Tuberville: ‘I plan on being here’—Part 2

Tommy Tuberville has a contract that says he will be the head football coach at Auburn until 2013. That’s why, among all the speculation that he may or not be kept along for 2009 and beyond, Tuberville says he is living and acting as if nothing will be any different.

“I plan on being here,“ Tuberville said. “I think it’s an opportunity that coaches look to in terms of knowing that you can get the job done. We’ve done it here eight out of 10 years, having better than average football seasons, and we’re going to continue to have that.“

As he did after Saturday’s 36-0 Iron Bowl drubbing in Tuscaloosa, Tuberville stumped to be back with the Tigers next year and said the team is a few pieces and playmakers away from returning as an elite tackle football team.

“There’s no doubt that we can get this thing turned back around,“ Tuberville said. “I didn’t turn into a bad coach overnight. I know this program better than anybody. I know what it takes. I know the type of people that you can get to come in. I know their strengths, I know their weaknesses and I’m fully committed to doing it.“

Tuberville had no news to share on when he plans to meet with athletic director Jay Jacobs and President Dr. Jay Gogue. It won’t be in the coming days, as Tuberville will be out ‘cruitin, but Tuberville said it likely could be sooner than later “because of the publicity and all that.“

While he is on the recruiting trail this week, Tuberville said he will target specific players who may be wavering because of his up-in-the-air status.

“I want to hit those guys first,“ Tuberville said. “There’s probably four or five of those, but we won’t bring up any names.“

A column that ran in Sunday’s Birmingham News said that Tuberville has already received word that he will return for next season.

“I have no clue about where that came from,“ Tuberville said.

Asked if it were true, Tuberville remained ambiguous.

“No,“ he said. “I have no clue where that came from.“

In other news:

Tuberville spent a good amount of time talking about Auburn’s offensive coordinator vacancy and the fallout that could occur once a new face is brought into the mix.

Saturday night, Tuberville said on his postgame radio show that he would be open to the new coordinator bringing in his own set of assistants. He elaborated Sunday.

What I want to do is I want an offensive coordinator to give him the freedom to bring in somebody is he has someone in mind. He’ll probably want to visit with the ones here on the staff, which I would allow him to do.

We’ve got to have an offensive coordinator that feels confident with what he’s doing. If he’s got anybody that he thinks can help him put his program in, maybe that he worked with in the past. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve not been around too many coordinators that had people that they wanted to bring, but obviously, we’ve got to do something on offense and we’re going to. We’re going to get the problem solved. We’re going to get some consistency.

I talked with all of our coaches last night. They understand the situation. They understand this program and what we got to do. I think all of them have done a good job but we’ve got to make sure we get the program going in the right direction in terms of offense.

Tuberville said he wants to whittle down his list to four or five “experienced” candidates, which is close to coming to fruition, he said. Once that happens, Tuberville said he will interview each candidate with an open mind before determining his front-runner.

“We’re going to get the best coach out there that wants to come and be part of this program that can get us an offense that’s consistent,“ Tuberville said. “We haven’t had a very consistent offense in a long time and we’ve had some offensive coordinators come and go. And they’ve left for different reasons. This time we’re going to get somebody that understands this program, No. 1. You have to understand your situation and what type of offense you can run with the type of players that you can get.“

***Tuberville said that he and defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads will discuss Rhoads’ alleged link to the head coaching search at Utah State in the next week or so.

“That’ll be up to him,“ Tuberville said. “He really likes it here. He’d have to decide whether he’d want to go to that situation.

“If they want head coaching jobs, I think that’s outstanding. I think that’s the reason we all get into this.“

***Wide receiver Chris Slaughter did not travel with the team for Saturday’s Iron Bowl because an illness in his family prevented him from practicing the entire week, Tuberville said.

***Offensive tackle Lee Ziemba will be the first of several Auburn players to undergo surgery this week, Tuberville said. Ziemba will have the procedure performed Tuesday on his left knee, which has bothered him all season, Tuberville said.

“He’s fought through it and a lot of us would never have done that,“ Tuberville said. “He’s a tough young man that wanted to play and wanted to go through the season. He has struggled – we all know that – mentally and physically. A lot of people were wondering about him having offside problems. It’s probably pretty tough. We don’t know what you go through in an injury like that in terms of pain in going through a game and putting pressure on that. He’s a tough young man. I think overall, considering the knee, I thought he had a very good sophomore year.“

   

Auburn looking ahead after 36-0 Iron Bowl flop

Auburn lost the Iron Bowl 36-0. If I’m the first one to let you know that, well, you may not exactly be an Auburn fan.

