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One move in 2007 and its effects


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One Move in 2007 & How it Affected Auburn for Years to Come, Pt. I - The Justification

A Man, a Hawaiian Shirt, a Gulf Coast Offense, and a Domino Effect

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And the Chizik jacket-shirt before the jacket-shirt

As if 2007 wasn’t already a wild enough year for Auburn and nation as a whole (detailed here), the Tigers decided that enough was enough. They got rid of the man many felt was responsible for nothing but positives on the Plains. Al Borges had led the resurgence of Auburn’s offense in 2004 on the way to an undefeated year, he had turned Jason Campbell into a first round draft pick, and endeared himself to the Auburn Family with his love for Hawaiian shirts. We loved him, but let’s be honest — as legendary as Borges’ schematic was in 2004, it just didn’t have the same sizzle in 2007.

Borges got let go in favor of a more modern offense, simply known at the time as “the spread.” Was it a justified decision? Whether you want to factor in however much meddling Tuberville and the other offensive assistants may have done, or how the recruiting on the offensive side of the ball never really helped, the raw numbers don’t lie. Check out the regression from Auburn’s offense during Borges’ first year to his last.

2004 - 13-0, SEC Champions

  • 420 yds/gm on offense, 32.1 pts/gm (18th nationally)
  • 237 passing yds/gm, 183 rushing yds/gm
  • 1.6 turnovers/gm
  • Auburn was held below 300 yards in a game just twice (298 vs Alabama, 299 vs Virginia Tech), but of course we know how far ahead they were in most games, never really needing to keep pouring it on due to the famous Tubershell.
  • It also helped that Auburn’s defense finished #1 in the country in scoring defense at just over 11 points/gm.

2005 - 9-3, 2nd Place in the SEC West

  • 410 yds/gm on offense, 32.2 pts/gm (30th nationally)
  • 216 passing yds/gm, 194 rushing yds/gm
  • 1.5 turnovers/gm
  • Here you can see that the offense improved marginally in scoring and turnovers, but it still resulted in three losses. The first one came at home against Georgia Tech in a game where Brandon Cox threw four interceptions. The offense gained nearly 400 yards but couldn’t stop coughing it up. The other losses were the John Vaughn game at LSU, where the Tigers missed five field goals (Auburn gained 451 yards at LSU and didn’t commit a turnover), and then a bowl loss to Wisconsin.
  • Without Campbell, Cadillac Williams, and Ronnie Brown, you could say that the 2005 offense was a better coaching job by Borges than the year before. But if you look at the scoring offense rankings, you could see that the game was changing nationally. Auburn improved by a tenth of a point in that category and fell 12 places in the national rankings. Offense was a higher priority around the country, and soon it would pass Borges by.

2006 - 11-2, 2nd Place in the SEC West

  • 320 yds/gm on offense, 24.8 pts/gm (56th nationally)
  • 172 passing yds/gm, 148 rushing yds/gm
  • 1.5 turnovers/gm
  • At the time, this season could’ve been chalked up to injuries. In really the only game where the entire offense was healthy, Auburn put up 484 yards on Washington State and rolled in a big season-opening win. After that, Kenny Irons dinged himself up against Mississippi State, then Brandon Cox was battered senseless in the win over LSU, and never really recovered all year. Auburn failed to crack the 250 yard mark in four games (including both losses).
  • Auburn won games in 2006 often in spite of the offense. The LSU game was a 7-3 defensive struggle where Auburn gained just 182 yards. They didn’t score an offensive touchdown in the victory over Florida, and averaged less than 220 yards per game in the final two wins over Alabama and Nebraska. Meanwhile, the offense was nonexistent in losses to Arkansas...
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...and this guy.

... and Brandon Cox threw four more interceptions in the dreadful defeat to Georgia. That game in particular was a classic case of the 11 AM Tuberville sleepwalk.

2007 - 9-4, 2nd Place in the SEC West

  • 335 yds/gm on offense, 24.2 pts/gm (85th nationally)
  • 178 passing yds/gm, 157 rushing yds/gm
  • 1.8 turnovers/gm
  • Here’s where you see it really start to slip. Auburn’s offense scored one less touchdown in 2007 than it did in 2006, but dropped nearly 30 spots in the national scoring offense rankings. Auburn finished just behind Buffalo and just ahead of Eastern Michigan in that category, while teams like Florida (who Auburn did beat), Oregon, Boise St, and West Virginia were all spreading the ball out and racking up the points. Even Borges’ best output of 32.2 points per game would’ve placed 39th in 2007.

