhere.
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About Robert Rousseau

Robert Rousseau is a sports writer that has been published in a variety of print and online venues. He’s been writing for RealFootball365.com for almost three years now. When Rousseau isn’t writing about college football he tends to be penning mixed martial arts pieces for MMAFighting.com or...
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