Tony Franklin on Bryan Harsin

[AUGunsmith 666]

3 hours ago, johnnyAU said:

Tony Franklin is the weak man here.  Worst hire in Auburn history

Franklin was the right man at the wrong time. 

He had success after Auburn as an OC so it wasn't like he just never had a job or failed at his job. 

[TexasTiger 13,048]

16 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

Tony Franklin eviscerates Auburn, Bryan Harsin: ‘You hired a weak man with no backbone’

By Mark Heim | mheim@al.com

5-6 minutes

---

The beginning of the end for Bryan Harsin has already begun.

That’s quite a statement, considering the man has coached a grand total of four games at Auburn.

However, the signs have already reared their ugly heads, if you subscribe to Tony Franklin’s line of reasoning.

Yes, that Franklin. The former Auburn coach offensive coordinator fired mid-season by Tommy Tuberville in 2008 held nothing back when talking about the Tigers on “The Coach Tony Franklin” podcast.

“You hired a weak man with no backbone who is gonna get run over by all these boosters,” he said.

It’s already happened, he explained.

The wheels were set in motion on Saturday, Sept. 18 in Happy Valley. Facing fourth-and-2 inside the 5, the Tigers called a questionable and unsuccessful pass play. The result: Penn State 28, Auburn 20.

“You called a press fade for the inside slot receiver for your go-to play to beat Penn State?” he asked. “That’s your go to? That’s what you got? That’s what you go to?”

As a result, the boo birds were out, questioning the play, from Internet trolls to big-money men, Franklin contends. So, Harsin had to give the masses something to quiet the negativity. He gave them a scapegoat, according to the former coach.

On Sunday, Harsin parted ways with first-year wide receivers coach Cornelius Williams less than 24 hours after Auburn completed a come-from-behind 34-24 win against Georgia State in the team’s nonconference finale.

“Four games in and you crack, and you fire your receivers coach?” he asked. “The best coached group on the field for offense was your receivers. You’re basically firing your receivers coach because your offensive line sucks. Your offensive line is bad.”

The proof, he explains, was in the game against Georgia State when TJ Finley hit Shedrick Jackson for the game-winning touchdown with just under a minute to play.

“The ‘great’ Georgia State team that came in and deserved to beat you,” he started. “... You had an offensive lineman who missed a block. He whiffs. Your quarterback makes a play. Then, the play of the day, your receiver, who was coached on what to do on a scramble play, makes the catch for the touchdown.

“Did you fire the offensive line coach? He’s an Alabama guy (Will Friend). That would make all the Auburn people happy. Fire the Alabama offensive line coach. He started four years at Alabama, and you hired him as your offensive line coach?”

Friend, for the record, had coaching stints at Tennessee, Colorado State and Georgia before landing the job at Auburn.

Now, Franklin knows what you are thinking. He is bitter toward Auburn because he was fired in the middle of the 2008 season. In addition, he coached Williams at Troy, so he has a personal allegiance to the former Hoover High star.

You’re right. He loves Williams, but he also loves Auburn, he said. He went on to say he “deserved” to be fired in 2008 and “is good with it.”

“You showed the powers that be they run the show,” Franklin said of Harsin. “They make the calls.

“If you want to blame somebody for sucking right now, the way your football team sucks, I got a great idea. Instead of firing Cornelius, or whoever the next guy is you’re going to fire, just quit. Just resign.”

Franklin continued to hammer away at the Tigers, who he said are nothing more than a reflection of their coach.

“The characteristics of this football team are the same as the coach: soft, soft, soft,” he said.

“They aren’t a physical team. I’ve seen physical Auburn football many times in my life as a fan, as a coach.”

Franklin’s zingers continued throughout his 22-minute podcast.

Here are some of the more sensational comments below.

On the OL

“The offensive line is worse than bad. They don’t look like they know what they are doing. ... They can’t pass pro(tect). The quarterback already has the yips. I don’t think the quarterbacks are well coached either. The running backs don’t make plays in space against a good team.”

On playing hard

“The offense and defense are soft. They don’t play hard, and they’re not very good or talented. If they played the hardest they could play, you could be a middle-of-the-pack SEC West team. If you don’t get it fixed, I don’t know if you can win a game in the SEC.”

On Georgia State

“You almost lost to Georgia State? You should have lost to Georgia State. Georgia State has a better team than you do.”

“The problem, no offense to everybody that was there before you, you don’t have many good players.”