In the end, the decision to show Borges the door and bring in a spread guy was probably the right move. Auburn needed to make a change if they wanted to compete in what was becoming a totally offensive-minded landscape. Was it done in the right way? Pretty obviously not, as Tony Franklin wasn’t a good fit, and the offensive staff holdovers were unwilling to bend to his scheme as long as Tuberville was still in charge. We didn’t know that as 2007 ended, however, because Franklin’s offense set season highs after just a few practices in the bowl game. The spread offense was purported to be the purveyor of future success (and it would be, just not how we envisioned it at the time).

So what would have happened had Borges been given another year? After all, Auburn never finished lower than 2nd in the West while he ran the offense, he probably deserved one more go-around. If he had, things would look quite different today.

Coming Tomorrow: The What-If Game

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"Hindsight is 50/50"- Pat Dye

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I love Borges as an analyst on this staff.  He and his wife truly bought into the Auburn culture.  

Tuberville was here what 9-10 years something like that.  That's about the maximum at a major college unless you are cranking out conf championships every other year.  I also loved Tuberville's mojo in big games but it was time to make a change from him as well.  The "spread Eagle"offense was a disaster.  

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6 minutes ago, corchjay said:

I love Borges as an analyst on this staff.  He and his wife truly bought into the Auburn culture.  

Tuberville was here what 9-10 years something like that.  That's about the maximum at a major college unless you are cranking out conf championships every other year.  I also loved Tuberville's mojo in big games but it was time to make a change from him as well.  The "spread Eagle"offense was a disaster.  

great in big games but I will never forget getting spanked by malzahn in 06 come back and beat florida then get spanked by a brutally average georgia team where if we would of won out we could of gone to the bcs title game and won.

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But to get back on topic I don't understand what the writer is trying to say in the article.  

As far as Borges goes he's good at finding weaknesses in defenses and player weaknesses as well.  Should be able to help a lot in that regard being an analyst.  

Will he be in the booth on game days as well?

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We ended up with a national title, it worked out. Biggest decisions or moves to look at is during any season AFTER we a good one and us NEVER just being consistent. Because if we had we would've done even better in recruiting. Oh and moves in the championship game against fsu

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Speaking of Franklin, it was obvious he knew what he was doing. After he left Auburn after being fired at midnight season, Franklin's offense at other schools proved to be pretty potent.

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Borges MO practically every where he has been a coach has been that his 1st and or 2nd year are good to very good followed by a steady decline after that. I like Borges, but he deserved to be let go in 2007.  CTT totally screwed up by hiring Franklin and CTT earned his firing in 2008 as well. 

 

wde

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  • WarTiger changed the title to One move in 2007 and its effects
5 hours ago, milehighfan said:

Speaking of Franklin, it was obvious he knew what he was doing. After he left Auburn after being fired at midnight season, Franklin's offense at other schools proved to be pretty potent.

Not sure his O would have ever worked consistently in the SEC. You have to have a strong running game IMO to win in the SEC.

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14 hours ago, corchjay said:

But to get back on topic I don't understand what the writer is trying to say in the article.

Nothing... its a lead in for another article where he might actually say something.

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21 hours ago, GwillMac6 said:

great in big games but I will never forget getting spanked by malzahn in 06 come back and beat florida then get spanked by a brutally average georgia team where if we would of won out we could of gone to the bcs title game and won.

I think Arky was actually a pretty forgivable loss. They had a great backfield, had a budding Gus at OC, and were coming off a bye week. We were within a TD at the half.

Georgia though...to this day, I still have no idea WTH happened.

'08 was a whole new level of shocking, crushing disappointment...I was absolutely convinced we were a championship contender. :laugh:

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From time to time I have wondered what would have happened had Tuberville hired Gus instead of Franklin when Borges got the boot. It's interesting to think about on winter nights.

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7 minutes ago, Mikey said:

From time to time I have wondered what would have happened had Tuberville hired Gus instead of Franklin when Borges got the boot. It's interesting to think about on winter nights.

Interesting thought experiment but the outcome I bet would have been the same. Maybe it was all personality conflict but the problem with the Franklin experiment was the staff (and frankly Tuberville) not buying into the "spread". Hell, it didn't work at Arky with Gus there for the same reasons. Who knows though? The article seems pretty ridiculous to me....

