Tuberville just had the Yella-Fella barking in his ears on the sidelines. Bottom line, I loved CTT and was pumped when we hired him. Wanted the guy to succeed and he did, way more than fail. A variety of reasons snowballed to point to it being time to go. I had no problem with that and wish the guy well.
I hear what you're saying about the rest of the country thinking the MNC is tainted. I blame the media, plain and simple. Cam's popularity and overall charisma were starting to peak when the story broke. 90% plus of the major sports media outlets, ESPin being at the forefront all bellowed, "Trouble at AUBURN". I concede that any casual fan would make the logical assumption that since Cecil axed MSU, Auburn must have outbid. I get it.
However, after 5 different entities, whose job it is to investigate these situations, did their jobs and basically closed the books after finding Auburn guilty of absolutely nothing, that same media refused or somehow neglected to stop pointing the accusing finger at our school. Chizik and Co. did nothing to deserve that kind of bad pub and scrutiny. But they did do the absolute best thing they could have done. They said Auburn did nothing wrong. Cam is eligible and we're going to shut the hell up and focus on winning a MNC. Which in my opinion, was an unbelievable job under that kind of pressure.
This staff may not be the greatest conglomeration of coaches ever assembled, but they have been consistent with one thing since coming to AU...they've been extremely aggressive in everything they've done, which sounds very similar to a certain school located a bit northwest of Auburn. And while a myriad of accusations come out every year about how Lord Saybinz bumped this, Chargered that, Laptopped over here and remodeled some kitchenz under there, they've stayed aggressive as hell and kept on winning. This staff looks to be following the same pattern and I'm happy as hell about that.
When you're on top, everybody will take shots. As many have said, if we lose to Clemson or South Carolina or drop that one at UK....the Cam Newton "Pay for play" story is nothing more than an occasional scroll across the ticker on ESPin.