Tony Franklin singing again

I can see his beef with hal mumme. at kentucky they tried to put the blame on him in an effort to deflect the blame on mumme and he was cleared of any wrong doing. it was the other coaches who were cheating. He wrote a book detailing the down fall of kentucky football.

I think auburns problem was tommy tuberville. I know one of his former oc's who where canned and the word he used to discribe him was he was a tool and a puppet.

then they should have shut him up like they did the other oc's.

they could have put a no discuss clause in his buyout.

Knowing Tony, I don't think he would have signed a deal that included a "no discuss" clause.

I think some of you are being a bit harsh on TF. The fact that he won't keep quiet or refuses to grab his ankles when something is afoul actually speaks volumes about his character and integrity. The fact that he was blackballed after UK for so long should tell you something about the profession. One of the reasons I elected to leave the college ranks after coaching at two DI schools was because of the ethics and values of the profession and how they ran counter my own.

I think that TF should talk. Because of the Auburn debacle his reputation as a football coach took a drubbing in the media. People were writing that he was in over his head in the SEC from a scheme point of view. Of course he had to respond. The fact was that Tubbs put him in a situation where he was doomed to fail right from the start. Rot starts from the top....

I guess what I'm trying ot say is lighten up on TF. He was not the problem. The problem was a bunch of yucks like Hugh Nall and Steve E(what's his name?) who began undermining TF right from the beginning.

TF will do great at MTU. Hopefully he gets the chance to go to a major conference again, but he will do just fine there.

Well stated Hemlock.

Coachdawhip, you may be correct, but I think that there will always be a place for a guy like him; it may not be in a major conference or at an elite school again, but good coaches, at any level, are rarer than you think and any place that needs a good coach and is willing to simply turn that side of the ball over to him will be fine. Rick Stockstill is in a situation at MTU where he has to turn the corner or else he's done. Blakney, although more secure at the time, was at a crossroads at Troy; they needed to turn the corner and that's why he went with TF.

Franklin will continue to coach along the margins of big time football. Frankly, no pun intended, that is where most of the great coaching really occurs.

Coaches that don't wish to hire him simply because he will speak his mind to need to take a look in the mirror. Do you want a staff that is akin to the Bush administration, a collection of yes men who will fall on their swords simply to save you? If that is the case, it sounds as if you (and please note, I'm speaking figuratively here - I'm not referencing anybody in particular) than it seems to me that you may know in advance that everything you may do is not necessarily kosher in Denmark, which is in fact akin to something we call intent. Basically, coaches that don't like Franklin are similar to CEOs (read Enron) and administrations that hate whistle blowers. What does that tell you about the culture of coaching? Hhmmm....?

How would you coaches react if put in this situation? If you were canned in some sort of underhanded way.. would you do a public outcry??



Not anymore!!! ;D

Just so we are straight on something. First, the System is nothing new - it's the same thing that Leach and Mumme use, so that clearly demonstrates that it works. Second, Franklin as a coordinator is very proven commodity - the results at Troy speak for themselves.

Franklin reached when he took the Auburn job; sure, he probably should have said no and gone with his instincts, but it's human nature. MTSU's offense will do very well under his guidence. Stockstill is a fairly hands-off type of coach. Moreover, he's faces Franklin's offense every year since he has to play Troy in the SunBelt.

There, now it's a discussion of how we would deal with it as a coach, as opposed to trashing a staff, or administration. Carry on good men, carry on.

If you are going to hire a "Tony Franklin type" as a coordinator you can't be a HC who micromanages can you? You have to be a guy who says:

1. You run the offense. I will tell you to go for it on 4th down or we'll punt. But you call the play.

2. We will recruit players to fit the offense.

3. I will stick to the defense.

I agree if you do not want a powerful offense do not hire a powerful offensive coordinator.

I also think you have to understand the role football plays in alabama. mike price never understood all the extra crap a coach has to do in alabama to promote the game. all these caravan trips he did not like.

coachdawhip said it, he knows:

Unless you have lived in Alabama, it's hard to understand the place. Alabama, the state, is it's own world.
The people of the state are downhome, salt-of-the-earth types, but they love their football. Without a doubt, it IS a religion, although it is firmly placed in the "bible belt."
Alabama people have a real "civic" pride on their state, you don't know that unless you've been there.
Then there is football, I cannot express to you how important football is to the people of Alabama. It is not normal.

Mike Price, may be an excellent coach, I don't know him, heard he was. But when that scandal came out about him and "a female performer of adult entertainment"-he was done. The are simply not going to put up with that.

Hypocritical you say? Sure, but we are all filled with contradictions.
Knowing a very slight bit of the Tony Franklin/Tommy Tuberville debacle, I always felt that Coach Franklin wasn't the most stable personality out there. But for goodness sake, the deck was stacked so hard against him, he didn't have a chance.

However, the quotes that Coach Franklin has about there being too much religion on the football team tell me that Tony doesn't understand Alabama people.
As they say, "them is fighin' words, y'all."

Best for Tony to shut-up and move-on. He's just hurting himself now.

OJW

Tony would be easy to pick out when he was at Auburn.
It's a small little town next to the small-medium town of Opelika about 25,000 people live in that whole area.
There is one small Mall there and Walmart, you know-small town.

So if he was out at a local restaurant everybody would recognize him. They might have thought that he was rather unkempt since he never seemed to comb his hair, but everybody in town would know who he was. Just like everybody there knew what the other coaches looked like. It's a small town in Eastern Alabama for goodness sake. I'm from a small town, you know everybody there.

It's 1 hour from Montgomery (hate that place) and about 1 1/2 hours from Atlanta (hate that place too).

Tony stuck me as unstable to begin with, then with a evidently disconnected Tommy Tuberville, he was evidently alienated by the other staff member. Doesn't really seem to be Tony's fault, then again he can't be separated from it.

He was and is just like this article reads, "a fusion of contradictions."

OJW

OutlawJoseyWales, 1 little point of correction. The Auburn/Opelika metro area is about 130,000 people. So, not quite as small as all that. Regardless, your point remains correct in that Alabama is totally football crazy, and that of that 130K, probably 2/3 of them (men, women, and children) would have been able to pick Tony out of a crowd.

I was a GA at Auburn in the Health & Human Performance Department some years ago, got my second degree from there, am an Alabama native, and have coached 3 years for a Tony Franklin System school. I would agree with the majority of opinions expressed in this thread so far with regards to the culture here, and the importance of football, statewide. All that said, I believe Spreadattack has hit the nail on the head.

It was a crappy place to work for a variety of reasons. He didn't fit the culture to begin with. He and Tubs both made a mistake in the hire. There's enough blame to go around. Move on and enjoy the new coaching situation.

For 50K/year I would happily read about my kids acting up at dinner and what I had for desert.

Wow...