Beginning of the End
By Tony Breland
Well, that didn’t take long. After years of smirking for the cameras, holding up fingers and taking advantage of the playing field, a single Signing Day began the slow fade into oblivion for Tommy Tuberville.
No, Auburn isn’t about to fold up the tents, and stop fielding a football team. They may even beat Alabama next November. But this recruiting class finally begins to answer the skeptics who wonder whether Saban is earning his salary. Now, some Auburn fans have to be wondering: Exactly what are we paying Tubberville for?
Tuberville has always fancied himself the CEO of Auburn football; the guy who sold snake oil to the media, nicknamed the stadium The Jungle (at least for that one season), and once in a while, called a fake punt. Coaching the team? Hell, that’s the assistants’ job. He was the Riverboat Gambler, after all. Click clack.
Auburn fans understandably eat that up when you’ve won six Iron Bowls in a row, not to mention the People’s national championship. But what happens when the bar is raised by your rival? Are Tigers fans going to be satisfied with smirks and excuses when, frankly, you’ve had your ass handed to you by a coach that just plain outworks you?
Tuberville has always had a shaky relationship with Auburn fans. He was a 7-4 coach for several years, then was handed the state on a silver platter when Alabama was placed on double-secret probation. With Alabama football on the ropes, Tuberville had his pick of top recruits, and made beating the Tide a regular event, correctly discerning that Auburn fans consider their Iron Bowl their only championship game.
All that goodwill was lost, however, when the Tigers tanked in the 2004 season. The fans called for his head, and the AU administration tried to oblige. We all know how that turned out.
Auburn fans did rally around their embattled head coach, allowing him to negotiate what was basically a lifetime contract. Tuberville’s giant buyout clause has made him un-fireable by the school, and he’s just not considered worth paying for by any other schools. If he were, he’d be at Texas A&M right now.
So while Tubby is set for life, are his fans just as fat and happy? Or will the smirking and snarky attitude still be as cool after getting shut out of the state in recruiting for a couple of years? Or will Tiger fans see Nick Saban, the hated rival coach, working 20-hour days, and reaping the rewards, and compare that to their own coach, shrugging off a lousy recruiting class with platitudes about signing ‘character players’?
Make no mistake; Tuberville is a very smart man. He’s excellent at marketing himself, and wants to solidify his place in Auburn lore. Presiding over the decline of Auburn football is not something he’s prepared to do.
Feel free to flame me later, but I’m going on record. Tuberville cobbles together a good record this year, and squeaks out a very close victory against Alabama, then announces his retirement. He exits as Auburn’s greatest coach, and avoids taking an annual beatdown from a coach that is less interested in winning the PR battle than the game on the field.