On Harsin being the next Tuberville

“We turn into Tommy Tuberville No. 2. The thing about Tommy Tuberville is he’s gonna get some good players. Whatever it took to get him, he’s gonna get them. Now, in the end, he didn’t have good enough players. He knew (Alabama coach) Nick Saban was gonna beat his brains out, so he quit. They paid him $5 million to quit.”

On competing with Alabama

“You’re not in the same hemisphere with Alabama talent wise, but you are also really poorly coached. That’s a reflection of you, sir, Bryan Harsin.”

Check out the Franklin podcast here.

3-2

[TexasTiger 13,048]

17 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

3-2

The man is such a brilliant coach that his offense scored all the points for both teams in that game.

[keesler 5,928]

40 minutes ago, johnnyAU said:

I had forgotten about that dude!

Was he the one that trained & developed Tom Brady, or was that another OC that's run through Auburn in the last 20 yrs?  I can't remember who it was but some coach had that accolade tied to the OC's resume and used it to prop him up. 

 

[Win4AU 4,055]

In defense of Franklin, Tubs and the BBQ boys didn't really buy into the change and more or less tanked the offense and cost Tubs his job.  That being said I've heard numerous other talking heads discuss how bad the WRs have been misaligned and out of place.  I don't argue the Oline is bad, Qbs average, and Tank hasn't looked as elusive as last year.  Tank I chalk up to injury and the rest is the result of bad recruiting and bad development the past 3 years.  As much of us would like to flip a switch and turn Bo into Stafford, Murray, Greene, or any of the other UGA Qbs it may take more than 1 year to correct those bad habits.  Oline is going to take 2-3 years through the portal and high school.

Edited September 29, 2021 by Win4AU

[keesler 5,928]

1 minute ago, Win4AU said:

In defense of Franklin, Tubs and the BBQ boys didn't really buy into the change and more or less tanked the offense and cost Tubs his job.  That being said I've heard numerous other talking heads discuss how bad the WRs have been misaligned and out of place.  I don't argue the Oline is bad, Qbs average, and Tank hasn't looked as elusive as last year.  Tank I chalk up to injury and the rest is the result of bad recruiting and bad development the past 3 years.  

In defense of Tubs, he was ahead of the times.  He saw and knew that offenses were about to change and he brought in TF to make that change.  The problem is that Tubs never got his position coaches to buy-in and make the necessary changes to the oline/formations/schemes and Tubs canned his ass mid-season.  The whole crew was gone by season's end only for Auburn to hire Chizik & Malzhan brought in the HUNH/fast-pace offense Tubs really wanted in the first place. 

[homersapien 11,455]

16 hours ago, AuburnEagle79 said:

Tony Franklin is another great example that access to a Podcast, Facebook, Twitter, etc is one of the worst things that has happened to our society.

This dude is clearly butt-hurt and biased, but thank goodness he gets a platform to spew stupidity. 

Ain't the interweb GREAT!

Along that same line of thought, I really suspect something happened - like the insubordination described -  but we will never know for sure.  It doesn't help to speculate on the internet  (even though I just did exactly that.)

[AU9377 5,043]

6 hours ago, Gowebb11 said:

1. We didn't actually lose to Ga State.

2. Go to YouTube and watch FCS Jax State take us to overtime in 2015, or the narrow win over Mercer in 2017.

 

The thing is this... That Jax State team played for an FCS national championship that year and we didn't actually lose that game either. We never trailed that Mercer team and they didn't score a TD until the 4th qtr.  We won that game 24-10, but were leading 24-3 heading into the 4th and were never in danger of losing.  The same surely can't be said of Saturday.

Let's just hope that it was a wake up call and that we play much better Saturday.  If we don't, all hell will break loose over the next month.

Edited September 29, 2021 by AU9377

[McLoofus 35,182]

14 minutes ago, keesler said:

In defense of Tubs, he was ahead of the times.  He saw and knew that offenses were about to change and he brought in TF to make that change.  The problem is that Tubs never got his position coaches to buy-in and make the necessary changes to the oline/formations/schemes and Tubs canned his ass mid-season.  The whole crew was gone by season's end only for Auburn to hire Chizik & Malzhan brought in the HUNH/fast-pace offense Tubs really wanted in the first place. 

Yup. If he'd had any good will with the PTB, he might've survived that. Maybe only for a brief time, though, because I don't think he was cut out for recruiting in saban's SEC.

