Talk of Tuberville
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
By Darren Epps
Staff Writer
AUBURN, Ala. -- He continually plays with the grass during practice, a habit that congenial defensive star Quentin Groves still doesn't understand.
Some players say he's more CEO than coach, an administrative leader of the Auburn football team. Others say he's outgoing and witty. The younger players don't talk to him much at all.
The name Thomas Hawley Tuberville will invoke varying opinions on this cozy campus, particularly this week as rumors surface about Texas A&M attempting to buy out coach Dennis Franchione's contract. Tuberville, a former Texas A&M defensive coordinator, is expected to become the top candidate.
"I've got friends out there, obviously," Tuberville said Tuesday. "They've probably got 15 other people on the list. That's the way it is. It's good talk. That's all it is."
The talk never slows at Auburn, it seems, concerning Tuberville's job status. In 2003, then-university president William Walker and then-athletic director David Housel famously held a clandestine meeting with then-Louisville coach Bobby Petrino two days before the Iron Bowl.
Tuberville, embroiled in a disappointing season and enduring rumors of his firing despite three shared SEC West titles, suddenly earned compassion from the Auburn faithful. Walker and Housel were gone. Tuberville stayed. And Auburn went 13-0 the following year.
"Around here, people don't too much badmouth him," Groves said. "Ever since the Louisville deal, you've got to watch what you say about him. It might cost you. Literally."
Despite a 33-5 record from 2004 to '06, the criticism of Tuberville resurfaced following Auburn's 1-2 start this year. Message boards erupted. Fans booed at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Maybe another plane would take off and, this time, bring back someone who could beat South Florida and Mississippi State. And possibly bring a better quarterback along for the ride.
"After we started off 1-2," Tuberville said, "I thought I was going to have to be taking a job at the end of the year one way or the other."
Just another day in the volatile life of an Auburn head coach. Tuberville's 40-8 record over the last four years is fifth-best among Football Bowl Subdivision teams. He's beaten hated Alabama five straight times.
But some of the Tigers get the feeling that, unless another program such as LSU or the Dallas Cowboys or Texas A&M start showing interest, Auburn's fans don't seem to appreciate the 53-year-old coach from Camden, Ark.
"I don't think they do," Groves said. "To win as many games as he's won at Auburn, to take a program from what it was to what it is now, his name needs to ring a lot more than it does. It doesn't need to ring when rumors come around."
They're starting now only because Tuberville corrected a 1-2 start and, once again, assumed his role as a coach notorious for beating quality opponents on the road. Auburn is ranked 18th heading into Saturday's showdown at No. 10 Georgia.
Following the USF loss, Tuberville showed clips of productive plays, then made his team watch another round of video tape displaying poor plays. He noted the selfishness.
And after a turnover-plagued loss to Mississippi State, the Tigers essentially started preseason camp again to regain the power football mentality that turned them into a mainstay in the SEC West race.
"We got back to what made us good in the first place," said tight end Cole Bennett, a graduate of Dalton High School. "Coach Tuberville is a very even-keeled, level-headed guy. He wasn't going to get too excited or get too down. We didn't have time to sulk on it like, 'Oh man, what ... happened?' We just had to get going. He really pressed that idea on us and off we went."
The Tigers toppled defending national champion Florida in Gainesville, slammed Vanderbilt and won at Arkansas before losing on a last-second touchdown pass at LSU.
Now, on a faux-Tommy Tuberville MySpace page, fans are imploring him to stay. Of course, the tone will likely change if Auburn loses to Georgia and Alabama to end the regular season.
"It's a high-pressure job. You lose to Alabama more than twice, then you're on the hot seat," Bennett said. "I don't think there's any job like it in the country. He deals with a lot of pressure that a lot of places don't have to deal with. The fans are very demanding. We have a lot of tradition here. There's a lot of things fans expect out of the program and players.
"He doesn't have quite the wiggle room other coaches have."
The Tigers say, in typical fashion, Tuberville has not addressed the Texas A&M rumors. Hiring him would be expensive. It would cost $6 million to buy him out of the seven-year, $18 million deal he signed after Auburn finished 13-0 in 2004. Tuberville is making $2.6 million this season.
Tuberville said he'll meet with athletic director Jay Jacobs following the season -- not during the off week that follows the Georgia game -- concerning his contract. Until then, players will continue to claim they aren't distracted by the rumors.
"I was like, 'For real?' " said defensive end Antonio Coleman, mimicking his reaction when he saw the Texas A&M rumors on TV. "But I'm not really focused on that. I don't think he's focused on that. We're really focused on these last two games. I'm not too much worried about that. If it happens, it happens. It's a business decision for him."
One that, as usual, triggers a line of questions concerning Tuberville. Is he using A&M as leverage? Will he leave to spite powerful booster Bobby Lowder, who was on that plane with Walker and Housel?
Does he already know he's staying?
"Every year, for some reason, my name gets thrown in for a lot of them, and that's just part of it," Tuberville said. "That's the least of our worries. The players, the coaches and the fans look forward to these two games. We're not going to ruin it by discussing any of that kind of stuff. Anything I say is going to be looked at, turned around, flipped around, and doesn't make any difference."
What is the mysterious coach doing behind those doors or thinking about as he picks that grass? No one seems to know.
"He speaks to us when he sees us and knows us by name, but he's more like a CEO type of guy," Bennett said. "He's very administrative and kind of stands back. There's not so much hands-on as much as other places, but he does a lot of things we don't even see. A lot of his communication kind of filters down. We have team meetings and we talk to him every week. So it's not like he's completely absent."
Not yet, anyway.
"I kind of learned my freshman year there's no way to tell what's true and what's not," Bennett said of the 2003 fiasco. "I'll be the last one to know. I'll probably see it on 'SportsCenter' the same time you do."
E-mail Darren Epps at
depps@timesfreepress.com