Because I need to get back to Auburn before the wee, wee hours, here are a few snippets from what we’ve got going in tomorrow’s big Sunday paper.

TUSCALOOSA—Deep-six The Streak. No. 1 Alabama is wagging the most powerful finger in the state now.

The expected result came in an unexpected way, as the Tigers fell disastrously flat Saturday in a 36-0 Iron Bowl blanking to the Crimson Tide at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Tommy Tuberville’s six-game Iron Bowl winning streak, along with Auburn’s season, is over. The Tigers won’t be participating in a post-season bowl game for the first time since 1999 – Tuberville’s first season with the program.

“All good streaks have to come to an end,” Tuberville said. “And it came to a screeching halt tonight.”

And here’s the analysis angle:

TUSCALOOSA—Week by week since Tony Franklin’s dismissal, the talk about Auburn’s offense, specifically quarterback Kodi Burns, was optimistic. Improvement, coaches said, was being made every game.

Day by day since Auburn’s surprising loss at Vanderbilt, the Tigers defense has talked about getting healthy. Just wait, players said, when the whole unit is back to full strength.

After Saturday’s 36-0 Iron Bowl blanking to No. 1 Alabama, Auburn will have more than nine months to think about what could have been of a season that started with a No. 10 ranking and a projected spot in the SEC Conference game.

More importantly, though, the focus will steer toward how it can prevent 2008 from ever happening again.

“In this conference and in college football, you’re going to have up and down years,” said coach Tommy Tuberville, who lost just his third Iron Bowl and first since 2001, snapping a six-game streak. “I have total confidence that I can get this thing turned around.

“It was my fault that we got it this way in terms of our offense.”

And then what everyone is talking about. Tommy Tuberville said he’s committed to Auburn. But is Auburn committed to him? We’ll find out soon enough.

TUSCALOOSA—Tommy Tuberville said he’s young enough, plenty motivated and a few moves here and there from putting Auburn back among the elite teams in college football.

He’ll just have to wait a couple more days to see if he’ll have a chance to turn around a team whose 2008 struggles were totally his fault, Tuberville said.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge,” Tuberville said.

Tuberville’s future at Auburn will likely become clearer in the coming weeks. Tuberville will meet with athletic director Jay Jacobs and Dr. Jay Gogue sometime in the near future, but no sooner than Tuesday, as Tuberville said he will be out recruiting.

Jacobs has said that he will take Tuberville’s entire body of work into consideration when evaluating the 10-year coach. Gogue has said he will take a recommendation from Jacobs before ultimately making his decision.

Neither has said Tuberville will return for 2009, but neither has given any indication that he will not.

Tuberville remained ambiguous when asked if a positive endorsement would ease his mind and, perhaps, the minds of potential recruits.

“I’m sure they’ll evaluate that,” Tuberville said.

Tuberville’s 5-7, 2008 season was his worst at Auburn since 1999 – his first year with the program. He is 85-40 all-time with the Tigers and has led the team to eight bowl games in 10 years, including an undefeated 2004 season where Auburn was left out of the National Championship game.

Before this season, Tuberville signed a two-year contract extension, which included a $200,000 annual raise. The extension elongated his contract through 2013 and included a buyout that currently stands at $6 million. It will drop to $5 million in 2009 and $4 million after that if Tuberville leaves for another job or is fired.

Several players, current and now former, endorsed Tuberville after Saturday’s 36-0 Iron Bowl loss to Alabama.

“I don’t know where it comes from,” senior center Jason Bosley said. “I mean, when you’re in adversity, the cream of the crop rises to the top and so do the turds. That’s just the way it is.

“People start pointing fingers real quick and it’s easy to point fingers at the head coach, but it shouldn’t even be a topic of discussion right now.”

Tuberville acknowledged the discussion by making his pitch toward how he can help the Tigers in the years ahead, while taking complete blame for this year’s tumult.

“We’ve just got to get back to being consistent in what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, get a face to what we are,” Tuberville said. “Again, we just never could put a finger on what we really wanted to do and how to do it.”

Auburn’s identity crisis centered on the failed Tony Franklin experiment, which was completely Tuberville’s fault, Tuberville said.

With the hiring of a new offensive coordinator, which Tuberville expects to bring in by early January, Auburn can quickly regain its prominent standing in the SEC, Tuberville said.

