As a follow-up to this interesting entry from earlier in the week, I think that the Wolfpack’s off-week provides us a perfect time to discuss some interesting coaching developments across the country.
It isn’t as if there aren’t any interesting match-ups this weekend; the college football schedule is full of great games. Of particular interest in the ACC Atlantic is the match-up, coaching stability vs coaching instability with Jim Grobe’s Wake Forest Demon Deacons (3-1) battle Tommy Bowden’s Clemson Tigers (3-2) at 7:45 p.m. tonight night on ESPN.
If Tommy Bowden is to keep his job safe, a win over Wake Forest is in order. But which Wake Forest team will show up, the one that forced seven turnovers and five interceptions at Florida State or the one that lost to Navy at home? Sad sidebar: Clemson IT nazis caught Bowden posting his resume on Craig’s List this week. Winner: Tigers.
The heat on Bowden is legitimate and is growing. The folks at “Coachesonthehotseat.com” rank Bowden’s seat as the 7th hottest in the country but I think that they are being a tad conservative.
Ranked one spot ahead of Bowden on the site is Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville. From an outsider’s perspective any pressure on Tuberville appears absurd but I admit that I haven’t researched the situation enough to be educated enough to comment.
Regardless, Tuberville’s dismissal this week of his second offensive coordinator in the last six games stretching back to last year is absolutely fascinating. The Tony Franklin firing is all over the place with videos as well as commentary like this from Tony Barnhardt of the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
The Auburn fans are frustrated because the Tigers began the season as a Top 10 team and were excited by the new offense based on what they had seen in the win over Clemson in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. But for Tuberville to say that he was staying the course on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday only to fire Franklin on Wednesday left a lot of Auburn fans angry. They want some answers. They want to know if Tuberville simply made a bad decision to bring in the spread offense or was the bad decision to hire Franklin as the guy to implement it. The spread was a pretty radical departure from Auburn’s football philosophy under Tuberville and it’s clear that every phase of the offense—not just quarterback—was having adjustment problems. The offensive line, which was young last season but showed a lot of promise for 2008, kept making mistakes. Hugh Nall is one of the best offensive line coaches in the country but this offense asked the big guys to do a lot of new things. It clearly wasn’t working for anybody.
If you are REALLY interested in diving into this topic then you HAVE to read this blog entry from ‘Smart Football’.
