PM's latest blog.

[WAR-MATT 2]

Good read.

Link

'You have to grow with the times'

Friday, December 28, 2007

By PHILLIP MARSHALL

Times Sports Staff pmarsh9485@msn.com

Tuberville embraced spread attack after offense 'hit the wall'

ATLANTA - For Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville, the decision to change offenses did not come easily. It was a radical change from the philosophy on which he'd built a successful career.

For 13 seasons as a head coach at Ole Miss and Auburn, Tuberville had won with a run-first emphasis that played to the strength of his defenses. But starting with Monday's game against Clemson in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, Auburn's offense will undergo a stark transformation.

The driving force behind it, Tuberville said Wednesday in an interview with The Huntsville Times, is his determination to modernize the team's approach.

"An old dog doesn't change his tricks very often," Tuberville said, "but you have to grow with the times."

That's why Tuberville swallowed hard earlier this month and turned his offense over to spread guru Tony Franklin, whom he hired from Troy to replace Al Borges as offensive coordinator.

"It's been kind of a growing process for me," Tuberville said, "I've tried to find a common denominator of how conservative you need to be with a good defense, but also how you give yourself a chance to beat high-scoring teams and give yourself a chance to win championships."

As spread offenses have caught on in college football in recent seasons, Tuberville has slowly come around. Auburn will run at least some of Franklin's spread scheme Monday night in the Georgia Dome.

"The high schools are going more to throwing the football," Tuberville said, noting that under the previous philosophy it was becoming "harder and harder to recruit to a two-back team. It's harder to get quarterbacks that want to throw it. It's harder to get wide receivers that want to catch the ball.

"We've won a lot of games doing what we've been doing. But as the guy that's running the program, you always look for a way to try to make it better, to broaden your horizons, to be able to score more points against good teams, to be able to help your defense a little more and also to help in recruiting."

Tuberville talked about it with his assistants and with others in the coaching profession. He saw the spread go from an offense used mostly by mid-majors to one used by elite teams.

"I still had to be convinced it was the thing for us to do," Tuberville said. "We were kind of unique, being hard-nosed, and I don't want to change that. We're still going to be hard-nosed running the football, but you also have to give yourself a chance to score 40 points if you need to."

In nine seasons at Auburn, Tuberville has won or shared five SEC West Division championships. He's 79-33 overall and 49-23 in the SEC, but only during the unbeaten season of 2004 has he won the league championship.

Tuberville shakes his head as he recalls the near-misses - five missed field goals at LSU in 2005, Georgia's 19-yard touchdown pass on fourth-and-15 in 2002, LSU's last-second touchdown this season. Each of those plays kept Auburn from the SEC Championship Game.

Armed with a two-year extension that takes his contract through 2013, Tuberville said his mission is to take the final step for Auburn football, - playing for the national championship that voters and computer rankings denied in 2004.

"We're not where we need to be to win a national championship," Tuberville said. "We've got to be more consistent on both sides. We have to keep looking at what we're doing and look for what will make us better. That's what we've done on offense.

"Winning a national championship is the ultimate goal, but it can't be your goal every year. The BCS is so screwed up that a lot of it is out of your control. We've made it our goal every year to get to Atlanta and win (the SEC). You can control that. You can't control all that other stuff. It's unfortunate that it's not getting any better. It doesn't seem like people are listening too well. I think it will change sooner or later."

All championships, Tuberville said, start with recruiting. Despite a relatively low ranking by recruiting services, Tuberville said he has no complaints about where Auburn stands.

"I don't worry about what Alabama does or Georgia or anybody else," Tuberville said. "I have no clue who they have committed. I can't control what they're doing. We work hard at recruiting. We've got good recruiters. We know who we want to recruit. Some we're going to get and some we're not going to get, but we're going to do it the right way and not end up on probation in a few years.

"We don't recruit at all costs. We recruit players that want to come to our place and get an education. I think it's worked for us so far. We've got one of the best records in college football the last five, six years."

Tuberville said he's pleased with the influx of talent.

"We've got as good a players as we've had since we've been here," Tuberville said. "We're much better in terms of the type players we have on the team - more athletes, better linemen, more speed.

"I'm hoping this offense is going to enable us to take another step forward. For us to win at Auburn, for USC to win, you have to be able to run the ball and stop the run. I'm just looking for a common denominator where they'll all work together and give us a boost, because we'd kind of hit the wall."

© 2007 The Huntsville Times

© 2007 al.com All Rights Reserved.

[abrnfanatc 6]

"I'm hoping this offense is going to enable us to take another step forward. For us to win at Auburn, for USC to win, you have to be able to run the ball and stop the run. I'm just looking for a common denominator where they'll all work together and give us a boost, because we'd kind of hit the wall."

That may be the understatement of the year.