“We’ve got to get back to realize who we are and what we want to be,” Tuberville said. “When you do that, then you’ve got an opportunity to go forward and have a lot more consistency.”

Tuberville also, without prompting, acknowledged the speculation that his longtime assistant coaches, particularly on the offensive side, played a major factor in Auburn’s sub-.500 season.

“I put them in a bind,” Tuberville said. “I’m the one that put their back to the wall. I thought the offensive staff did a heck of a job of overnight coming up with something to even give ourselves a chance.”

Tuberville said he will evaluate his entire staff in the upcoming months, but is in no rush to do so because Auburn’s 2008 season has come to a close.

You thought there’d be a Gundy joke here, didn’t you?

The defender of children and his merry band of surprisingly good Oklahoma State Cowboys will host the best team in the country for my money, the Oklahoma Sooners, tonight.

On paper, even with how good Oklahoma State is (and rest assured, they are pretty good) Oklahoma should win this game by 14-24 points.

But, things could get a bit weird in Stillwater, and I’m not talking about T. Boone Pickens.

Here are a few things we know:

* Earlier this decade Oklahoma twice blew national title chances with embarrassing losses to Oklahoma State (when blog favorite Les Miles was coaching the Cowboys, no less). In 2001 OSU was pretty terrible, but managed a 3-point win in Norman over an Oklahoma team that kind of underachieved all year. In 2002 the Cowboys absolutely smoked the Sooners, jumping out to a 35-6 lead and holding on for a 38-28 win.

* Bob Stoops’ teams are prone to meltdowns such as that one, from last year’s loss to Texas Tech to the season-opening loss to TCU in 2005, it happens occasionally.

* The Sooners just played a super-emotional game and looked horrifyingly good in beating Texas Tech last week, so this could be letdown city, even if it is Bedlam.

* The Cowboys have basically just been licking their chops since getting embarrassed by Texas Tech earlier this month.

So all the ingredients for a classic Stoops meltdown are there.

Will it happen? We’ll see.

I think this Oklahoma team is too good, hence why I picked them to win (also because I don’t have the guts to pick them to lose - something Editorial Page Editor Joe McAdory agreed with me on).

But this should be another fun one. Possibly the best game of the day.

In which the writer talks about the Iron Bowl

There have been many types of Iron Bowls over the years.

Battles in which both teams were in the national title hunt, games when both were kinda lousy, games when both were average, games when one was good and one was bad.

This is, obviously, one of the latter.

In terms of breaking down the game, there’s really not much to say.

Looking at the game from a realistic, football standpoint, there is no reason Auburn should win this game, or even really keep it close. Alabama is better at virtually every position and is playing better football.

It is also, of course, a rivalry game. So you can also throw logic out the window sometimes.

Auburn can win this game, but they have to play perfect football and force Alabama into a lot of mistakes. Two things that neither team has done thus far this season.

And I’d say there’s a better than decent chance that Nick Saban will have the Tide coming out like rabid dogs the way they did against Georgia. And if Bama gets ahead by more than a touchdown at any point Auburn doesn’t stand a chance.

Looking at this rationally, I just can’t see Auburn managing much offense at all against the Tide. The only way I see them getting more than 10 points is with a Tristan Davis or Robert Dunn return touchdown or a defensive touchdown.

But I think Bama does its usual, workmanlike performance, gets a lead and hands it over to the defense to get the win, hence the 27-10 pick earlier this week in my weekly picks.

All in all it should be a fun one, back with some thoughts once it’s over. Enjoy.

It’s misty

Usually, before an Auburn tackle football game, I lay out a bunch of random notes and tidbits you may not exactly be aware of.

Well, I don’t have any left. Two weeks of buildup have drained me of any useful information.

The drive into Tuscaloosa was surprisingly swift. The backroads are key when traveling between the two biggest colleges in the Yellowhammer State.

When you get to T-Town, however, it can get a bit tricky. Just ask your Auburn Tigers, who were late showing up to the Tiger Walk. I’m pretty confident I logged 45 miles driving around campus looking for my assigned parking deck. But the OA-News has made it safe and sound and are ready to fill that newspaper and the Internetz full of Iron Bowl coverage. Check out dothaneagle.com also. They’ll provide the Alabama spin.

Oh, and just when you thought the buildup to this game couldn’t last any longer, CBS has just pushed kickoff back 15 minutes. Go figure.