Flexibility has helped Tuberville find success
Auburn head football coach Tommy Tuberville answers questions during the Cotton Bowl coaches press conference in Dallas, Tx. on Saturday December 30, 2006. (Montgomery Advertiser, Mickey Welsh)
In what could have been interpreted as a jab at Mike Leach, Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance said last week that he was looking to hire a coach who could put the Red Raiders in a BCS bowl game and “beat the University of Texas more than 20 percent of the time.’’
Leach, the coach Tech fired on Dec. 30, had a 2-8 record against Texas.
In hiring Tommy Tuberville on Saturday, Tech landed a coach that beat his last major instate rival 70 percent of the time. Tuberville went 7-3 coaching Auburn against Alabama from 1999 through 2008.
At Auburn, Tuberville won his share of big games with teams that were salty on defense and ran the ball effectively. Under Leach, Tech was quite the opposite, with its wide-open passing offense often overshadowing defenses that tried to keep up.
“He definitely believes in a strong running game, which is going to be interesting, I think (at Tech),’’ said Phillip Marshall, a 40-year sports writer in Alabama who now works for AuburnUndercover.com. “But he’s a believer in letting his coaches coach, or at least that’s the way he was at Auburn. He was not a micro-manager in terms of what they did on either side. I would assume that’s still the way he’ll be. He obviously believes in defense, he believes in being physical, and he believes you have to run the ball.’’
Nevertheless, Tuberville also indicated a willingness to go with the flow in his new job. He told the A-J last week that “it’d be crazy’’ to deviate from Leach’s passing game.
“He will either keep who’s there, or he’ll hire somebody that knows how to do it,’’ Marshall said. “He doesn’t claim to be an offensive expert.’’
Former Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum said he thinks Tuberville is an ideal choice for a program that has won 46 games the last five years.
“I think that’s a good fit,’’ Slocum said. “He’s not one of those guys that feels like he has to come in and tear everything down and put his stamp on it. I don’t see him being that kind of ego guy.
“He’s smart enough to know … They’ve been pretty dang impressive to me, and I think he’d have the same opinion. He can probably lend a little help to the defensive side and shore that up and then kind of keep the scheme offensively, so I think it’s a really good fit.’’
Slocum hired Tuberville to be A&M’s defensive coordinator in 1994 after Bob Davie left to become defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. At the time, Slocum said he wanted someone who would just keep the then-formidable “Wrecking Crew’’ defense pointed in the same direction.
“We had good (assistants) there. I just needed a coordinator, someone to head up the defense and lead it,’’ Slocum said. “That sounds like a simple thing, but it doesn’t always work that way. You get someone who wants to change everything, do this and do that, you end up taking a step backward. The kids played for him and liked him. The other coaches liked him. He came right in and we didn’t miss a beat.’’
A&M went 10-0-1 that season, which led to Tuberville getting his first head-coaching job the next year at Ole Miss. After four years there, he moved to Auburn.
Another aspect of Tuberville’s persona, according to those who know him, is a friendly, folksy manner.
“He was probably, in my lifetime, the most approachable head coach that we’ve ever had at Auburn University,’’ said Ron Anders, 45, whose family formerly owned a college bookstore.
“Not that any of those (other coaches) aren’t good people, but Tommy is very approachable, and it was very important to him for the common person in the community to be able to talk to him. If you spoke to Tommy and wanted to shake Tommy’s hand, he was going to go out of his way to do the same thing for you.’’
Marshall described Tuberville as fan friendly and outgoing.
“He’s a big believer in that you need to be visible and do the PR part of it,’’ Marshall said. “He’s genuinely a good guy, a down-to-earth guy. He grew up in a little small town in Arkansas, and he went to a little high school and was a walk-on defensive back at Southern Arkansas University, so he comes from kind of humble roots. He’s a guy that will be very popular.’’
Anders, who works for the Alabama state office of Habitat for Humanity, said Tuberville was active in the community. As an example, he pointed to the coach’s work with Story Book Farm, a non-profit organization that provides therapeutic horseback riding for children suffering from disabilities or chronic illnesses.
“Texas Tech is getting a good football coach, but Lubbock’s getting a good man,’’ Anders said. “Y’all’s city has just received a blessing, because Tommy Tuberville is a good person, he’s a good citizen and he’ll make Lubbock a better place.’’
To comment on this story:
don.williams@lubbockonline.com uE06C 766-8734
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Tubberville can take this team to the next level if he plays his cards right.
