I never could figure that out either. It wasn't his fault that the PTB got caught with egg on their face in the whole Jetgate deal. Giving them a big fuck you by running the table the next season was beyond priceless. While things were on a downward slide the last year of his tenure, I think any logical fan would think they would have given him a legit chance to stick around and right the ship. He had AU by the balls, and they know it. The '08 season basically gave the PTB the right timing to send him packing and maybe the fans wouldn't be as pissed off since the season was bad. CTT was a stable coach, good man, had been at AU for a long time, etc. You will never convince me that he wasn't forced out.
Forced is too strong a word, perhaps. I've had employees I wanted to leave but didn't want to fire because of the potential backlash (possible lawsuit, sister worked there and was a good employee, etc.). You don't have to fire someone or even be direct to get them to leave. You just have to make their life miserable. And you can do it with a smile.
Tuberville failed to get the support he deserved from AU administration and it wore on him. I think it also wore on him to see Nick Saban, Urban Meyer and to a degree Mark Richt get the kind of support (and media accolades) they got when he pretty much owned both of them, often with teams that allegedly had less talent.
Florida administration was solidly behind Meyer. Alabama in lockstep with Saban. Auburn's? Fucking Bobby Petrino, fingerbanging Houston Nutt and flirting with everybody else on the side.
Did Tuberville have some complicity? Yeah. He winked at other folks and might have even had a brief affair, but he wasn't getting any love at home. I'm convinced that if he had, things would have been completely different.
For all David Housel's faults he was firmly in Tommy's corner from the start. When I got aggravated the year Rudi left unexpectedly and AU didn't perform as well as I thought they should have, Housel told me to be patient, that he and Tuberville had agreed on a five-year plan and if we'd stay behind him Auburn was in for a glorious era.
The fifth year was 2004.
But we didn't stay on board. When he did everything he could humanly do to win a national championship and our administration was still basically cool towards him, yeah, maybe he did start to drift and the passion waned a little.
The more I think about it, the more I'm sure we had one of the top five young coaches in the country. I'd take Tuberville any day against Meyer, Saban or any of the rest of the SEC and feel good about my chances. He goes somewhere he can get the kind of support those guys do from their administration and I'd bet he's going to make us look like fools for letting him get away.
But he sucked. Fucking BBQ eater.
Note: I was among those ready to see Tuberville leave. I, like many of you, felt that his effectiveness had diminished and that he seemed tired and completely out of gas at the end of last season. He looked lost at times in 2008. I have now resigned myself to the fact that I was probably wrong, that he would have figured out a way to right the ship (after all, when was Tuberville at his best?) and that I allowed my frustration over the Tony Franklin-infused debacle that was 2008 to color my judgment. I think we acted hastily and will pay for said haste.
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