From the "Totally Freaking Obvious" department: Florida Gators coach Urban Meyer, who has won two national championships in the past three seasons, told golfers at a Gainesville benefit tournament, "I'm not going to Notre Dame. Ever. I'm going to be the coach at Florida for a long time, as long as they want me."
In other news, gravity remains in effect and forks are still useful.
In all honesty, this story shouldn't be viewed as one of sadness, anger, bitterness, or back-stabbing.
Instead, it should serve as a cautionary tale. After all, the pressures and rigors involved with big-time college football aren't for anyone. As offensive coordinator Tony Franklin learned last year at Auburn, it certainly isn't for him.
Someone please hire him already, we're pretty sure he'd stoop to being a coordinator at any BCS conference stop. Studio work for say, ESPN or Fox Sports isn't a bad fallback but the pool's a little crowded this offseason with talkative aw shucks coaches Tommy Tuberville and Tommy Bowden also recently canned.
For Iowa State, their next football coach was obvious. All they needed to do was send a dump truck full of money to Turner Gill's office in Buffalo and the former Nebraska quarterback would be Iowa-bound. It didn't work out that way, though, as Gill signed a contract extension with Buffalo on Tuesday.
That makes ISU athletic director Jamie Pollard's job about 30% harder, which means it's now Impossible + 30%. You can tell the stress is getting to him. He hasn't yet started calling Gene Chizik "a great big lying poopy-pants" but it sure seems like he wants to. And now he the obvious guy is off the market.
Of course, if Pollard's got a sense of humor at all, he's already been in contact with Tommy Tuberville's agent. Tubs might not like Ames winters, but he's known to have a mean streak. What better way to get back at Auburn than to take Gene Chizik's players and put up a better record than the Golden Boy? All he has to do is win four games to exceed Chizik's best season.
While that would be triple-distilled awesome, I don't expect it to happen. But where will Iowa State find its next coach?
Football -- and athletics in general -- is a cutthroat business, particularly for coaches. Take Phil Fulmer and Tommy Tuberville, for instance, who both proved, with recent resignations from high quality SEC teams, that resting on your laurels for even a few years can land you in the unemployment line.
Nick Saban, head coach of No. 1 Alabama, is probably a good ways from worrying about job security. But that's not stopping him from being a little upset about the nature of his colleague's departure.
We [Al.com] just got done talking with Alabama coach Nick Saban, some about the Florida game, but most about the fact that Tommy Tuberville is out at Auburn. And seriously, he was shaken. He was frustrated for his profession and maybe a little angry.
"I really question some of the judgment," Saban said, "relative to how it is for our game that people who have those kind of relationships and have done that kind of job and affected so many people in a positive way -- and have had a reasonable amount of success relative to their circumstances -- would not be given more respect and consideration than what these guys have been. So I guess we're 5-7 away from the same thing."
REALLY. REALLY? Nick Saban, the guy who left the Miami Dolphins in the lurch in order to come back and coach against a huge conference rival for the team that made him the big name that he is ... this guy is concerned that people are a little too quick with the trigger on getting rid of coaches?
Tuberville had it coming. Okay, okay, that might be overstating the issue a little bit. Like so many other situations, however, the surface-level analysis isn't quite as convincing when you take a closer look at it.
To be certain, there is going to be absolutely no shortage of commentary in the coming days excoriating Auburn for firing a guy for one bad season. In fact, that's alreadystarted.
The problem, of course, is that when considering how to proceed, an athletic department is looking at the future. Past accomplishments are only relevant in as much as they are indicative of future success, and there's certainly an argument to be made that Tommy Tuberville's future at Auburn was not all that bright.
Nothing definitive on this yet, but Tommy Tuberville has met with the men in charge of the Auburn athletic department and it sounds like he will return in 2009:
"President Gogue, Jay Jacobs and Coach Tuberville did meet Monday to have their annual end of the season meeting. Further conversations between Jay Jacobs and Coach Tuberville will take place in the following days to discuss Coach Tuberville's plan to make improvements for the programmoving forward under his leadership."
That seems to mean "Tubby will be back but his offensive assistants should get in touch with a real estate agent." Most of the speculation around the Auburn job has focused on the need to boot the Tubs friends/cronies (depending on your point of view) on the offensive side of the ball and bring in someone with full reign to install his offense.
