FanHouse TonyFranklin

Really, it's Christmas in early October when your opponent cans its offensive coordinator midweek. Frustrated Arkansas took the news in stride, piling up 400+ yards in a 25-22 victory over Auburn tonight.

At one point midway through the fourth quarter, Auburn had cobbled together just 109 yards of offense before a pair of desperation drives pushed the Tigers to a whopping 193 yards on the night. Not good.

At College Football FanHouse we're still scratching our heads over Auburn's decision to terminate spread whiz offensive coordinator Tony Franklin. With or without him the results are the same, and look particularly problematic when they may not have actually run much of his offense while he was there. To Auburn's credit, they did make use of spread-friendly quarterback Kodi Burns.

Is there a single, reasonable, well-thought-out explanation for Auburn's decision to fire Tony Franklin mid-week and mid-season?

In a word: no.

As my cohorts adequately covered yesterday, this is blatant scapegoating. The Auburn faithful are upset, and rightfully so, at the Tigers' sputtering, inept offense, but was Franklin really the problem?

It wasn't long ago that the spread was thought to be a talent equalizer. You could compete against superior talent by using "scheme" to neutralize your opponents talented players. Could Franklin have been hired to try to shore up the fact that Tuberville is falling farther and farther behind on the recruiting trail?

The problem, though, is that scapegoating Franklin right now isn't even a good idea.

It's pretty rare to see a coordinator get fired halfway through the year. It's even more rare to see a coordinator fired halfway through his first year, but it's happened today. Auburn has called an early end to the Tony Franklin experiment, cutting their offensive coordinator loose after only six games.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, of course. Franklin is one of the spread offense's most renowned gurus, and it was just a few short months ago that AU fans were bidding the price of his book into the ionosphere. Apparently, they just wanted to throw it at him.

Admittedly, if you've seen Auburn's offense this season ... oh, who am I kidding? Nobody's seen Auburn's offense this season, and that's the problem. Besides, it's not like it's completely unprecedented for Auburn to try to get rid of a coach who is still, technically, trying to finish the season.

Even given the legendary impatience of Auburn boosters (well, one in particular), this is a shocking and frankly dumbfounding move on their part. Who's pulling the strings here? Was Tommy Tuberville so convinced that Franklin was taking his team in the wrong direction that he just had to make a change now? Did Auburn's athletic director or president tell Tubby "either Franklin goes, or you do"? Should we round up the usual suspect?

Were they even running Tony Franklin's offense?

And how hard are they laughing in Tuscaloosa right now?

I suppose this is just another example of day-to-day life in America's Toughest Football Conference, but crikey. It's bad enough that coaches don't even get a full recruiting cycle to prove themselves any more. With this move today, Auburn has created a cancer which will only spread throughout the college football universe. All you hustling assistant coaches out there who dream of working your way up the ranks with a coordinator's job at a BCS school, just keep this in mind: You have six games to prove yourself. Auburn says so.

But did they even whack the right person in the first place? FanHouse's Brian Cook says "Not so fast, my friend."

It didn't take long for Tommy Tuberville to find a replacement for departed offensive coordinator Al Borges. On Wednesday night, just a day after Borges handed in his resignation, Auburn announced former Troy Trojans of Troy (they're from Troy) OC Tony Franklin will be calling plays as early as the Chik-Fil-A Bowl on New Year's Eve. The one-day turnaround is pretty quick -- unless you live in Bobby Petrino's world, in which it's an eternity. And since I couldn't get through an SEC coaching post without the obligatory Petrino reference, it's worth pointing out that Franklin is Auburn's sixth offensive coordinator since 2000, a list that includes Noel Mazzone, Petrino, Hugh Nall/Steve Emsfinger, and of course Borges.

In his first two years at Auburn, Borges had the Tigers' offense in the top two of nearly every statistical category in the SEC. Over the last two years, however, Auburn has finished in the bottom half of the conference in nearly all of those same categories. Meanwhile, Franklin's Troy team finished in the top 25 nationally in many offensive rankings this year, including total yards and scoring.

Also consider that Troy and Auburn had three common opponents in 2007: Arkansas, Florida, and Georgia (and all on the road). With considerably less talent, Troy put up more yards and more points than Auburn in each one of those games, and had a better yards/play average in all games except against Florida (and it was close -- AU averaged 4.7/play against the Gators, Troy had 4.3).