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1 hour ago, AUwent said:

I think Arky was actually a pretty forgivable loss. They had a great backfield, had a budding Gus at OC, and were coming off a bye week. We were within a TD at the half.

Georgia though...to this day, I still have no idea WTH happened.

'08 was a whole new level of shocking, crushing disappointment...I was absolutely convinced we were a championship contender. :laugh:

that game about sums up our past decade of georgia futility to a frickin T.

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Maybe someone else can correct me but I can not think of many times a team has completely changed its offensive philosophy and been very successful the next year. I know different offensive and defensive philosophies often utilize different type players and need to teach different techniques to the players they have. I have often wondered if things would have went differently if Franklin had stayed longer and  was given the time and freedom to change the offense. I Also wonder what might have happened If Chiz had kept a offense similar to Gus's when Gus left instead of makeing the philosophy changes he did.

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8 hours ago, fredst said:

Interesting thought experiment but the outcome I bet would have been the same. Maybe it was all personality conflict but the problem with the Franklin experiment was the staff (and frankly Tuberville) not buying into the "spread". Hell, it didn't work at Arky with Gus there for the same reasons. Who knows though? The article seems pretty ridiculous to me....

I think it could have been different with Gus because while Franklin wanted to throw the ball virtually every down, Gus is a run-first coach. I think Hugh Nall and co. could have bought into what Gus does while they wouldn't go along with Franklin.

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I'm not sure Tubs had the fire to keep up with Saban.  If 2008 hadn't occurred it probably would have been a matter of time anyway.  I remember being at the Vandy game in 2008 and that was the biggest mess I've seen.  Im not sure the players knew what they were doing half the time during that game.  

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2 hours ago, Win4AU said:

I'm not sure Tubs had the fire to keep up with Saban.  If 2008 hadn't occurred it probably would have been a matter of time anyway.  I remember being at the Vandy game in 2008 and that was the biggest mess I've seen.  Im not sure the players knew what they were doing half the time during that game.  

I agree with you about Tubs and Saban.  Tubs did not take Saban seriously when Saban said he wanted to dominate us.  That Vandy game in 2008 was terrible, but Gus has trumped that game with the 2014, 2015, 2016 uga games and the 2016 Clemson game.

 

wde

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3 hours ago, AUIH1 said:

I agree with you about Tubs and Saban.  Tubs did not take Saban seriously when Saban said he wanted to dominate us.  That Vandy game in 2008 was terrible, but Gus has trumped that game with the 2014, 2015, 2016 uga games and the 2016 Clemson game.

 

wde

I'll give you the Clemson game.  2014 UGA was a team out of gas.  Their season ended the week before against TAMU.  2015 & 2016 were due to an injured Sean White.  If he's healthy in either one of those games Auburn wins easily.  The Clemson game truly bothers me the most.  How Gus and Rhett couldn't tell JJ wasn't that great in 2015 and couldn't tell Sean was the best out of JJ and JF3 in 2016 blows my mind.  You cannot convince me that JJ was practice superstar and forgot what he was doing in those first 3 games.  I believe Chip will cure a lot of these misjudgments

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On 7/28/2017 at 7:14 AM, kd4au said:

Not sure his O would have ever worked consistently in the SEC. You have to have a strong running game IMO to win in the SEC.

Granted, it may not have worked. But with the way Tubervile and his staff embraced it, it didn't have a snowball's chance in you know where of working.

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7 hours ago, milehighfan said:

Granted, it may not have worked. But with the way Tuberville and his staff embraced it, it didn't have a snowball's chance in you know where of working.

My thinking at the time was that one cannot casually date Franklin's type of spread, you have to marry it and none of the staff, Tuberville included, were willing to make that commitment.

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I remember the footage of Franklin leaving the athletic complex with his things and a black eye and thinking "This probably won't go well from here on out for Tuberville", lol

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On 7/29/2017 at 11:34 AM, Win4AU said:

I'm not sure Tubs had the fire to keep up with Saban.  If 2008 hadn't occurred it probably would have been a matter of time anyway.  I remember being at the Vandy game in 2008 and that was the biggest mess I've seen.  Im not sure the players knew what they were doing half the time during that game.  

As I recall, we were doing pretty well against Vandy until they(?) made Franklin go away from the spread. At that point the season was virtually over.

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^That season would have been a typical Tuberville year if we just had a kicking game. People forget that Wes (essentially) took the year off.

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