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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Franklin comes alive on Finebaum radio show

Former offensive coordinator Tony Franklin broke his silence two weeks after he was fired by Auburn, speaking with his lawyer present on Paul Finebaum's radio show Wednesday.

You can hear the very interesting four-part interview by clicking here.

Some interesting stuff on there. Basically, it sounds like it came down to Franklin not meshing with the offensive staff he inherited.

"When you look at the history of that place and you look at what’s happened there, you realize that coordinators come in and coordinators leave; those guys stay," Franklin said.

Franklin summed up the overall experience like this: "In the beginning when I got there, people -- coaches, players -- wanted to buy in because they didn’t have a choice. And I think the same thing as what happens in life, is that everything is usually fine until you hit rough waters. Then when you hit rough waters, you’re going to find out there are some people on board and some people that are not on board."

But Franklin stopped short of explicity blaming anyone but himself and head coach Tommy Tuberville.

"I believe that there were two people wrong in this, and that’s Tony Franklin, No. 1, and Tommy Tuberville," he said. "I think that those assistant coaches tried to make it work. They worked hard. They tried to do a good job. It just didn’t work, for whatever reason."

Some other highlights:

  • Franklin wrapped up his contract situation with Auburn. There is no confidentiality clause.

  • Franklin was not surprised by his firing. In fact, he sensed a week into the job that things might not work out. The first tip-off was when Tuberville didn't allow him to bring any of his offensive staff with him. He said he and Tuberville never really had a relationship, and that the head coach was a CEO-type overseer, mostly hands-off until game day.

  • After the Vanderbilt game, Franklin felt things slipping away. He made a desperate attempt to right the ship, giving what he termed "his best George Patton speech" and going out that Tuesday and coaching "the way I did as a kid," running routes, grabbing people, getting in their faces. "I felt like I had to take a gamble and take a chance," he said.

  • Tuberville was completely supportive after practice, saying he was tired of people blaming Franklin. The next morning, Tuberville walked into Franklin's office and fired him.

  • Franklin denied any altercation, saying the hole in his head was from when he was 23 and had cancer that required surgery to cut out a portion of his skull. "I’m 51," he said. "I can’t altercate anybody. I’m fat. I’m out of shape. I never was a fighter."

  • Franklin said he might write another book and will try to buy back into his football consulting business, which he was forced to sell when he took a job as an SEC assistant coach.
Again, I encourge you to listen to the whole thing. It's really fascinating.

1 comment:

Scott H. said...

Well, I listened to the entire interview. Tony Franklind sounds like a classy guy, and if he is telling the 100% truth, I feel kinda sorry for him. But I still think he and Turberville are holding back on what "really" went down on the plains.

But, Paul Finebaum is not exactly a "fair" journalist when it comes to Auburn. The guy wears Nick Saban Pajamas and has a Tommy Turberville dartboard in his office. This was evidenced by some of his comments and the way he was trying to lead Franklin into saying something bad about Turberville, which Franklin resisted for the most part.

Overall an interesting interview, despite Finebaum's best efforts to get Frankling to diss Auburn and Turberville.