Coordinator out after offense stalls

BY TOM MURPHY

Posted on Thursday, October 9, 2008

URL: http://www.wholehogsports.com/adg/239718/

FAYETTEVILLE — Auburn Coach Tommy Tuberville threw a curveball into Saturday’s SEC West matchup with Arkansas on Wednesday afternoon by abruptly firing offensive coordinator Tony Franklin.

“After evaluating where we are at this point of the season offensively, I felt it was in the best interest of the Auburn football program to make this change,” Tuberville said in an Auburn release. “I’m not satisfied with where we are, and I am personally going to take a larger role with the offense the remainder of the season.”

Franklin’s Spread offense had been a bust halfway through his first season as coordinator, with some mockingly calling it the Spread Eagle offense. The Tigers rank 104 th nationally in total offense (309. 2 yards per game ), 103 rd in both scoring (18. 7 points per game ) and passing (160. 7 ypg ), 105 th in passing efficiency and 111 th in red zone offense.

Auburn went to a more ground-based attack early in last week’s 14-13 loss at Vanderbilt, running on its first 14 offensive snaps and building a 13-0 lead in the first quarter.

Arkansas Coach Bobby Petrino, the Auburn offensive coordinator for Tuberville in 2002, suggested in his Monday news conference that the Razorbacks were likely to see Auburn’s more traditional offensive style.

“We’ve watched a lot of their offense and I think we might see that version they pulled out in the first quarter and a half the other night, where they run the ball and they use the big, physical offensive front,” Petrino said Monday.

Petrino found out about Franklin’s firing just before he left the second-floor coaches offices at the Broyles Center for the Hogs’ 3: 50 p. m. practice Wednesday.

“We know they’ll probably run the ball a lot more,” Petrino said. “We’ve been practicing to do that anyway, because of what we saw in the first half of the Vandy game.”

Petrino said he and his coaches have studied tape from last year’s Auburn team, particularly its game against Arkansas, won 9-7 by the Tigers.

“I know some of those [Auburn ] assistant coaches real well, worked with them and understand what they like in the run game, what they like in the play-action and passing game. So we’ve kind of been preparing that that’s what they wanted to do with their personality anyway,” Petrino said.

Tuberville, a Camden native, hired Franklin away from Troy last December, and after the Tigers ran 90 plays and piled up a season-high 423 yards in a Chickfil-A Bowl victory over Clemson using the Spread, the new coordinator signed a two-year deal worth $ 280, 000 per season.

“We’re still going to run the Spread offense,” Tuberville said. “We went to this, but we’ll tweak it every week. Last week, we made a small change in some of the offense that we did. It worked early, and then they made adjustments and they forced us to do other things.”

Tuberville has had a revolving door at his offensive coordinator post for most of his tenure. Petrino held the position in 2002 and was succeeded by Hugh Nall and Steve Ensminger in 2003 and Al Borges from 2004-2007.