A quick survey of the Auburn blogs indicates they're sort of supportive of giving Tubby 2009 but mostly ambivalent. He's #1 on the hot seat going into next year unless Notre Dame holds on to Charlie Weis
Last year, when Auburn's freshman right tackle, Lee Ziemba, chop-blocked LSU standout Glenn Dorsey, many an excuse was made. Many of them sounded plausible. Tommy Tuberville admitted that the block was illegal and said that he didn't tolerate those sorts of things. Of course, as noted here, he "didn't tolerate" it by doing absolutely nothing to Ziemba.
It seems that Ziemba the team learned a valuable lesson: that dirty blocks are fine by Tuberville. Last night, after the Tide had the game well in hand, Ziemba an as yet unidentified lineman decided to take out a little of his frustration on an Alabama defensive lineman -- by diving at his knee . . . from behind.
Tommy Tuberville will be firmly on the hot seat going into 2009 -- if he even makes it that far -- after a season in which one of the finer moments is a 3-2 win over Mississippi State. This is taken for granted. But what are the chances Tuberville turns it around? As recently as last year the Tigers were winning a fairly prestigious bowl once named after a fruit. Surely Auburn will bounce back?
Eh... not so much, actually. The Joe Cribbs Car Washbrings forth a stat that will be harrowing to Auburn fans: yards per play differential. To calculate, just take your averaged yards gained for every snap on offense and subtract yards allowed. And then, if you like Auburn, cover your eyes:
That is five years of steady decline, and this offseason the Tigers will be searching for a new offensive coordinator. Again. Who will install a new system. Again.
Even if Tubby gets another year, the writing is on the wall here.
Yesterday, Phil Fulmer became the third BCS conference coach to lose his job during the middle of this season. That leaves the hottest seat in the country the one directly below Tommy Tuberville's rear end. The question the Auburn trustees certainly must be asking themselves is this: are they going to be at a competitive disadvantage if they wait until the end of the year to fire Tuberville?
The answer is a resounding "yes".
Of course, it's not a guarantee that Coach Tuberville will find himself looking for work come December, but if he is, Auburn will find themselves more than a month behind in their coaching search, and with some heavy competition.
From the "Totally Freaking Obvious" department: Florida Gators coach Urban Meyer, who has won two national championships in the past three seasons, told golfers at a Gainesville benefit tournament, "I'm not going to Notre Dame. Ever. I'm going to be the coach at Florida for a long time, as long as they want me."
In all honesty, this story shouldn't be viewed as one of sadness, anger, bitterness, or back-stabbing.
Former (fired) Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer has been bestowed a high honor after his Rocky Top departure -- he'll be Grand Marshal of Columbia, Tennessee's Mule Day the first week of April. You read that right. Can an honor be depressing? Because this one sort of feels depressing. Taking a look at the flickr gallery of this event is not encouraging.
For Iowa State, their next football coach was obvious. All they needed to do was send a dump truck full of money to Turner Gill's office in Buffalo and the former Nebraska quarterback would be Iowa-bound. It didn't work out that way, though, as Gill signed a contract extension with Buffalo on Tuesday.
Football -- and athletics in general -- is a cutthroat business, particularly for coaches. Take Phil Fulmer and Tommy Tuberville, for instance, who both proved, with recent resignations from high quality SEC teams, that resting on your laurels for even a few years can land you in the unemployment line.
Tuberville had it coming. Okay, okay, that might be overstating the issue a little bit. Like so many other situations, however, the surface-level analysis isn't quite as convincing when you take a closer look at it.
At right: happier days.
Tommy Tuberville will be firmly on the hot seat going into 2009 -- if he even makes it that far -- after a season in which one of the finer moments is a 3-2 win over Mississippi State. This is taken for granted. But what are the chances Tuberville turns it around? As recently as last year the Tigers were winning a fairly prestigious bowl once named after a fruit. Surely Auburn will bounce back?
Yesterday, Phil Fulmer became the third BCS conference coach to lose his job during the middle of this season. That leaves the hottest seat in the country the one directly below Tommy Tuberville's rear end. The question the Auburn trustees certainly must be asking themselves is this: are they going to be at a competitive disadvantage if they wait until the end of the year to fire Tuberville?
