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Thursday, October 9, 2008

Live from Auburn (video added)

Well, I'm back where I was about 12 hours ago, in the media room of Auburn's Athletic Complex waiting for practice to finish.

We're only expecting Tommy Tuberville to speak. Players are normally off-limits on Thursdays and only occasionally do we get assistants (not too much of a stretch to say we're not going to get them today).

We do expect Tuberville to go into more detail about how the offense will be run, who will call the plays and who the starting quarterback will be.

UPDATE (11:05 a.m.): Tuberville speaks. Here's a bullet breakdown.
  • Tuberville will take a larger role in the offense and will not do anything with the offensive coordinator position until after the season.
  • Tight ends coach Steve Ensminger (pictured) will coach from the box and call plays. Hugh Nall (o-line), Eddie Gran (running backs) and Greg Knox (wide receivers) will coach from the field. Knox will coach all receivers, including tight ends.
  • "It's a good setup, not much different than what we had," Tuberville said.
  • The spread will continue. How much will Auburn use it? It's anybody's guess. The team will not go back to the huddle, Tuberville said.
  • Here's Tommy's quote on the subject: "We're not changing anything. The difference in what we were doing last year to what we ran the last few weeks is just the tempo. We want to keep all that. We think all of it's good. Obviously, what I want to do over the next few weeks after this game is go back and simplify a little bit of it, try to do as much as your players can handle."
  • The team will decide within the next 24 hours who the starting quarterback will be, Chris Todd or Kodi Burns.
  • Tuberville will start gathering names for a new offensive coordinator soon. He said members of the current staff would not be in the running for the gig.
  • Tuberville contacted next year's recruits yesterday. "Obviously, we texted and tried to make as many calls as we could last night to recruits. That went great. No problems. It's been a tough 24 hours. But again, when something like that happens you have to make contact and it's been very, very good."
UPDATE (11:53 a.m.): New video is up.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

If they're not changing anything, why did Franklin get fired?
I hope that's just more of Tubs' BS.

Scott H. said...

I don't think we have heard the "whole" truth as to why Franklin was fired. Tuberville is obviously trying to handle the situation delicately and trying not to make Tony Franklin look too bad. But I bet there were some pretty heated debates/arguments behind the scenes between Turberville and Franklin.

Turberville wanted to run a spread offense, that's why he hired Franklin. He didn't hire Franklin then get stuck with the spread. Franklin's game plans and play calls weren't producing, so he's out. I think Tuberville made tough, but correct decision. Whether or not the spread actually stays, we'll find out soon enough. But I really think Tuberville wants to run it, he just didn't like the lack of production coming from Franklin's coaching.

Andy Bitter said...

I agree that the whole story isn't out there. I will say this: Tuberville and Franklin both seem to be strong personalities. They like running things how they see fit.

My guess here is that Tuberville wanted to tweak Franklin's offense too much, Franklin wanted autonomy to run his offense and the two couldn't find a common ground.

Really, how against the spread can Tuberville be if he maintains they still plan to run it this season and in the future? This situation sounds more like a personality clash than anything.

Anonymous said...

The question is: Will Tuberville really run the spread this week. He said Auburn ran the spread 50 percent of the time last year. Did you see Auburn play? That wasn't the spread.
If that's Tuberville's idea of the spread, then yes, maybe they will run it.

Scott H. said...

Mr. Anonymous,

Turberville did not say "Auburn ran the spread 50 percent of the time last year" he said "we ran 50% of the spread last year"

I think what he means is Auburn ran a kind of half-spread offense. I don't know if that's what Auburn did last year, but I believe that's what he was trying to say.

Anonymous said...

"When the famine had SPREAD over the whole country, Joseph opened the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe throughout Egypt."
Genesis 41:56, NIV

Folks this is bigger than the spread offense. The Auburn family is in a famine and the only man with grain is Coach Tuberville. I was upset with the way an Auburn Man like Coach Franklin was let go. But Coach Tuberville and Coach Chet are doing what they can to stop the Famine from Spreading.