By
Brian Harbach
The Tony Franklin Era has come to an end at Auburn University; the spread offense started with a bang after a successful debut in the Peach Bowl, but once the 2008 season started it was obvious there were problems in the booth and problems with the personnel. This column is not about rumors, assumptions or theories as to why or how Franklin was let go, this is just the story of how did Franklin got to Auburn and how he left in such a short period of time?
Background
There is no doubt that college football is full of interesting characters both on the playing field and on the sidelines. Tony Franklin is one of the more interesting stories in college football and after this season, it could be an even better tale to tell. Franklin was hired as the Auburn offensive coordinator back in December of 2007 to replace former offensive guru Al Borges. The decline of the Auburn offense under Borges was the reason for the change and while most knew a change was coming, no one expected Tommy Tuberville to change the Auburn culture and go to the spread.
Franklin was coaching at Troy in 2007 as the offensive coordinator before being hired at Auburn, but he had previously been in the same position at Kentucky under Hal Mumme. When Mumme was resigned in February of 2001, a number of coaches felt Tony Franklin was to blame for ratting Mumme out to the NCAA and he was essentially black-balled from college football. During his time away from college football he wrote a book, coached an expansion team in the National Indoor Football League and created the Tony Franklin system.
The Tony Franklin System is a version of the spread offense that is used at over 350 high schools and a number of colleges. After creating this offense, Franklin was hired in 2006 as the Offensive Coordinator at Troy where he was for two years until Auburn hired him after their regular season ended in 2007. Tony Franklin was supposed to bring a powerful offense to Auburn that would wear down defenses and create more scoring opportunities. At first it looked like Auburn got exactly what they paid for.
Starting with a bang in Bowl Game
Auburn installed the new Tony Franklin Spread in 8 days in December of 2007 to prepare for their bowl game against Clemson. Practices were closed and no one talked about the fact that they would be making this change so soon after the hiring, Clemson coaches thought they might make a couple changes to the offense, but when Auburn came up in a four wide receiver set and all the offensive linemen jumped up to stare at the sideline, Clemson coaches knew the old Auburn offense was gone.
After only 8 practices the Auburn Tigers racked up over 420 total yards, a season high and ran 90 plays, also a season high. Auburn won the game in overtime and fans were excited about the direction of the team because all that work was done in a little over a week. What would the offense look like with a spring practice and a young QB in Kodi Burns who fit the Franklin spread perfectly?
Spring Practice and Two-A-Days Brings QB Praise
Auburn signed a JUCO QB, Chris Todd in Feburary of 2008. Todd had verbally committed to Troy where Tony Franklin was the OC, but he decided to follow Franklin to Auburn and compete with Burns for the starting job. Todd had excellent knowledge of Franklin’s offense and ran in successfully in high school. The two quarterbacks, Burns and Todd, competed all spring and both were even except for an injury that stopped Todd from playing at 100%. Spring ended with Burns being named the starter going into the summer, but Todd was still going to be able to compete for the job in August.
When two-a-days started up Franklin could not say enough positive things about the quarterback position and it was obvious they would not be able to name a starter since neither player had separated from the other. Going into the first game of the season the QB’s were going to rotate series, a system that has never worked for any college football team in the history of college football. But Franklin assured media and fans that his quarterbacks were too good and there was no difference between them. A part of that was true, but it wasn’t the part about Auburn’s quarterbacks being good.
The Offense gets Offensive
The Auburn offense started the year with a lackluster performance against Louisiana Monroe, they followed that up with another terrible showing against Southern Miss and then the house caved in against Mississippi State in a game Auburn won 3-2. Somehow the Tigers managed to get through the first month of the season with a record of 4-1 after dismal offensive performances in each of their first three SEC games. The new spread offense was failing and failing miserably; the team scored a total of 3 touchdowns in those 3 SEC games and was averaging 8 points a game on offense.
The Auburn offense has looked worse and worse each week and that can be seen in the stats. In every game since Franklin took over at Auburn the offensive production has decreased, starting with a Peach Bowl victory where the Tigers gained 423 total yards up until the game against Vanderbilt where Auburn racked up 208 total yards. Penalties and miscommunication have been part of the problem, as well as Franklin’s inability to make adjustments, but the biggest problem has been the lack of identity the Auburn offense has been plagued with all year.
Going into game seven this weekend against Arkansas, Auburn still does not have a starting quarterback. They started the year running the spread with Kodi Burns as the starting QB, the next week it was the spread with Chris Todd running the show. Three weeks after that Auburn was lining up under center running the ball against Tennessee and they had current wide receiver, former high school quarterback Marion Fannin in a “wild tiger” formation taking direct snaps. After that failed Auburn tried to line up with two tight ends and one running back in an ace formation that had great success in the first quarter against Vanderbilt and it was never seen again in the Tiger loss to the Commodores.
The players don’t know what they are running, the coaches don’t know what they are running and even Tuberville said they were running the Auburn offense, not the Tony Franklin System. If the coaches can’t make a decision on what the team’s offensive philosophy is, how can the players be expected to execute and be successful? That lack of identity is the reason Auburn offense has failed and the reason a change was made this week.
Tuberville makes a decision
This week Tuberville decided that enough was enough and he fired Franklin after roughly 10 months on the job. As bad as this decision looks for Auburn in the short term it was the best decision long term. This was not an indictment of the spread offense, this was Tony Franklin not getting the job done at Auburn. He looked like he was in over his head and he was unable to make any adjustments in any game. There was no improvement at any position on the team and for a team that was not supposed to be in a rebuilding year, this has been worse than Tuberville’s failure in 2003.
In order to salvage what was left of the season, Franklin had to be let go. Players were losing faith in the offense; they were questioning the play calling, specifically the last three quarters of the Vanderbilt game. This was the only thing Tuberville could do to try and save this team from falling apart and possibly not making a bowl game. The rest of the schedule is tough and at the very least the Auburn opponents won’t know what kind of offense Auburn will be putting out there. The problem is that it is hard to know if Auburn knows what kind of offense they will be putting on the field.
Where do the Tigers go next?
Tommy Tuberville made a bold move firing Tony Franklin and he will need to make another one to keep up with the success happening on the other side of the state. Tuberville said he is committed to the spread, but on Tuesday he also said he was committed to Tony Franklin. The spread offense is likely done at Auburn, Tuberville has to say he is sticking with it to keep the commitments he has until he can get an offensive coordinator to excite the players enough to stay with Auburn.
There has been no time table decided to make any decisions on the future and it is pointless to speculate what Tuberville might do. It will take a ton of work to get the players ready for Arkansas this week and the coaches don’t have time to think about a new OC. No matter how bad the press is right now for this colossal failure, it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it. The Tony Franklin Fiasco was a mistake, it made no sense to keep up the charade any longer and risk further damage to the Auburn program.
This week’s SEC picks
South Carolina 31, Kentucky 20
Georgia 27, Tennessee 7
Auburn 27, Arkansas 10
LSU 28, Florida 24 OT
MSU 21, Vanderbilt 17
Was the Franklin firing justified from an on the field standpoint or should Tuberville have given it more time? E-mail
me Brian Harbach
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