Nope. We have had this discussion before. It's the truth. TR is probably not going to work out, so they put into affect Plan B...almost immediately, before any damage had taken place.
How is that a "convenient argument"?
Because Tuberville did that his entire time at AU. When people didn't work out or he was concerned about depth, he got backup.
We didn't have a
coffin Christmas tree running back in 1999 so he went and got Rudi from juco. While he was there he picked up Cobb -- who was the relative equivalent of Newton if you want to know the truth -- so Jason wouldn't be a freshman forced into a starting role.
The slamming he's taking now comes primarily because AU is short on defense. Tuberville didn't make Powers leave early, that was a reaction to Chizik or the situation. He didn't force Marks to bolt early either. Another reaction to Chizik or the situation in general. Tuberville didn't make Tray Blackmon crazy, but he did try to keep the kid playing. Can't blame him for that. Tuberville didn't injure Mike McNeill or Aairon Savage.
The "he lost 30 scholarship players" is really a lot of bullshit backfill.
At least five that Chizik signed his first year didn't qualify -- that's more than all but one of Tuberville's classes if I'm not mistaken. Six players that were signed in 2008 left the team after Chizik was hired. Tuberville's fault? How?
Tuberville had one bad class -- 2007 -- that for a variety of reasons looked really good on paper but didn't translate. Eight members (22 total stars -- including three four-star players) of that signing class didn't qualify, which was a large number for a typical Tuberville class. By comparison, only four in 2008 and three in 2006 failed to qualify. Of the three that failed to qualify in 2006, all of them eventually made it back to AU but one, Raven Gray, never played.
Four of the 2007 class (including linebacker Bo Harris, whose absence contributed to the void at that position) left after Chizik was hired. Tuberville's fault? I guess he was hiding in the bushes telling them what to do.
But even in that bad class in 2007, you can't discount what worked: Byrum, Bynes, Burns, Carter, Carr, Fairley, Freeman, Adam Herring, Mike McNeill, Slade, Ziemba.
I'm really sick of this argument because it's nothing but spin (albeit on both sides). Blindly throwing down the "Tuberville was a lazy ass who ate BBQ and didn't care about recruiting because he was scared of Saban" bullshit is asinine when the realities aren't taken into consideration.
He had one bad recruiting class -- and on paper it looked pretty fucking awesome at the time. In 2007 we were celebrating a Top Ten recruiting class, giddy over how we'd dominated Bama. And if you look at their 07 class they're not getting much mileage out of it. I'd wager we have more starters from the 07 class on our roster than they do theirs.
But we're going to rape Tuberville for not being able to see two years into the future?
I get that he's not coming back. Not asking for him to come back. But the same critical standards have to apply.
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