Birmingham News: Tuberville out at Auburn

Worst coaching firing: David Cutcliffe by Ole Miss.

 

This is worse, IMO.

Slocum had three straight years that would be considered unacceptable and had at least four losses in each of his last four years. Tuberville had finished lower than second in the West only once in the past eight before this one and had beaten Bama six straight times.

TAMU was in a state of gradual decline. Auburn, not so much.

 

How about John Cooper at Ohio State? I guess the only difference I can think of there is that whereas Tuberville was successful against Alabama, Cooper couldn't beat Michigan. But on the whole Cooper was awfully successful there. Then along came Mr. Sweater-Vest . . .

 

I, for one, would have loved to see Cooper stay.

 

Cutcliffe ... agreed. That was a sloppy, amateur-hour hit made all the worse by who they hired to take his place. You'd think the memory of the Ogre would have been enough to scare UT off Kiffin.

Cooper ... let's see how it goes for the Sweatervest should he stop beating Michigan and then take 10 losses in two years.

 

Tubberville and Bowden both played Arkansas for contract extensions (with higher buyouts) last offseason. Now their schools paid them that higher buyout to go away. I don't understand the culture of extending a coach's contract after every year he has an above average season.

 

A lot of Ohio State fans never liked Cooper to begin with. To them, firing Earle Bruce was akin to spitting on Woody Hayes' grave, even if all Bruce did was go 9-3 every year. The dislike for Cooper grew even more fierce as he began to lose to Michigan every year, and when players started speaking louder off the field than on it (i.e. Terry Glenn), that was his downfall.

As for Tuberville, if there ever was a case for invoking the Marty Schottenheimer 10-year rule, this was it. The longer he stays, the more of a no-win situation it becomes, thanks to Mr. Lowder.

 

I'd like to state, for the record, that I think this is a mighty premature indightment.

 

1. Except that Ole Miss is probably in far better shape now than it would have been had it retained Cutcliffe. Cutcliffe could never had recruited the way Orgeron did, nor could he have gotten as much out of said talent as Nutt has. The true test will be in how well Nutt is able to recruit.

2. What indication is there that Tressel will stop beating Michigan? And if he loses 10 games over the course of two years in that conference, he deserves to get fired.

 

They've been looking for an excuse to fire Tuberville for about 5-6 years now, maybe longer. The problem was, the guy just kept winning.

I hope Leach is smart enough to know that if he wants to leave Tech, this is not the job he should covet.

 

The SEC fans need to realize that the reality based world looks at some of these firings and laughs. If you you're being recruited by Auburn and Bama, you'll go to Bama 3 times out of 5, unless Bama sucks. I'm thinking Tennessee is wishing they took a little longer on their coaching search.

 

According to the AP story, his buyout was $6 million, and Auburn will pay it out without any state or University funds being used.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g6FVwQiG1UodMf2frpdVTLCqcj3AD94RK7RG0