One interesting thing about coaching at a college is that it’s very difficult to radically change an established philosophy. Auburn has thrived on the power running game and an offense based on physicality. When playing the War Eagles, you always knew it was going to be smashmouth. The Spread was quite the opposite of that, and it wasn’t introduced because the power game no longer worked. It was an arbitrary shift that didn’t have any driving force behind it other than hiring a new coordinator.

Unlike all the rumors going around Clawson’s system really isn’t a spread offense. If anything, it’s really not that far from a Cutcliffe system other than the flipping O-line and the difference in line calls. (Make that a Cutcliffe system with slants and deep passes in the playbook.) But philosophically, it’s not too different from the things that have always worked at UT: solid rushing game, solid-but-not-flashy passing game, and an emphasis on using early-drive playcalls to set up late-drive opportunities.

And I still believe Auburn should change their mascot from the Tigers to the War Eagles. It just makes too much sense.

Rumors are everywhere right now, so there’s a lot of untrustworthy information, but this was conducted far too quickly too be a purely business-level decision. You could very well be right about the hiring. My hunch is that there was a lot of tension around Franklin, and most likely it was between him and Tuberville.

We’ll see, though; this one will be interesting to follow as the internal sources begin to divulge the dirty little secrets. It’s going to happen, and will probably start in a couple of days one the initial furor dies down.