 

[AUApostle 7,659]

5 hours ago, AUGunsmith said:

Washed up? After being black balled from the sport for a few years he came out to Troy and out up numbers. After leaving auburn went out and out up big numbers. 

Even had the s***ty cab beard go from a 1-11 team to being a top 10 passing yard team and top 25 or 30 total yard team. 

 

Dude knew how to move the ball. 

Then I stand corrected...black balled.  The washed up part came much later.

[johnnyAU 3,655]

31 minutes ago, keesler said:

Was he the one that trained & developed Tom Brady, or was that another OC that's run through Auburn in the last 20 yrs?  I can't remember who it was but some coach had that accolade tied to the OC's resume and used it to prop him up. 

 

That was Scott Loeffler. The "Stache" was the DC Brian VanGorder. You know, the one that gave up 63 to Johnny Football, 38 to UGA and 49 to Bammer in the same year. Dude couldn't stop Bishop Sycamore.

[AUApostle 7,659]

Also, this headline...Eviscerates...has anyone checked on Harsin to see how he's doing?

 

Definition of eviscerate

 

transitive verb

1a: to take out the entrails of : DISEMBOWEL

b: to deprive of vital content or force

2: to remove an organ from (a patient) or the contents of (an organ)

[Strychnine 1,804]

1 hour ago, McLoofus said:

Yup. If he'd had any good will with the PTB, he might've survived that. Maybe only for a brief time, though, because I don't think he was cut out for recruiting in saban's SEC.

 

 

People used to complain enough about him going duck hunting, back then.  He would be crucified for it in today's SEC.

[AU9377 5,043]

5 hours ago, johnnyAU said:

Tony Franklin is the weak man here.  Worst hire in Auburn history

Wasn't a great hire, but I reserve that honor to Scott Loefller

[SRBautigerfan 1,040]

Saturday at 8:00 CT can't get here fast enough.  I suppose all the dog-piling on Auburn/Harsin is to be expected considering how the team's looked on the field so far.  A win would cure a lot a lot of the anti-Harsin rhetoric and even though Auburn wasn't expected to do much this year an ugly loss in BR would really be bad.  Win or lose I hope the team at least looks competent, motivated and  plays hard for 60. 

[auelvis87 96]

Yawn...has been.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

5 hours ago, AUGunsmith said:

Franklin was the right man at the wrong time. 

He had success after Auburn as an OC so it wasn't like he just never had a job or failed at his job. 

Have to disagree. I used to go to practices when Franklin was there. He is not someone I would like for my son to play for.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

4 hours ago, Win4AU said:

In defense of Franklin, Tubs and the BBQ boys didn't really buy into the change and more or less tanked the offense and cost Tubs his job.  

[LeonardAU 237]

4 hours ago, johnnyAU said:

That was Scott Loeffler. The "Stache" was the DC Brian VanGorder. You know, the one that gave up 63 to Johnny Football, 38 to UGA and 49 to Bammer in the same year. Dude couldn't stop Bishop Sycamore.

[AUGunsmith 666]

1 hour ago, Proud Tiger said:

Have to disagree. I used to go to practices when Franklin was there. He is not someone I would like for my son to play for.

What did he do that makes you say that?

[meh130 1,054]

Franklin apparently went off on Phil Marshall in today’s podcast. Phil wrote a harsh take on Franklin in a subscriber only article over at 247.

Somehow, I doubt the clowns at AL dot com will write an article about Franklin “eviscerating” Marshall, or on the incredible thin-skin and immaturity of Franklin.

[Hopsing 585]

21 hours ago, jAUSon said:

Viral

 

That is great!

[creed 1,653]

The person who is weak is the writer. First he uses input from an obviously disgruntled or unhinged source and then tops it off with an title that doesn't support the narrative. I'm questioning the writer's journalistic integrity in that I'm not sure he really knows how to develop a good story.

[autiger88 3,777]

37 minutes ago, creed said:

The person who is weak is the writer. First he uses input from an obviously disgruntled or unhinged source and then tops it off with an title that doesn't support the narrative. I'm questioning the writer's journalistic integrity in that I'm not sure he really knows how to develop a good story.

Well it is Al.com they aren't really known for their writers integrity 🤷😂

Edited September 30, 2021 by autiger88

[twilli13 600]

22 hours ago, Strychnine said:

 

Check the pic, the Kevin Trudeau book is second from the top.

Man, lol!!