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Leach was an interesting person to talk to. I met him when he was on a recruiting visit when Texas Tech was trying to get Dez Bryant (I’m from Lufkin). I also met Dana Holgerson on that visit as well.
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HOPE Tubberville will be more enthusiastic and active on the field and make us forget Leach with some big wins next season.
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I am all in on this. Anybody worth his salt should be able to go head to head with thw whorns and ags and O whew! We love the coaches we had before (Spike 5 and 5 against UT and Mike- a heckuva guy!) and now we are going to get ready for an even faster ride. It’s gonna be good.
ps: please keep Linc Riley and Bennie Wiley and of course, the Ruff!
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Will be a Raider fan despite of any thing, Tubb is not anything less than leach hope he proves that and much more.
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YO! Tommy can you hear me??? Tommy? Tommy?
I kind of like that , eh?!
Seriously dude! We gotta keep Lincoln Riley!!!!!!! A 26 yr ex Muleshoe, Tx qb can’t be all bad. The kid’s a winner and he is just a pup! Did one heckuva job at Alamo Bowl! A GREAT RECRUITER!!!!! Just ask the recruits…..
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Wasnt he meeting with the coaching staff this evening? Any word on what transpired?
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I’m hoping Tuberville will bring a good reputation and good character with him when he comes. He was a good coach in the SEC but never got to finish out his experiment with the spread at Auburn when he hired Tony Franklin. He couldn’t get his other coaches to buy into it and it did him in. Chris Todd (formerly of Tech) played part time quarterback that year. I don’t think he ever had time to perfect the system or recruit the players to succeed at it. He always had a good defense though.
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Even in his 13-0 year at auburn he didn’t have the ppg that Tech did during this rebuilding season… If he keeps this offense, (not switching to a run oriented offense) and vastly improves our defense to that of an SEC defense… LOOK OUT
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How many schools TRY to run an offense like Leach did at Tech? Loads of them. How many were successful and truly did what Tech does? None of them.
All that is to say that Leach was the master of this kind of offense. No one has done it like him. No one has coached it like him. No one has been as successful with the offense as him. No one develops quarterbacks like him. No one.
You can have all the Leach underlings you want, but the offense is not going to be as good as when Leach coached it. It’s going to be a cheap imitation.
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Time for Issmo Hance, Bailey and Myers to do the honorable thing and step down.
I could really care less about what happens to Texas Tech, I own them nothing. I paid for every thing I got from them and my parents also paid in property taxes when Texas Has STATE property taxes.
I OWE TEXAS TECH NOTHING!
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Angry much, Jim?
Overall, I’m excited about the positive comments I’m hearing on this board now.
I’m very anxious to see if we keep Benny Wiley, Lincoln Riley, and Ruffin.
I sure hope we do. That will go a LONG way toward me feeling good about next year.
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please don’t forget TUBERVILLE CONTACTED TTU not the myers contacting them. Sounds like he wants it and that is good. Now get rid of Myers and company so I can purchase season tickets again.
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By all accounts a good guy. I love Leach but think we are lucky to have Tuberville. Its time to move on.
If he keeps the Offense and improves the D, we will be just fine!
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Joe has a valid point about imitators of the Leach offense. However, Riley, etal can run a pretty good “imitation” if they work at it. Look at Houston’s production. Tuning up the D will remove some of the reliance on O to win and mitigate the lack of the Cap to run it. Time will tell. Look at the points Bama put up on the board because of D.
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Also consider our talent base now. We are ready to evolve.
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We just can’t depart from the air raid…too much.
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why would anyone want to come to tech. if he is such a good coach why did he go unemployed for a year???
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Ken, go back to the aggie board.
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It will be great to have a Head Coach that reflects favorbily on Tech. I am more excited to be a fan then ever. It’s past time for team Leach to either come with us, or become Texas TShirt fans.
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Question when did he contact Tech? I bet it was before Christmas! They way they terminated Leach is shameful. Leach should have coached the bowl and the fans could have said good bye! Love ya Leach.
The Admin and Regents need to go!
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Howdy Coach Tubbberville! Please keep the current staff! They will do an excellent job for you!
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He will need to be flexible. With chancellor and regents directing practice and calling plays from their suites, and with helicopter dad Craig James carrot (“I’ll say nice things about you on ESPN”) and stick (“did you know about my wind farm deal with Chancellor Hance?”) approach to gain more playing time for his entitled son, it might prove difficult to maintain rigid principles. Flexibility – absolute necessity … I’m talking Gumby, baby.
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good hire in bad situation. maybe turbo will hire leach as off coor…….
