End-of-year coaching report: Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville

By Robert Rousseau  |   Monday, December 01, 2008  |  Comments( 1 )

Auburn Tigers
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During the 2008 college football season, the Auburn Tigers posted a dismal 5-7 record. Worse, they were 2-6 in the SEC. In other words, this was a terrible year for a rather talented club, and the blame for such a thing must always fall on the head football coach first.

That coach is Tommy Tuberville.

"I'm committed to getting this thing turned around. I have total confidence we can get this thing turned around," Tuberville said after falling 36-0 Saturday in the Iron Bowl to Alabama.

Tuberville's done enough during his Auburn career that he should -- though only powers like university president Jay Gouge know if he will -- keep his job long enough to prove that assertion correct. Still, this was Tuberville’s worst season at the helm.

If we’re being honest, it was a failing season.

Let's touch on the positives first.

Tuberville managed to hire an excellent defensive coordinator in Paul Rhoads to take over for Will Muschamp, who departed for Texas in the offseason. The defense wasn’t as good this season from a statistical standpoint. Then again, the offense didn’t help the 'D' out any. For the most part, the defense was effective. Again, credit Tuberville for hiring Rhoads. Next, despite a difficult beginning to the season, Tuberville kept the team up enough to have it in most of its games by the end of the campaign, despite a losing record. A lot of squads would have fallen completely apart.

Now for the negatives. . .

First, there was the offensive debacle. The bottom line is that Tuberville decided to hire Tony Franklin as his offensive coordinator. Unfortunately, the team didn’t score many points while he was there. As a result, Tuberville fired him. Some have indicated that it was going so wrong with Franklin that Tuberville was afraid that he was going to lose his players and other coaches if he didn’t. Of course, it can also be looked at from a different angle -- that Franklin never truly got the chance to bring his style of offense to the club because he was asked to run it with other coaches surrounding him who were not familiar with and perhaps didn’t believe in it. Either way, the offense didn’t get much better once Franklin was fired, and all of these offensive changes rest firmly on Tuberville’s shoulders.

Next, the team lost several games in which it had late leads. The bottom line is that the reason for this has a lot to do with the offense again, as other teams were able to score when they weren’t even able to hold on to the ball. Still, keeping a lead is something that a team should be able to do.

Then there was the Iron Bowl. Entering Saturday, the Tigers had won six straight over Alabama. That came crashing down in ugly fashion during a 36-0 rout. One of the main positive arguments for Tuberville has been his dominance in this rivalry game. Keep in mind, of course, that his teams have still been dominant in the Iron Bowl. But a team as talented as the Tigers losing in this game so convincingly is not good.

Finally, there was the closing record of 5-7. Auburn had enough talent on defense, the offensive line and in the offensive backfield to win more games than that. When a team doesn’t measure up to its talent, people will begin to point to the coaches involved.

In the end, being a head coach is often unfair. After all, everything that happens with a club -- both the good and bad -- tends to fall squarely on your shoulders. Still, most of Auburn’s problems this season were offensive in nature, and Tuberville is the one who hired and then fired Tony Franklin. In other words, he’s as directly related to those problems as one can be. Granted, he’s been an outstanding coach during his Auburn tenure; therefore, when he says that he can turn things around, those in the know should believe in Tuberville enough to give him that chance. After all, the Tigers recorded a 9-4 record last season and an 11-2 record the campaign before under him.

But that doesn’t make this year any easier for the Auburn faithful to stomach right now.
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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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