ESPN: Kicking It With Tommy Tuberville

[AUChizad]

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/sec/0-1-174/Kicking-it-with-Tommy-Tuberville.html

Kicking it with Tommy Tuberville

August 11, 2008 7:09 PM

Posted by ESPN.com's Chris Low
    
    Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville thinks his offense will be tough to defend this season.

AUBURN, Ala. -- Here's the first part of my Q&A with Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville. I'll have the second part a little later where I ask Tuberville about his relationship with Alabama coach Nick Saban and whether he ever sees himself leaving Auburn:

Any concerns that playing two quarterbacks could be a problem this season?

Tommy Tuberville: Some. Your quarterback is your leader, not just your leader on offense, but your team leader. Over the years, we've had a guy that separated himself. But with these guys, there's not much separation. They work well together. They help each other. Chris (Todd) has been in this offense since he was in diapers. They really complement each other real well. Chris is a better thrower. Kodi (Burns) is a better runner, but both of their weaknesses have gotten much better since the spring. Kodi's throwing the ball a lot better now.

How much different will this offense be from anything the SEC has seen over the years?

TT: This is a great offense for this league because of the speed you get. There's so many athletes that come from Alabama, Georgia, Florida and LSU, and you're able to get more athletes on the field. But if you look at teams now, everybody's running some form of one back, so people are in the spread more than you think. Now, this offense is different because of the tempo.

How tiring will this offense be for defenses to play against?

TT: Not just physically, but mentally it takes a toll. Think about it. As soon as the ball's out of bounds, you've got to go back and get down if you're a defensive lineman. You've got to get ready. You've got to be thinking about what you're getting ready to do and not worrying about what just happened. It's relentless.

You've never been afraid of change. Just look at how many coordinators you've been through. You just like keeping everybody on their toes?

TT: Being an old defensive coach, I don't know a lot about offense. We think we do, but we don't know. But you do know in terms of what helps you and what hurts you and what you don't like to face. When Dennis (Erickson) brought this offense to Miami in '89, it wasn't the tempo, but it was the one-back shotgun with (Geno) Torretta throwing the ball around with short passes. That helped us win the national championship in '89, because we got more athletes on the field. In Gary Stevens' offense, we were more of a two-back offense and had a fullback in the game. I thought it limited us a little bit. And just looking at what we'd done the last two years, Al (Borges) had done a good job, but there's a lot of times you had a guy standing beside you that needed to be out there and that offense didn't call for it. You couldn't get them all out there. It's like our defense. You can get more speed on the field. You have more options.

The knock on you is that you're always changing coordinators. How important is staff continuity to you?

TT: I think it's important that you keep a lot of your staff together for recruiting consistency. I think your coordinators are different. I give them a lot of responsibility, a lot more than I do some of them. I put mine right out front, let them coach, let them use their imagination, let them speak and let them talk, because most of them want to be head coaches. That's enabled me to be able to hire people, too, because word kind of gets out that if you go work for Tub, he's going to let you go, he's going to let you coach. You're going to find out what you're made of, and he's not going to get in your way. I'm not saying a lot of other people don't do that. But here, we've been in one place for 10 years, 15 years in this league, and word kind of gets around that I might be a decent guy to coach for if you're a coordinator in terms of being able to really prove what you can do. I couldn't tell you some of the coordinators from some of these schools, because you never hear anything from them.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/sec/0-1-176/Kicking-it-with-Tommy-Tuberville--Part-2.html

Kicking it with Tommy Tuberville, Part 2

August 11, 2008 8:00 PM

Posted by ESPN.com's Chris Low

AUBURN, Ala. -- Here's the second part of my Q&A with Tommy Tuberville. Check out some of his quips about Alabama coach Nick Saban near the bottom. Who says the Iron Bowl isn't played 365 days a year in this state?

Have you had many defensive linemen as athletic and explosive as Sen'Derrick Marks?

Tommy Tuberville: He's just a great athlete, but one of those one-star athletes that nobody knew much about. We weren't even recruiting him in Mobile. I was down there with the coach that recruited there, and I said, 'We're done for the day. Why don't we run over to the high school and talk to the (Vigor High) coach and do a little P.R.?' We got to talking about players, and he said, 'You need to look at this guy. He's got good explosion. He's a good athlete. He might be a pretty decent player.' I go in the gym, and Sen'Derrick was out there dunking backwards, running up and down the court and handling the ball. That's what you look for, guys that athletic. This was January, too. The only trip he had, I think, was to South Carolina, but they hadn't offered him yet. That just goes to show you about this recruiting stuff.

You've never been too big on winning recruiting national championships, have you?

TT: You know, we were never ranked in the Top 10 in recruiting when we were at Miami. We won three national championships. We recruited from high schools that had so many players that most of them ... nobody had ever heard of.

How many players from the state of Alabama do you and Alabama typically go head-to-head on each year?

TT: I'd say five or six, and we pretty much dominated them for the last eight years. And then last year, Nick came in and did a good job on Julio (Jones) and the kid from Gadsden (Jerrell Harris). You'll normally go 50-50. There will be a few more kids that grow up Alabama fans, but we get our share. A lot of these kids leave the state, too. But we go to Georgia and get kids to come here. I don't think the loyalties in the different states are there as much as they used to be.

What's your relationship like with Nick Saban? You share the same agent, Jimmy Sexton. Do you guys talk much?

TT: Yeah, we talk ... probably more than most people think. I've known Nick a while. He's just one of those guys who likes to move around, but a good football coach.

Saban says Alabama is his last stop and that there are no more horizons for him. You buying that?

TT: You watch, he'll be at Washington next year (laughing and clearly joking).

Is this where you'll end your career? Do you ever see yourself leaving Auburn?

TT: Oh no, I'm not going anywhere. They tried to get me a few years ago, so you never know in this business. But my family loves it here. It's hard to beat this place.

[Pell City Tiger]

This needs to be saved for future reference (the November duck hunt discussions)

Is this where you'll end your career? Do you ever see yourself leaving Auburn?

TT: Oh no, I'm not going anywhere. They tried to get me a few years ago, so you never know in this business. But my family loves it here. It's hard to beat this place.