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I hope the Brother interviewed can coach under this new guy…hopefully he is not too surprised because Tech is a school whose overall mindset is prejudiced…if ya white ya right if ya black git back…best of luck to you brother…We Shall Overcome
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Tommy is going to face three State Universtys each year, quite a road to travel.
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Here’s hoping for great success under Tuberville!!! But, Coach, first you need to purge your team of the negative influence created by one player in particular. No place for interfering poppa’s & slacker kids….
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In the press interview TT stressed work ethic by all players several times….. was that a shot across the bows?
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KEn
If you even Followed College ball you would know what happen at Auburn (Alumns were upset with his leaving thanks to regents etc), he got offers but took a year off. Has travel around this last year to watch various teams on defense and offense. he is very sharp and handles himself well. He is in a different league than Myers.
Was it me or what. Bailey seemed much more excited about the hire than Myers did.
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Sam Houston State:
Sources tell us that Ruffin McNeill (Texas Tech Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers coach) has met with Head Football Coach Willie Fritz about joining his
staff.
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Kent Hance is a looser 100% of the time.
Tuberville won at Auburn when Alabama was on probation and went through 4 different coaches.
Tommy will be RC Slocum without the marbles in his mouth.
Be prepared Tech.
Guns Up!!
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texas tech just got a great coach!
war eagle!
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TT will do a great job at TT. I like the hire and it will be a good match. He will help out our D. I am anxious to see who coach hires as the OC and DC. This will be the nuts and bolts of our program.
War Raiders
Fire Myers
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Everybody in their right mind KNOWS that, in the past decade, ALL QUALITY high school football players who came to Tech to play, came SOLELY because of the unique, high powered football genius of Mike Leach …….Mike is gone……YOU do the math!
Do we say .. ” Oh well, it’s done, let’s move on ” OR…do we rid our school of the CANCER at the top and THENNNNN move on?
I say we remove the cancer ( Hance, Myers, Bailey anybody named James) so that it can NOT rear its ugly head again and then move on!
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and over 60,100 people agree!
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i’m one of em watchdog
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I am too, but I know a few more that agree that are not on facebook, so even that 60,100 number is low.
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I joined there since most of what I’ve got to say about Gerald Myers gets moderated, um, censored here. Let’s see if this post gets axed.
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Well, Tech fans and players were lied to by Tuberville. He said it would be crazy to mess with the success of Tech’s offense….so what does he do? He gets rid of Lincoln Riley and is bringing in a guy that couldn’t even beat Central Michigan. Not only that, but Tech’s recruiting program is now going to go down the tubes. Not only are the offensive recruits not going to want to play under Tuberville’s boring running scheme, but the defensive recruits that liked Ruffin aren’t going to want to go to school at Tech either.
So let’s survey the damage Myers and Hance have brought us. We go from the top 25 recruiting program in the nation to who knows what. We go from an all-world offense back to 3 yards and a cloud of dust. As one writer said, Tuberville prefers winning games 14-10 instead of 55-10.
Ain’t it great Tech fans? We’re essentially back to boring Spike Dykes football. And all for NOTHING…..not one thing. Writers are saying Tech could have been in place to compete for #1 in the Big 12 South division if Leach had stayed. But now, even if they do well, it won’t be the same. Back to boring, mediocre football and trying to convince players why they should come to Lubbock to fight the dust and play in just another boring system. Don’t forget, this “great” new Tech coach went 5-7 in his last year at Auburn. Great coaches don’t go 5-7. They just don’t.
I realize people are touting the new offensive coordinator as the best thing since sliced bread. But the facts are….NOBODY did it as well as Leach and it wasn’t even close. We HAD the best coach and got rid of him for nothing.
Texas Tech nation seems to know they are being played for fools. But there’s nothing we can do….except protest loudly by withholding our support and money. That’s not going to happen, no matter how mad people are about the Leach situation.
Talk about deja vu. This is going to be like going back 15 years. Back to when people heard the name Texas Tech and just shrugged their shoulders.
We have been lied to, and we have Myers, Hance and Bailey to thank for it. And this new Tubby coach…..he’s not exactly starting out well by lying to the Tech faithful. He said nothing much would change. And ever since he arrived, it’s done nothing BUT change, and change very significantly. Even Gil Brandt (of the Dallas Cowboys) couldn’t believe Lincoln Riley was let go. In his words…..”If you can find a better 26 year old offensive coach, I’d like to see him.” But Tubby threw him aside like trash. This doesn’t exactly look like we have the brightest guy coming in.
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